This post was written by Mark Naison and Bruce Bernstein. Naison is a professor at Fordham University and Bernstein is a community activist, with a background in business and software.
How to Know If Your Local Charter School Sucks
By Mark Naison and Bruce Bernstein
We will not categorically write off charter schools because there are some great ones. However, more and more charter schools are bringing the worst features of private enterprise to public education. You know the local charter school probably sucks if:
1. Its leader calls himself/herself a CEO.
2. The CEO’s salary is more than three times the salary of the highest paid teacher in the school.
3. The board of the school is full of hedge fund executives.
4. Teachers in the school are terrorized and students treated as though they were in prison or on the verge of being sent to prison.
5. The construction company who built the school is owned by a relative of a politician or a powerful community organization.
6. The school teaches that those who practice some of the world’s great religions are heading straight to hell.
7. The school drives out students who are discipline problems or don’t test well.
8. The school accepts a co-location with a public school and then tells its teachers and students not to talk to anyone in the other school.
9. The school is run by a private for-profit “educational management company” which won’t reveal its budget for the school.
10. The Principal or “CEO” of the school is related to one of the owners or executives of the “educational management company.”
11.The school has board members who blog and tweet about how screwed up teachers unions are.
12. The school uses extreme forms of “merit pay” or a bonus system to create huge disparities among teachers.
13. Teachers who used to teach at the school tell horror stories about how everything was geared towards tests and fundraising.
Please feel free to add your own points!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
When you give taxes to private enterprise, they dictate what kids learn and what teachers earn
LikeLike
Thanks for posting this Diane. I also share a number of the concerns listed above, and I’m glad there is some recognition that there are some charters out there that are doing a good job, and an effort to identify problematic issues with charters, rather than characterizing all of them as categorically evil and based in poor intention.
LikeLike
Excellent recommendations. I second the use of this list to determine what you are dealing with as all of these issues lead to everything we should be against in “Real Public Education for all.”
LikeLike
In regards to #7, why *shouldn’t* schools drive out kids who are discipline problems? Doing so helps create a better environment for those who AREN’T discipline problems.
LikeLike
Because where are they supposed to go?
Also, what is the definition of discipline problem? Not tying shoelaces or tucking in shirts? Some kids at charter schools get fined for these things.
LikeLike
Usually a public district at least has an alternative school for discipline problems. It is far better than throwing a kid out and them having to find a school that will actually accept them. This shouldn’t be a burden only for public schools. Charters should have to foot the bill too.
LikeLike
It’s much easier to drive out students who are discipline problems than to face the problems and try to solve them. The public schools have specific procedures which they have to follow before they can remove students from school…procedures based on the belief that we, as the adults in society, have a responsibility to prepare the next generation of citizens and we all benefit when everyone is included.
Students who can’t succeed in general education classrooms eventually are placed in alternative situations…and yes, some drop out and are lost.
The difference, though, is that the bottom line for public schools, owned and operated by the voters, is the success of children. The bottom line for the corporate charter with its CEO and shareholders is compliant attendees…and profits.
LikeLike
Because public schools are supposed to serve all children, and they need to confront behavioral issues rather than just completely drop those kids.
LikeLike
They do not accept English Language Learners until they have been prepped and polished up by public schools; then they use them as one of their success stories.
LikeLike
This is precisely the story of Denver.
LikeLike
Hi Diane, thank you for reprinting this! That is a great honor.
Before it spreads too far, I don’t think it is quite accurate for me to be identified as a “labor activist.” I am a community activist on the Upper West Side (NYC), am very pro-labor, and am involved in the Sweatshop Free Upper West Side campaign. But I am not part of any labor organization nor currently a union member.
In fact, for 12 years I was president of the New York Software Industry Association (NYSIA), a pro-business trade association… where I had the misfortune to see first hand how too many tech executives (thankfully, not all) have a glib and shallow view of the education issue. As the son of two NYC public school teachers, I have gravitated towards the spot on writings by you, Mark Naison, and Dana Goldstein, among others, on this issue.
In addition, I believe that there is an underwater scandal right now in the Charter Schools: there is a vast misuse of public money. They are not being transparent in their accounting. People are making off with the public’s $s, perhaps legally, but not within ethical standards. Not all the charters. But I fear far too many.
We need to see an investigation from the NY State Legislature, much as they investigated the nursing homes in the 10970s… that was a seminal investigation.
LikeLike
A charter school is avaricious when . . . 14) The school punitively fines children who don’t fit their behavior mold instead of getting the help the children need. (See Noble School charters in Chicago)
LikeLike
14. When an intermediary organization needs to be set up between a charter and a charter incubator soley for the purpose of circumventing the law.
LikeLike
Describes a good portion of the ones in Utah…
LikeLike
Yep!
LikeLike
Wow. Our entire budget, by law, is a matter of public record, and all of our Board meetings are public. We are required to prefer siblings and residents of our town, but if your name comes up next on the list, you’re in. We identify kids in need early and apply teaching and support to bring up their scores. We have a waiting list equal to our enrollment. Our Special Ed population is 23% higher than the state average. We have 3 sessions of PD each week. The schools that you describe is totally alien to my experience.
LikeLike
Good for you.
My kid goes to a charter that I am proud of. It does what charters should do by cooperating with the chartering district to provide a truly unique learning experience that fits the needs of certain students who might not succeed in a traditional setting. Two unionized teachers from the chartering district sit on the board (I’m one of them) and the school is housed within a district middle school, which provides socialization, cooperation and elective opportunities for the charter students.
My district also has a charter that fits a lot of the criteria on the list in this post. Not all charters are created equal and not all are intended to destroy public education.
LikeLike
I have more to add. If you see your charter CEO wearing Rolex watches and living in the most expensive suburb in your city you know the school is avaricious. If he employs his wife as well as numerous family members, your school definately stinks!!! Also, you notice that the Mercedes and BMWs in the school parking lot are driven by the CEO and well paid family members. On top of that the teachers have barely any supplies and don’t even have 401k. Oh isn’t that a wonderful replacement to having actual public schools run by an actual school board. Thank goodness we can sleep well tonight knowing that Gates, Broad, Bloomberg, Rhee, Bush and Obama are helping to spread charters in America. One more thing. Your school knowingly keeps secrets from the public to protect the flow of tax dollars into the business model. You wouldn’t want to inform the public about health and safety risks because the CEO might be embarassed or might not be able to keep the cash cow alive.
LikeLike
The post above is real. It is not hyperbole.
LikeLike
-If the charter school is in a strip mall between a gun shop and an adult book store,
has a “playground” (having no playground equipment) by the dumpsters and has a
“registrar” who is also the school counselor (but has none of the qualifications to be
one). I still CANNOT get over the February 6th post about the Florida charter “school”
that Joe Hernandez happened upon.
LikeLike
The school has a highly paid public relations director as well as shiny, expensive brochures and a “waiting list”, even when class sizes are not filled and they are under-enrolled. Also, this school counsels students out, but keeps the per pupil expenditure.
LikeLike
Absolutely, Hatikvah charter school has hired Julie Roginsky of Fox News to launch a smear campaign against its critics.
LikeLike
Yes, they always claim that thousands are waiting to get into their junky school
LikeLike
Students are stopped midtest to apply address labels on postcards promoting the school.
LikeLike
Unbelievable but no surprise.
LikeLike
Michelle Rhee mentions the school as a success in one of her speeches.
LikeLike
Then it’s official….it sucks!
LikeLike
14) Admin has study groups on EB-5 and New Market Tax Credits.
LikeLike
Or when they go back to public school in middle school and they are found to be unable to read and do math even though they were earning A’s throughout elementary. I know of this personally. Problem is that the parents blame the new school, not the charter, when they don’t earn A’s anymore.
LikeLike
Does the school’s enrollment drive the interest payments on the charter school bonds?
If so, then anytime Moody’s, S&P, or Fitch assigns a rating without double-checking actual enrollment, then they must be held liable, right?
Or else this is all a complete fraud upon the public.
LikeLike
Parents as volunteers not just not gratefully welcomed, but positively discouraged.
LikeLike
I was “temporarily” assigned to a local charter for 2 years in a row. The curriculum director, who was WAY behind on educational research in literacy, and her husband, one of the principals, were some of the highest paid employees. Neither class room libraries nor a published reading basal were provided (leaving teachers to fund their own). To add insult to injury, the board later decided that the husband should leave his role as principal, ,and take on a newly minted fundraising coordinator list ion at equal or greater pay. My thought? Donate that 6 figure salary back!
LikeLike
Superb list. Very true. However, I must disagree with this sentence: “We will not categorically write off charter schools because there are some great ones.”
Maybe. But the privatizers declared war on our schools, our kids, our teachers, our parents and our taxpayers.
We didn’t start this war, any more than Poland in 1939. But we must fight back. And ultimately, emerge victorious.
And when you’re in a war, and you’re defending the lives of your community, unfortunately, nuance or thoughtful qualifications become luxuries we can no longer afford.
Every “ed reformer” has lines like this down pat: “Well, charter schools aren’t a silver bullet. I’d never pretend that they’ll solve all of our education challenges. And I’ll be the first to admit that there are some bad apples. But we should all acknowledge that there are some great ones…” blah blah blah and before you know it, you wake up one day and you’re living in Detroit, New Orleans, Philadelphia or Indianapolis, with the mayor running the show, and cutting up “the pie” for all his fellow country clubbers and new billionaire buddies.
You may technically be right about some “good charters”, but I think such a reasonable concession is just what they’ll use as an excuse to then drive a truck right through it.
LikeLike
Excellent post!
Thank you.
I feel the same way about “Well, there are some bad public school teachers, but…..”
Why do we always have to throw that in?
Do cops, lawyers, business people, etc. feel required to constantly admit that there are, in fact, some not great ones among their ranks?
LikeLike