When the charter school movement began in the early 1990s, the promise of advocates was that charters would be held accountable for results. There were two promises, really: one was that there would be accountability; the other was that there would be results. If the results didn’t happen, the schools would close.
Now there is a new approach to charters, sponsored by ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council). To learn more about ALEC and to see its model legislation for education and other issues, look here.
It is a tenet of ALEC that charter schools should be completely unregulated, unsupervised, and unaccountable. The goal is choice, not accountability or results.
ALEC pretends to be conservative but pushes model legislation to give the governor and sometimes his allies the power to appoint a commission to override local school boards.
You see, ALEC doesn’t like local school boards. It likes bigtime corporate power. It likes the free market. Those pesky local school boards are so close to the people in their district that sometimes they actually want to protect the local public schools and refuse to authorize more charters to take away students and funding.
I posted recently about radical ALEC legislation in North Carolina, which would not only create an ALEC-style state commission to override local school boards, but would exempt the charters from the necessity of having ANY certified teachers. They would also be exempt from criminal background checks. They would be exempt from conflict of interest laws. The members of the state charter commission would also be exempt from conflict of interest laws so they could vote themselves a few more charters if they choose.
If you read my post and the link therein, you will see that one of the strong supporters of the proposed law is currently collecting $3 million a year in management and rental fees from the charters he oversees. Why shouldn’t he want more? Maybe he will be appointed to serve on the state commission that authorizes and doesn’t regulate charters.
Valerie Strauss here reports that half the states have ALEC-style charter laws allowing the governor to override local control.
No accountability, no oversight, no transparency, no laws, no regulations. Just money for the taking.
Maybe why walker likes them so much.
Diane,
This is actually model legislation put forth by NACSA, (National Association of Charter School Authorizers), which used ALEC to push this legislation until ALEC became too hot politically and NACSA took that fact off their web site.
ALEC is just the tool that the national charter school lobby has used to take local control over charter schools away in state after state. They want these commissions because it stops local school boards from limiting the number of charters. Unfettered charter growth — not high quality public education — is NACSA’s goal.
When Save Our Schools NJ began 2 1/2 years ago, there were virtually no states with these commissions. But NACSA has very effectively forced them on gullible or corrupt politicians and unaware voters, and by the time they realize what’s going on, it’s too late.
I would put the relationship between ALEC and NACSA the other way around–ALEC wants to capture as much tax funding as possible for corporate profits; NACSA is the tool for capturing public education.
An article in Phili Inquirer last year confirmed that NACSA was using ALEC to push this horrible legislation, before NACSA took that information off of their web site: http://articles.philly.com/2012-01-17/news/30635548_1_traditional-schools-charter-schools-charter-backers
NACSA “works with the nonprofit American Legislative Exchange Council, founded in 1973 by a conservative political activist. The council gives corporations and think tanks access to its 2,000-plus state-legislator members. The groups are circulating legislation to remove control of charters from local school boards through creation of state charter-school commissions that would free school officials from “regulatory interference by other governmental agencies” – a position even some charter backers say could lead to corruption and more failing schools.”
Save Our Schools, I found the following document which I’m most certain is of interest to you:
Click to access ALEC_NEW_JERSEY.pdf
It appears to have updates as recent as December 2012.
“A corporate campaign spearheaded by Color of Change and supported by People For the American Way Foundation, Common Cause, the Center for Media and Democracy, Credo Mobile, and Progress Now! among other public interest groups, has been calling on ALEC’s corporate members to publicly withdraw from ALEC, resulting in 40 corporations and four nonprofits doing so, including Coca‐Cola, Amazon, Wal‐ Mart, McDonalds, Kraft, Procter & Gamble, and the Gates Foundation.xxv”
Notice who allegedly dropped out of ALEC’s corporate sponsorship. It’s great for the corporate public image, but who is to say that Gates or the Waltons are still not individual members?
Sadly, I found three of my legislators on this short list of NJ legislative ALEC members. I wonder if The Star Ledger would print portions of this document in an ad? Surely the APP would never.
“It is a tenet of ALEC that charter schools should be completely unregulated, unsupervised, and unaccountable. The goal is choice, not accountability or results.”
Diane, I think the real goal is the capture of democratic government by corporations–the institution of corporatism in place of democracy. Everything ALEC wants is actually well regulated–but by and for the corporations, who co-opt government police and tax collection functions to their profit; this is often referred to as “corporatism” as used by the Italian proto-Fascists at the turn of the last century, or corporate nationalism.
The real goal is corporate power; choice is just a canard.
From everything we’ve seen “choice” is not the goal of these groups, it’s quite the opposite. The corporatist strategy is to convince the public to abandon traditional government services by offering a false “choice” in favor of their corporate counterparts. The choice is false, because political machinations are used to destroy the funding base for public services and the public’s faith in the ability of government to provide these services in order to drive the public to “choose” the corporatist vision. By undermining the government, corporatists like ALEC can then install their vision by claiming that the public demands a “choice” between the failed “socialist” government and the “competitive, efficient, effective free market”.
But the reality is not that at all. The reality is a corporate-controlled governmental behemoth that looks and functions much like the old Soviet government, with corrupt corporate and government apparatchiks leeching the vast wealth of the nation while the public suffers without any recourse.
Excellent description. It is all about corporations and greedy people finding cash cows. The “choice” bs is just a facade. They are definately destroying the power of the individual at the local level. They’ve used lies propaganda and bought out politicians to achieve their goal. They don’t care about education.
“From everything we’ve seen ‘choice’ is not the goal of these groups, it’s quite the opposite. The corporatist strategy is to convince the public to abandon traditional government services by offering a false “choice” in favor of their corporate counterparts. The choice is false, because political machinations are used to destroy the funding base for public services and the public’s faith in the ability of government to provide these services in order to drive the public to ‘choose’ the corporatist vision. By undermining the government, corporatists like ALEC can then install their vision by claiming that the public demands a ‘choice’ between the failed “socialist” government and the ‘competitive, efficient, effective free market’.
But the reality is not that at all. The reality is a corporate-controlled governmental behemoth that looks and functions much like the old Soviet government, with corrupt corporate and government apparatchiks leeching the vast wealth of the nation while the public suffers without any recourse.”
Oh, the irony. If we aren’t in a Cold War against the extremists, moose–great “handle,” by the way–then what do we call it?
Back in July I looked at how Richmond used this wrote this model legislation, got it passed in Illinois, and then was appointed to chair the Commission once it was established. Richmond’s close ties to Chris Cerf spell disaster for the public schools of New Jersey.
Here is the post…
http://mothercrusader.blogspot.com/2012/07/greg-richmond-takes-local-control-from.html
It does indeed look like an attempt to circumvent local control and local accountability. Let’s grant that. But I say again, that the general ethos on this blog of blaming free market capitalism renders its own governmentism and statism suspect. As long as the foundation of your opposition to charters and vouchers is based on opposition to business and profit in general, you are arguing for the socialist (and Communist) model. The ALEC legislation does want too much ‘freedom’ from scrutiny, but as long as you oppose it in the name of government monopoly on education, none of the conservatives will listen to you.
The point in this thread has been to discuss how ALEC and other self-proclaimed “free-market groups” are in fact liars who seek to pervert government to their corrupt ends. I don’t see how that equates to what you call “governmentism and statism”; in fact, the whole point has been that what ALEC seeks is exactly a statist society that functions to support corporations. I don’t see how that’s “blaming” the free-market or capitalism.
Moreover, it’s naïve to equate criticism of capitalism with socialism or communism– Criticizing one doesn’t mean supporting the other. Sadly we can’t debate many important questions of economics anymore precisely because of this childishness.
And if those whom you call “conservatives” won’t listen to anyone who doesn’t first agree with them, then there’s no point in trying to have a discussion.
I’m ready to listen and persuadable. No one offers any remedy to the oft claimed cause of failure, poverty. The attack on testing is legitimate. But it is only half the story. My point is that poverty cannot be remedied by money. Community schools might help some. Until teachers give up utopian statism, which cannot be achieved, and settle for what can be achieved, namely excellence for those ready to work for it, the privatizers will always out fox them. If one remains loyal to the unfeasible, one is noble, but a noble loser.
J. H. Underhill
Your changing the subject. As to your new comment, I’ll first ask you the basis of your statements. As a member of a school board in a relatively rural and poor district in Maine, I can say quite clearly from experience that (1) poverty is a major factor in student performance, and (2) teachers are not looking for some utopian state. The privatizers, as you call them, are corrupting government to their own selfish ends and don’t care about poverty or students or excellence. They care about profits.
You are in a position to do something about privatization, then, are you not? Much comes down to questions of financing. All revenue comes from business. To condemn profit is to reject your own source of support. Defend your schools by insisting on a tight ship. I do not see myself as changing the subject or refusing to discuss. Public monies are spent as law requires. Public education no longer has a monopoly on receiving it. Mere sanctimony doesn’t get the job done.
So, Harlan, you’re shifting topics again. Now we move from poverty to funding. Why don’t you start proving your points? In fact, most school funding comes from property taxes, not “businesses” (whatever that means). And most schools do run tight ships; they suffer from chronic underfunding for the myriad of jobs they’ve been given. If you actually read this ‘blog you’ll see that much of the corporate push is corrupt and is corrupting our government.
I think at this point, you’re just baiting. Having been a scientist and a lawyer, I come from the world of “put up or shut up”. It’s your turn to put up. Otherwise, I’m done with this thread.
And where do the taxes people pay on their property come from? Surely every farm is a business. Every person who pays taxes on their land has an income. If it comes from farming, the land itself produces the income. Surely every farm is a business. If the property owner does not derive his income from his farm or woodlot, he owns a business or works for someone else. Where does the income come from if not from business? ALL tax revenue collected comes from business activity of some sort. Can you deny that? ALL revenue received by the public sector comes from business. My hyperbolic way of putting is that there is no public sector. Every penny comes from the private sector. The private sector requires capital to be productive. That is known as capitalism. To talk as if the schools had an existence independent of capitalist business enterprise is to misperceive the reality. That’s my premise. If you can, refute me, or admit I am right, and we can proceed from there, if you think it worth your time. Can you show me that revenue to run the schools derives from anywhere other than business activity, i.e., investment of capital, adding value through brains and work, and then selling the product in the marketplace?
“And where do the taxes people pay on their property come from? ”
Well, Harlan, since public employees, including school teachers, pay property taxes, then they work for business too. And since they work for a business, the government must be a business. And if the government is a business, then you have nothing to complain about.
You are avoiding the question, moosey, and employing pure sophistry. You should know better if you have a law education.
People who work in the public sector are, or should be, a rather small percentage of the general population. In one sense, the public sector is a business serving the citizens in general. That’s why many people what to “privatize” education. It may not be an essential public function. Police and the courts are essential public functions. What I object to is people working in the public sector for the citizens in general ignoring where their paycheck comes from. When government gets too big, it is a drain on the citizens supporting it, or when the number of people working (as these days) drops, the expense of government takes too much out of the private sector, investment decreases, and prosperity decreases. That’s all. Discussing funding and the size of government is of the essence. As economic activity declines, and the number of people working in the private sector declines, there is less revenue for the government. State governments can’t print money (as the Federal Government can when the Federal Reserve buys Treasury securities with printed money), so naturally they must balance their budgets. One place to cut is education. One way of cutting is to privatize. In the long run, it will probably be counter productive, will result in worse education overall. What is maddening, however, is to see teachers think they have a right to a job simply because they love kids. School boards, one of which you are a member, have a fiduciary responsibility to oversee expenditures and set policy. When the revenue does not come in at its pre-2008 rate, something has to go, teachers, or class size, or even whole schools. How is the local economy in Maine? In Detroit the bottom fell out years ago, although direct corruption and theft in the administration of the Detroit Public Schools as well as the city administration of Detroit contributed. Given the shrinking tax base in Detroit as people moved out after the riots in 1967, public schools and city have in crisis since, and now both are under emergency manager control, though the unions haven’t given up demanding their normal contracts. Thus to some of us, it looks as if privatization is the only way to break the union stranglehold on the public education system. The unsustainable contracts can’t be abrogated (except by an emergency manager), but the size of the operation must be shrunk to extinction.
It MAY be possible to have charter staffs unionized by it will have to be with union leadership that wants the enterprise to succeed.
We live in painfully interesting times.
I was pulling your leg a bit, Harlan. (Sorry I forgot to add a smile.) But I was also trying to point out how your definitions lead to question begging.
I disagree with your very lose uses of terms like “business” and “capital”, but it would take too long to explain these concepts here.
Instead, I’ll leave your with a fundamental flaw in your comment–Schools and governments aren’t saving money by accepting charters. If you actually followed the discussions and links on this ‘blog you would have known that ALEC and the charters are pushing state legislatures to simply re-direct state public school funding to charters while reducing charter school education requirements and oversight.
That’s the corruption the rest of us have been discussing. You keep trying to hijack the thread to discuss your rather naive economics.
And as a retired teacher, how’s all that publicly fuded pension, Social Security, and Medicare going for you? I hope you appreciate how we tax payers keep SS and Medicare funded for you, so you can attack public education and those of us who are about a civil society.
“What I object to is people working in the public sector for the citizens in general ignoring where their paycheck comes from.”
Who is doing this, and what evidence do you have that they are doing so?
I never forget that I pay taxes to support my community infrastructure, but I do not hire the teachers who teach in my community schools as a taxpayer. Our representative government system provides school boards to hire and oversee those who work in our schools. The board of education is MY employer, and I never forget that either. However, John Q. Public is not the manager making decisions about my job at every school board meeting. What you are talking about is a true democracy–not a republic. By framing the argument the way you do, you are conveniently interpreting the role of the public. Yes, the public has input, but the elected board members represent and make decisions on behalf of the community.
“What is maddening, however, is to see teachers think they have a right to a job simply because they love kids.”
Again, who is saying this?
“School boards, one of which you are a member, have a fiduciary responsibility to oversee expenditures and set policy. When the revenue does not come in at its pre-2008 rate, something has to go, teachers, or class size, or even whole schools. ”
How about administration? Teachers are in the trenches, but it’s ok to consolidate classes to save money, right? Giving more students less attention while placing more work and higher demands on staff members is great for student progress, right? And getting back to administrators–politicians and their corporate cronies have seen to it that administrative duties have also increased at a time when budgets are decreasing. To what do you think students should have less access: teachers, services or administrators? Unfortunately, it’s getting to be that administrators must cowtow to and serve policy-makers, but it will always be that teachers and services serve students.
It appears that you are over-simplifying the issue with the “suck it up” and “share the sacrifice” arguments. How about this: Would the utility and maintenance companies that the schools employ (whether public or private companies) “share in the sacrifice” by lowering their rates and cutting into their profits, but not lowering their employee pay or increasing employee workload? Could we ask those making profits to make a little less because we hire professional, credentialed educators “who have the audacity” to 1) Expect a reasonable workload and 2) Actually expect to be compensated for the work they do?
Somehow, I do not think you would support the notion of mere employees maintaining fair compensation and reasonable workloads if it means shareholders and top level management have to make a little less. You’d rather blame “those greedy, overpaid public workers” for “draining the public coffers expecting to be compensated for the work they do” despite the fact that property values and tax revenue have plummeted. You are, in effect, expecting them to pay for a failed economic condition that they did not create just because you feel that you, as John Q., have the power to do so.
Instead you should be advocating for the government to charge all the criminals who tanked our economy and put so many Americans in dire straits. I suppose it’s just easier to blame hard-working, middle class public sector employees for it instead. They don’t have the power, money or influence to buy their way out of anything, so why should you value their work, their livelihoods or their contributions to society and the economy?
Thanks ,LG. I think Harlan is just trying to hijack the thread with his eccentric ideas of economics.
I’m done with this discussion. Harlan needs to learn some economics. And as a retired teacher, I suspect he has the time and money.
By supporting statism and big government, teachers in general helped create the culture of the entitlement society as much as anyone. Anyone who permitted their union to bargain for defined benefit pensions abused their temporary power. “You are, in effect, expecting them to pay for a failed economic condition that they did not create just because you feel that you, as John Q., have the power to do so.” John Q. Public does have the power to cut and will. Teachers can go into the private sector, tough it out in the public and wait for times to change. States and cities will either cut or go bankrupt. It isn’t “fair” is it? But who sold you the lie that life was fair? But society through proper organization can MAKE life fair. Right? How is your god and leader, President Obama doing so far? Oh, he’d would have done better if the Republicans hadn’t opposed him at every turn!!!! Yep. Enjoy your analysis. Did you forget Karma? What goes around, comes around, but you didn’t notice you were basing your comfortable public sector employment on theft from the tax payers by piling up debt for future generations to pay.
moose, while I’m not a fan of discussing a man’s personal situation, I find it intriguing that Harlan may be a retired teacher given the gist of his commentary. Private school? University? Tutor? His attacks on unions could point to perhaps a bad experience with a union (animosity) or even a past of working without the protection of one (jealousy).
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I do apologize, Harlan, for publicly wondering how you can feel this way as yourself a retired teacher. It’s entirely possible to have been in the profession and be soured by the politics, but history has shown that working people without collective protections are more likely to be mistreated at work by the employer thus affecting the quality of both their work and their personal lives. What a way to kill off the American middle class. Of course, quality non-union companies exist here and there (i. e. Wegmans, Costco., etc.), but they are in the vast minority.
The bottom line is, public protections serve the proliferation of a system where workers are valued, not blamed for the economic situation. I wouldn’t want a disgruntled, stressed, and financially struggling teacher in my child’s classroom. The job is already demanding enough, and it’s awfully important to be certain the professionals who work with the community’s children are given every opportunity to work without fear or worry and live without feeling destitute. Instead of disparaging those who earn their living, you would begrudge them of a decent life because Wall St. and our politicians screwed up the national/international economy.
I see moosey, that you have abandoned the discussion. Most liberals run when they can’t refute. That’s ok.
“By supporting statism and big government, teachers in general helped create the culture of the entitlement society as much as anyone.”
First off, my points had little to do with “entitlement society.” Doing a job and earning a fair living is the issue–I’ve never said that teachers deserve special treatment, but you are operating under the rhetoric that they believe they do. Your premise is faulty, and further you have presented no real evidence of this except what you deem is reality.
ALL people who work deserve the basic right to be treated fairly as workers. If you allow teachers to be open for mistreatment in the workplace, you damage the integrity of a system that is important to the culture of our communities and our humanity itself. If you are taking that to mean that I believe teachers should be given entitlements, nice try, but that is not what I am saying.
“Anyone who permitted their union to bargain for defined benefit pensions abused their temporary power.”
How so?
” ‘You are, in effect, expecting them to pay for a failed economic condition that they did not create just because you feel that you, as John Q., have the power to do so.’ John Q. Public does have the power to cut and will.”
Why would John Q. Public cut out its own infrastructure while allowing criminals to walk away from the largest financial debacle in American history since the great depression? Cutting infrastructure weakens communities. You still never answered my point about the “shared sacrifice” of those companies that are hired by the local boards of education. Avoiding the topic, I see.
They should share the sacrifice, but they won’t. I thought you wuz done with me. Whatever side of history I’m on hardly matters, because I’ll be dead. I’m soooooo oooooooold. Gloat while you can. See you in . . . the grave. Why this morbid curiosity about who’s a hypocrite and who isn’t? While your God Obama is off juggling golf balls and creating issues he hopes will win him back the house in 2014 he is losing on gun control, people are beginning to see that Obamacare will cut their guts out, and, of course, he’s been doing the corporation capitalists work for them in education all along while pretending to be for the unions and middle class. People here and in China are working very hard to increase productivity by decreasing employment. Online education, once the program is perfected, will put us all out of work and make educational programmers rich. Even if what is good and fair could even be agreed on, it will be replaced by what is cheap. The Wall Street Journal editorial today (Saturday) thinks that the drop in the number of people employed is because they just don’t have the skills needed (read failure of the public education system) for the information age. Pumping gas isn’t even an entry level job any more. We all know how to do it ourselves, and push the touch screens. Eventually most teachers will be as obsolete as pump jockeys because their skills were low level skills. They are replaceable for many functions by computers, even grading essays. Pity though. I don’t claim it’s good, just that it will happen whether you approve or not. Don’t blame the messenger.
“Teachers can go into the private sector, tough it out in the public and wait for times to change. States and cities will either cut or go bankrupt.”
Many do, especially in the light of how reformers are treating the teaching profession. In regard to what states do with the money entrusted to them: Pensions are loans to the states partially funded by the very earnings of the public employees–pensions aren’t entitlements, they are investments. It is not the fault of the public employees who, in good faith, gave their earnings to the states while the states mismanaged the funds. Try asking your bank or a loan, squandering the money, then crying that its the bank’s fault for being so greedy to loan you the money in the first place when you default. Never would fly, but you and your ilk expect that the rules should change because you want to wield some power over public sector employees. In regard to the struggles of cities, see the mismanagement of states, above.
“It isn’t ‘fair’ is it? But who sold you the lie that life was fair?”
What are you even talking about? States defaulted on pension loans and greedy bankers made bad loans to the innocent public, yet you still want to blame public workers for this? You blame the very people who held up their end of the agreement stating that “life is not fair?” Why won’t you answer to these issues? Where does your God of Economics stand on defaulters who break binding agreements? Why are you protecting them?
“But society through proper organization can MAKE life fair. Right? How is your god and leader, President Obama doing so far? Oh, he’d would have done better if the Republicans hadn’t opposed him at every turn!!!! Yep. Enjoy your analysis. Did you forget Karma? What goes around, comes around, but you didn’t notice you were basing your comfortable public sector employment on theft from the tax payers by piling up debt for future generations to pay.”
This last bit is just more of your rhetorical nonsense. Harlan, I’m finished with you, but I’m sorry you are going to end up on the wrong side of history.
LG, I do urge you to stick to the actual economic arguments and not to get personal. Who I am and what I did is irrelevant. Only whether my economics is right.
Actually, it is quite relevant.
moose keeps referring to you as a retired teacher, but I don’t buy it. However, if you truly were a public school teacher, and you received health benefits and/or you were vested in your state pension fund as part of the compensation you earned for doing your job, then according to you, you did not deserve it. Therefore, if you possess any integrity, the only logical thing for you to do is give it all back with interest since you were just another public school teacher obviously stealing “from the tax payers by piling up debt or future generations to pay”…I mean, since it was an entitlement.
Naw, I’m guessing you were never a teacher, but far be it for me to discuss this. I would never suggest any hypocrisy on your part. 😛
I think it’s time to quit infecting our brains with the rhetoric of the adversary — or the Adversary, if you catch my drift. There is no freedom for anyone but corporations and crooks in ALEC’s end game.
In a free market employees are free to form bargaining collectives every bit as much as employers are free to form management collectives, and conditions of employment are negotiated among equal citizens. That is not what ALEC and its associates are angling for here, not by a long shot.
ALEC is just one part of a movement to replace democratic governance with corporate governance. The education plank of this platform is just one part of its overarching mission to control the hearts and minds of the public from cradle to early grave.
I think what you attribute to corporations is what you see looking in a mirror. I see the ALEC program as an attempt to free the culture from the grip of worship of the state. Now just to twit you for a moment, corporations are people too, you know.
Twit is as twit does.