Karen Francisco, editorial page editor of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, writes that she is often asked to explain what a charter school is. She used to say that it was a publicly- funded school that is exempt from many state regulations in exchange for higher accountability.
But now she sees failing charter schools turn into voucher schools or go shopping for an authorizer with low or no standards.
She writes:
“If I’m feeling less charitable, I explain that charter schools are an effort to weaken and destroy teacher unions. Charter operators hire primarily young, inexperienced teachers; work them to death and then decline to renew their contracts when they should be giving them raises.”
But when she read about the bond investors’ conference this week, she realized that the driving force behind charters is not accountability, it’s not just union-busting, it’s profit.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thank you to Karen Francisco for this illuminating “look behind the curtain” at the charter school machine and thank you to Dr. Ravitch for posting it.
What an ugly and disgusting business it is.
Who knew my anger at the so called educational “reformers” could get any worse?
I will be sharing this post with everyone possible.
Yes, it is indeed UGLY and DISGUSTING. Our young are being traded on Wall Street. It’s the BUSINESS MODEL, which should NOT be used in education. The yahoos want to destroy our jewel—America’s Public Schools. The deformers smell money as well as power over the masses to do their evil deeds.
I don’t understand why anyone has to read anything to understand that charter schools were ever anything other than profit making ventures.
Some charter schools do a poor job, some charter schools do a good job, some charter schools may be run to benefit investors, some charter schools are run for he benefit of students.
And all of them serve to fragment public resources and harm the overall system of public education.
You could make the same criticism of having multiple schools in the same school district. The impact is probably a function of the population of the district.
Fortunately Democratic and Republican legislators in more than 40 states have decided it’s ok for non-wealthy families to have public school options, whether district or charter.
Best schools have the best students. Best students tend to come from wealthiest families. The correlation to wealth is the strongest factor in schools success/failure. All other conversation is a distraction. The incredible concentration of income/wealth along with reduced tax rates for the wealthy has lead to a starvation of government. “Starve the beast” is a long-time goal of the Republicans helped by the depression their policies led to. With the middle classed squeezed and losing ground public school education faces ever decreasing funding since the wealthy do not want to pay higher taxes and can afford private schools.
Having served as an inner city public school teacher and administrator, and having visited many urban and suburban schools, I’m disappointed by the comment “Best students tend to come from the wealthiest families.”
There are many terrific students who come from low income families.
Fortunately there are many public school educators working with students from low income families who encourage, assist and inspire their youngsters to accomplish great things.
I am disturbed by the comment that at least to me downplays the impact of wealth/poverty on student/school success or failure. But I see above where you tout the “impressive” example of a school district that converted to charter. Are you a charter advocate or operator?
Michael I am a parent of 3 kids who attended urban (non-selective) public schools, k-12. I’m a former urban public school teacher whose wife just retired after 33 years as an urban teacher of students with special needs.
I’m an advocate of excellent public schools, whether district or charter. And I write a regular newspaper column that often highlights fine work educators are doing:
http://www.hometownsource.com
Our organization works with district & charter educators. This morning I’ve been working on a booklet that features essays by district & charter students about their experiences with Dual (High School/College) credit courses. And I’ve been working on a webinars we will do later this month in English and Spanish, helping more students & families learn about these opportunities.
Please tell me more about your experiences and work.
Thanks
Joe
Joe, I was a teacher at the Bayard Rustin High School for the Humanities in NYC from 1990 – 2010 and taught before at several other schools in NYC. I also taught Economics as an adjunct at the State Univ. of NY at Farmingdale before that (1975-77). BRHS was an excellent school with students opting to attend that didn’t make it into Stuyvesant. Also students that were accepted opted to attend BRHS because of its reputation. A significant number of students were children of diplomats. In other words, well fed and motivated students, involved parents, great staff with great results. Some students went on to Ivy League schools, one of mine is a reporter on NBC Evening News, another won a film award from an NYC program rewarding student’s creativity (I don’t recall specific details). Overall a very good school by any standard. Then Mayor Bloomberg became, well, mayor. Worse still he gained absolute control and the whole situation was made even worse when Bill Gates decided he wanted to fund a small school movement. There is a lot to explain but not interested reliving all that happened. Simply put we were sent the most difficult and needy students, not violent for the most part, but students reading at 5th or 6th grade levels and also far behind in math skills. To make a long story short, good school at the beginning of Bloomberg’s mayoralty, closure near the end of it. I retired in disgust. By the way, Bill Gates admitted his small school program was a failure. He walked away harmless and we were left “holding the bag”.
Michael is is a sad and frustrating thing to watch an institution, such as your high school, that has helped many youngsters, and in which you have invested years of world, suffer the fate you described. Thanks for your work, and I am very sorry about what happened.
As has been mentioned on this list serve before, I’ve seen wonderful use made in NYC of the small school idea – in places like the Julia Richman building, in East Harlem, with El Puente and others. We’ve cited both Julia Richman and El Puente as terrific district school examples in a publication that has been distributed nationally, “Smaller, Safer, Saner Successful Schools.”
We also worked with Cincinnati district educators who used creation of smaller schools in large high school buildings to help (with other strategies) significantly reduce dropouts and reduce the high school grad gap between white and African American students.
At the same time, no idea is so good (including the small school idea) that it can not be used badly. So again, thanks for your efforts, sand I am very sorry for what happened at and with Bayard Rustin.
Joe, I disagree with the very idea of a “failing school”. The concept of failing schools is to me analogous to the concept of “corporations are people”. No such thing. Students fail for reasons that occur outside schools. Poverty, hunger, broken homes, violence, etc. There is no reason that those issues could not be addressed in public schools, and more effectively in my opinion than charter schools, with adequate funding.
Michael, I’ve been in some public schools where the adults dis-respect eachother, students and families. Some of faculty speak negatively about each and some of the kids, fundamentally disagree about which approaches work. I’ve been in schools where principal speaks disrespectfully of many staff, students and families. In some schools principals don’t have a clue about how to work well with adults or kids.
While poverty is sometimes also an issue, what I’ve described above is more about adult attitudes, bitterness, burnout and in some cases, incompetence than poverty. Results include bad morale, continuing low achievement. This applies to both some district & some charters.
Poverty, hunger, homelessness, crime, lack of good jobs also have negative impact. But I’ve seen district & charters that produce major gains with students from very troubled backgrounds.
Yes. All you describe happened in my school towards the end. Bloomberg/Klein installed supervisors with little/no teaching experience via the failed and now defunct leadership academy whose goals were to rate teachers unsatisfactory. I as Program Chair sat in one meeting where the principal stated flatly he wanted to see more “U” ratings. Needless to say it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out the ensuing downward spiral.
Sadly, Michael – as you know, such things happen in places other than NYC – and happened in NYC before Bloomberg. I’ve been visiting NYC for 30 years (friends with people like Sy Fliegel from District 4). It was in District 4 that a movement started giving TEACHERS like Deborah Meier and others a chance to create new options. About the same time this happened in many other places, like St. Paul, where I worked.
Of course, there were some who disparaged giving teachers a chance to create new options within districts – see previous comment from Shanker who described what often happened – teachers with ideas about other ways to organize things were “treated like traitors or outlaws for daring to move outside the lockstep.”
One of the leading criticisms was that new options would destroy the “neighborhood public school,” that holy of holies that helped some and failed others.
If district public schools don’t find ways to use the talent, energy, creativity and ideas of great educators, than others will. Others have.
Problem is that this was a very good school. It was the “reformers” that destroyed it.
I understand what you are saying. I am not defending what happened with your school.
Ah, no, those elected school board are charged with weighing many considerations when determining number of schools, locations, etc. When a charter school comes in, it does so for its own ends not in cooperation with its “competitors.” False equivalence, TE.
Yes, some local school boards in elite suburban districts hire detectives to make sure that no low income youngsters from outside the district are admitted. Some of these districts are as difficult to get into as some private schools because the districts have no or virtually no low income housing. But they are part of “public education.”
Then some school boards decide to allow a few schools to use standardized tests to screen out most of the applicants…an awful decision but one that urban boards all over the country have made.
My priority is for the youngsters, especially the students from low income and limited English speaking families – not for any particular system.
My comment was about fragmenting resources with multiple schools. I am glad you have such faith in local school boards to correctly balance the various issues in opening or closing schools. It seemed that my school district was overly concerned about the quality of the high school football team when considering the possibility of opening another high school.
If you want charter schools to take some of these issues into account, why not construct a regulatory framework to force them to do it? It would seem like a worthy goal.
Some charter schools do a good job? Really? Are those the ones that stack the deck by having the above average students and kicking out the ones that are below average or developmentally challenged??
Some charter schools are run for the benefit of the students? Not the poor students, for sure.
Actually there are charter schools that specialize in students that are developmentally challenged.
The only charter school I have set foot in (the alternative high school in my town is a charter school, but it is run by the local school board so I am not sure how you would count it) is the Community Roots Charter School in NYC. Do you think it is run for the benefit of students?
There were charter schools in Indiana that failed because of low test scores. Three of them were Imagine charters owned by Dennis Bakke, one of the wealthiest men in the US (worth 1.2 billion according to Forbes). The state legislature voted to forgive their start up loans: Bakke’s loans totaled 6.1 million and the total bill for all failed charter school bailouts came to 91 million. And that bailout money comes off the the top of the pathetic 2% increase in state funding for education. Some of the failed charters received new sponsors, and one in Lake County converted from a charter to a voucher school. As Karen Francisco says, its about the money.
Teresa, a few questions:
a. Recognizing that there are some chartered public schools in your state that have been closed, do you think there are any Indiana charter schools that have done well?
b. Are Indiana school districts allowed to ask taxpayers for money to construct buildings? (My understanding is that the answer is yes but I wanted to check).
c. Are Indiana charter schools allowed to ask taxpayers for money to construct buildings (my understanding is no but I wanted to check.
If Indiana charters can’t levy taxes to build buildings, doesn’t it make sense for them to try to find a way to work with others to sell bonds? Or would you prefer that Indiana have no charters?
Joe, Karen has answered your question I believe very well, but in regard to your last question, I would prefer that Indiana have no charters. They are not needed, all we need to do is fund our public schools adequately which Indiana has failed to do since Mitch Daniels became governor. Sadly it will continue for another three years under Mike Pence. But his term in office will be limited by the very teachers and parents that took Tony Bennett out of office.
Would you allow students to chose schools? Allow schools to be different from each other?
Thanks for clarifying your views.
In fact, the two failed Imagine Inc. charter schools in Fort Wayne are being converted to voucher schools. The local charter board has been dismissed, loans forgiven and Indiana taxpayers will continue to pay Bakke’s company to operate two underperforming schools. In addition, an out-of-state real estate investment trust — EPT Properties — will continue to collect about $1 million a year for the charter school lease. Instead of through the charter board, the tax dollars now will be funneled through low- and middle-income families to a religious organization and, in turn, to the REIT.
Thank you Karen clarifying my point about the charter school bailouts. There are thousands of teachers in Indiana that truly appreciate your articles!
The problem is that even with voucher money, faith-based schools must raise a ton of funds to keep in operation. The $1 million in REIT funds, will pay for the $700,000, in lease funds + $300,000 in other funds. The problem IS that between the voucher funds and the actual student cost there will be a $3,000 or so gap. If you don’t have parents with knowledge of fund development, they will be lost. The interesting twist in this case is the founder of Horizon Christian School is Tammy Henline, who was the former director of Keystone Christian. Keystone Christian, now defunct, had a history of problems with it’s founder/owner, Don Willis and high daughter, Dacia Michel. Don Willis played a key part of obtaining Imagine in Fort Wayne, and his daughter was on the Imagine Broadway board of director. I suspect that someone paid Henline off to ensure that the Horizon Christian school name could be used.
Long ago I worked with a wonderful educator in Ft Wayne who created an alternative school for students with whom traditional schools had failed.
He received much of the grief from traditional educators in Ft. Wayne that Al Shanker wrote about when he said that people trying to create new approaches in public education often were treated “like traitors or outlaws for daring to move outside the lock-step”.
I completely agree that a failing school should not be allowed to convert to a voucher school. It’s sad that the column did not recognize the value of high quality options for youngsters in Ft. Wayne and elsewhere.
Been saying as much since 1992. Profit is the driving force behind most of the charter school industry. We are about to see how well Washington state can implement a charter school authorization process that retains its intended focus on low performing students and students with special needs, that retains charter schools as public school that can be held accountable, and that retains the ethnic and socio/economic diversity of its local communities.
According to the CREDO study only about 17% of charter schools do marginally better than regular public schools after over 20 years of freedom to prove their point of excellence. Big problem, you cannot compare two different systems without a “Correction Factor” to allow for charter schools not having to follow state ed code, local regulations, cherry picking students and parents and not dealing with behavioral problems, ESL and special education. When you put this in place for proper comparison charter schools do really bad. They are only about profit by one means or another and there are many avenues to wealth in the $700 billion/year without construction bonds wealth and all you have to do is say “For the Children.” What a joke.
Glad you woke up Karen as you have been asleep for a long time. You just realized what is really going on. Now, what are you going to do that you know.
As noted earlier, district and charters differ in many ways. In Minneapolis, St. Paul, district & charters include German, Russian, Chinese, Spanish and French immersion schools, Core Knowledge, Arts Focused, Montessori, etc. etc.
This game of “comparing” district & charter makes as much sense as comparing mileage of rental and leased cars. Not meaningful.
We should be trying to learn from the most effective district and charter.
I’d also encourage you to check out Yvonne Chan and her colleagues in Pacoima. I’ve visited and found this to be a very encouraging, impressive example of a district school that converted to charter. Here’s something Edutopia put together on this place:
http://www.edutopia.org/yvonne-chan
Well, Joe, then when this whole charter gig started why were the corporatizers very willing to compare public & charter schools. They claimed they could educate kids better & cheaper than local public schools. That was the big selling point they used when they compared themselves to public school costs.
It is no game to compare the work, results, offerings, behavior systems, accountability systems of public schools & charters. Public education in this country is under attack by corporatizers whose only motive is profit. Public school advocates are very serious about maintaining strong public schools for all kids. Charters do not include children in the same manner as local public schools nor are their hiring practices equitable to public schools. They are different from public schools and work under a different set of rules.
As a 28 year public school speech language pathologist, I am insulted by your likening this comparison to a game.
Beth, Sorry you are insulted by the use of the word game.
I think these comparisons are stupid and have said so for years. Here’s one of many newspaper columns making the point in Minnesota’s largest daily newspaper:
http://www.startribune.com/printarticle/?id=50494982
Millions of children in this country, especially children from low income and limited English in this country are being failed by a variety of systems.
Like district public schools, charters vary. (Some in fact are run by districts.).
Some public school districts explicitly exclude low income children (who don’t live in their district). Some district public schools explicitly won’t permit children who can’t pass an admissions test to enter the school.
Some companies are terrific and deeply involved in helping public schools. Some are outrageous profiteers.
Our younger daughter, graduate of a St. Paul Public school, is studying to be a speech language pathologist. Where do you work? Have any advice for her?
I work in the Monroe County Community School Corporation in Bloomington, IN. She has chosen a profession that will provide her with many workplace options. Schools, hospitals, rehab facilities along with private practice. She can work with infants to the elderly. All us baby boomers are retiring too so public schools will need SLP’s more than ever. In public schools we see every kind of student & disability each week. Just be sure to tell her the paperwork is crushing even though so much is done on the computer. Our Indiana IEP is an outsourced program & the cheap version ( thanks Tony Bennett) & that part of the job is the one thing I’d change. Best of luck to her in her studies.
http://www.mintpressnews.com/a-closer-look-at-the-joyce-foundation-shows-obamas-ties-to-chicago-school-privatizations/164972/
Thank you for the link, Michael. Excellent piece. My hope is, though, that folks who joined this education fiasco in the beginning, before they knew what it really meant have changed their view, such as Diane did.