San Antonio has committed to a dramatic expansion of charters, the emerging growth industry of our time.
San Antonio has welcomed BASIS and Great Hearts Academy, which are known for their appeal to affluent white students. Rocketship will serve the low-income Hispanic students by keeping them in front of a computer a large part of the day.
Remember that Supreme Court decision in 1954–what was it?–oh, yes, the Brown decision. San Antonio says, Full speed away from that loser.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
So what about this new book? (Ok for me to mention it here?)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/11/05/are-private-schools-better-than-public-schools-new-book-says-no/
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While we are recommending books, let me recommend Educational Delusions? Why Choice Can Deepen Inequality and How to Make Schools Fair, by Gary Orfield and Erica Fankenberg (Univ of California Press, 2013). Great book. Blows charters and vouchers out of the water.
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Two sides of charter-driven segregation coin: boot camp/Skinner Box charters for poor youth of color, private schools funded by tax dollars for affluent whites.
What was that about “The Civil Rights Issue of Our Time?”
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http://www.texastribune.org/2013/11/08/san-antonio-districts-launch-go-public-campaign/?utm_source=feedly
Hah! Finally:
“Facing an influx of new charter schools to the area and coping with state-level budget cuts, Bexar County’s 15 school districts have united behind a campaign to emphasize the benefits of traditional public schools.
The “We Go Public” effort, which will feature social media outreach along with radio and TV ads, will focus on what it calls the “core strengths” of local public schools, including the experienced teaching corps, a variety of extracurricular activities, diversity in learning experiences and the sense of community the schools provide. The initiative is co-chaired by three of San Antonio’s business leaders: USAA CEO Josue Robles, Toyota Manufacturing President Chris Nielsen, and CST Brands CEO Kim Bowers.
“The concept of educating all people regardless of race, class or socioeconomic status is the engine that has made America a great nation and an economic power,” Robles said in a statement. “Society has asked public schools to carry a heavier load, to cut back their budgets, to pass all the tests, to feed the hungry, to minister to the sick, to be all things to all people. And you know what? They are doing a pretty amazing job.”
“The campaign comes a year into a $30 million push led by some of the city’s wealthiest philanthropic foundations to bring six new charter school operators to the area, which has highlighted the poor performance of San Antonio districts. It also happens as Texas implements a new law that allows for the expansion of charter schools in the state.
Good for Toyota! Bucking the reform status quo like this 🙂
Finally, the 90% of kids who attend public schools get an advocate.
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Good job USAA, Toyota, and CST. I feel like I should buy a Toyota, insure it with USAA, fill it up with CST fuel and have one of their breakfast tacos.
Glad to see that not every corporation has turned into a stepford wife.
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I was wondering if it’s a matter of “sectors” – so manufacturing and energy “go public” and finance and tech “go privatized”….
I don’t know how to fit USAA in there. I’ll have to work on this theory 🙂
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I am just excited to hear of people taking a stand for public education instead of against it. I have a new respect for Toyota.
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Here’s the San Antonio public school site:
http://www.wegopublic.com/
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Fulfilling the mission of Mike Petrilli who is now advocating charters for those parents who give a damn.
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Nothing wrong with charter schools though. What would the most popular charter school be? American public school charter school. A charter school with 25 students per class, brown and white linoleum tile floors, art, music, P.E., recess, and cursive writing.
Nothing magic there. All that parents and children want is what we have had all along.
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So why should it have to be a charter school?
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Tell Mayor Julian Castro what you think of this:
http://www.sanantonio.gov/contact/
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The latest insult coming down from Texas should come as no surprise to all people who have been part of the civil rights/educational rights struggle for ever so long,
Texas has a damning history regarding equity issues in public education. I invite readers to read at least the summary of this case : San Antonio v. Rodriguez, handed down in 1973!
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=411&page=1
Perhaps, an old hand civil rights lawyer can clarify the sad ramifications of this case. It is a case that has left and continues to leave odious residue.
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I’m here at ground zero in San Antonio. One hears about students leaving for a charter. Typically, they are troubled kids. We get them back several weeks or months later. Right about where the left us academically. And we get the blame.
What can a charter school teacher do that I can’t do? I have plenty of academic freedom to teach the way I want to (old school, for the most part), and plenty of paper, supplies, smart board, etc. Good administrators. No complaints there.
This charter thing will get worse before it gets better.
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Julian Castro?? Wasn’t he a speaker at the Democratic Convention?? Another DFER Neoliberal???
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Creaming off the students whose parents are able to pay for “extras” or make “donations” to a charter school has a second, pernicious effect on public schools in the community. Involved parents are the ones who know how to work the levers of government in their communities. They are the ones who insist that schools have adequate resources – without them there is no one to keep the pressure on.
Here in Boston, we saw this with the creation of METCO, back in the bad old days leading up to the busing debacle. Middle class minority parents had an escape valve which allowed them to continue to live in the city while assuring a rich (in both senses of the word) suburban school environment for their kids. Middle class white parents used a different escape valve – they left the city.
I often wonder how much more support there would have been for Boston’s public schools for the past 35 years had more of these savvy parents remained invested in the schools on their kids’ behalf. Today, 75% of Boston Public Schools students meet the federal definition of poverty and 53% are poor enough to qualify for SNAP. That is no match up for the city overall, with a 21% poverty rate. And while we are just barely a majority-minority city demographically, the school system is overwhelmingly minority with 87% of its students so identified and 47% of them speaking a language other than English as their first (85 different native languages spoken).
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Christine Langhoff, many thanks for your accurate, concise and thoughtful comment re the historical and ongoing plight of The Boston Public Schools. Living in the now ‘hip’ Jamaica Plains, I have seen the demographics change with the influx of ’empty nesters’ and recent college graduates, a good number of whom i see wheeling their baby carriages down Centre Street. These latter families are, essentially, transients: when there kids reach school age they will either move to a more affluent town or enroll their child in a Catholic parochial school. That is what happened in South Boston in the early ’70s onward and what will happen in Jamaica Plain. History will repeat itself and the sad state of the BPS will remain static, or further decline, with the ‘creaming’ of students by the Charter school industry, METCO, and continued White flight. The central issue as most of know, is incredible, ever expanding, perverse income inequality. No matter: dollars continue to flow to the wrong people, for the wrong reason and we all know that there will not be a equitable redistribution of income or social benefits in the foreseeable future—our life time. I wish I could be optimistic, but, alas, I m not. But I refuse to sink into a fateful passivity that guarantees no progressive change possible.
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Have to be the voice of dissent, here. Not that I love Basis, but it’s the only choice we have, other than home schooling or outrageously expensive online private schools like Stanford OHS. We have a child who completed Algebra in 5th grade, and reads at a college level. San Antonio’s public schools will not teach him any longer — we have to “accelerate” him to a higher grade, which is not developmentally appropriate for him. Basis, however, is willing to place him into higher levels of Math, English, and Science. He is still slowed down by the rest of his classmates, but at least there is some differentiation of students by preparation and ability.
The arguments about diversity are false, as well. In Arizona, there may be validity, but early indications show that San Antonio’s school is minority white, and DC’s school is documented as majority AA. Basis does attract smart parents, and smart parents are genetically inclined to have smart children. That does not mean that smart parents or kids are all white. The greatest issue with the charter schools is that they receive no local funding, so they cannot afford public transportation. This creates an obstacle for many parents at all levels of SES. Free lunches are also not provided by the schools, but other parents pitch in to cover the difference — kids who would qualify for free lunch at public schools can get them at Basis San Antonio, as well.
I’m all for good public schools. I applaud efforts to make them better. Just don’t try to force my child into one unless you are prepared to serve his needs there.
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So, as I understand your argument, you believe that San Antonio should open a public school for super-smart white kids. Right?
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Why would I suggest such a thing? I was pointing out how offensive it is to assume that smart kids are white. However, if no school serves the best & brightest, then what? As I mentioned, the biggest problem that we see is the lack of transportation. This is a serious hurdle for many parents. Many bright Hispanic kids have done wonderfully in San Antonio charters, and they would have no options whatsoever without those charters.
I don’t think charters are the saviors of the world — they are only providing an option where they sometimes do not exist at all. Evolution needs experimentation. Book burning (thrashing ideas before they can seed, if the metaphor seems strained) is never a viable option for the educated.
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Mike C:
Race is a bit of a red herring. It’s about class, and charter schools accelerating class stratification and exacerbating economic inequality.
I’m also a parent in San Antonio with a kid performing above his grade level. I’m finding resources within my SAISD public school that can accommodate him. Kids don’t just learn reading and writing in schools, they learn values, and public institutions embody values of diversity, community, social integration and the common good. It’s a sense of common purpose that is pretty vital for a functional democracy, and that these elite charters are eroding.
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Just thought I’d add a comment, to clarify. What I wonder is, why do we spend efforts to shut down school options, rather than spend that same effort to work for inclusiveness? The charter model itself is not perfect, but we’d be fools to assert that public schools as they stand are perfect. There is a real possibility that charters could become exclusive, which is why there are laws to protect inclusiveness (lotteries, etc). The hindrances that remain, such as transportation, are the real threats to segregation. Charters, with their limited funding, do show that money is not the biggest problem that we face. Teacher funding is a problem, but castrating our society by limiting access to accelerated education is not a solution — it is disaster. Scientists today are terrified of the brain drain occurring in the US today. We shouldn’t be accepting that. Instead, we should be identifying talent in less affluent areas, and getting them the education they deserve. Some charters are doing exactly this. The fact that there are also some horrible charters out there doesn’t mean that we should toss all of them. That would be reckless.
I don’t bemoan public schools. We have one child who does well in public school (also quite intelligent), and one who is woefully under-served there, and needs a school like BASIS just to stay motivated. I refuse to believe he is alone in San Antonio. How many kids do not have parents that can identify a PG kid? It took us ten years, and we both come from highly educated families. The methods used by public schools today are laughable. My younger child is in GT, but so is 25% of his grade. That is absurd, and a clear abuse of the system intended to address the top 5%, which often cannot function in a typical classroom environment. How many poor families have “disruptive” kids who really just need to be recognized?
Let’s go after those kids, and stop attacking individuals that are trying. Their systems are certainly flawed — help them fix their systems, or make some new alternatives. The ones we have aren’t the worst in the world, but as a nation, we are losing the battle for talent.
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Mike C, the evidence is substantial that most charters do not serve the same students as public schools, that they are not public schools (they say so themselves in state and federal courts), and that they skim the best or easiest to educate students. A lottery does not guarantee an inclusive student body. Judge the enrollment by the enrollment, not by the mechanisms used to market the charter. How do you feel about the charters opened by non-educators with no educational experience? the charters opened by basketball stars, football stars, tennis stars? Do you think their schools will improve US education? What do you think of a dual school system–one for the haves (who got into the charters and didn’t get kicked out) and those for the rejects?
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There are some junkers out there, for sure. Regulation needs to exist. Some take cast-outs (at-risk students), and they don’t get criticized for it, because they serve a population that the public schools don’t want (unfortunately). Others serve the opposite end of the spectrum, which is also underserved. If San Antonio had an option like Dallas (School for the Gifted and Talented), Houston (Vanguard), or Virginia (Thomas Jefferson), I don’t think there would be a need for a school like BASIS. Losing gifted students hurts, but keep in mind that we aren’t just talking about studious, high-performing kids. There are two groups of special needs kids, and one is not served today. Gifted kids are not necessarily high performers, and there is clinical evidence to show that these children are actually suffering by being required to sit through regular classes. Many psychologists consider it abusive — it is precisely the same as forcing a mentally disabled child to take accelerated courses, but the abuse is in the opposite direction. I can tell you first hand that my child was consistently punished for reading ahead. PG kids cannot slow down without releasing their energy somewhere else. They show up as borderline ADHD, Asperger’s, OCD, and every other “bad student” label you can imagine. So, they are punished, instead of encouraged. Instead, high achievers take their place in GT classes, and there is no tracking of any kind for kids that can and must go faster. Fix this problem in the public schools, and many parents will clam up about charters. We’ll know the deed is done when we see 8th graders finish Calculus. However, the logistics of such a curriculum are unmanageable under our current system. Charters provide the only free option available today.
No single charter will fix or destroy the US education system. But, they each provide the data that is critical over the long run. The public school system as it stands has also provided data. The results are trending in the wrong direction. Why must we abandon hope, to save a broken system? Let’s find one that works, and do our best to protect kids along the way.
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Mike,
you obviously are not a regular reader of this blog. Charters are strangling public schools in Michigan. In that state, 80%+ operate for-profit.
Charters in Ohio have sucked more than a billion dollars out of public schools and have no accountability for results. In fact, they get worse results than public schools.
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I have read through many entries, though, and there are many salient points. I just don’t buy the “throw the baby out with the bath water” approach. As you mentioned, regulation is the key. Hard absolutes, though, smack of extremism. As long as that tone is prevalent, parents will not hear anything. Some things that you are saying absolutely need to be heard, but “death to all charters” as a mantra clearly doesn’t make any sense. Let’s make sure all kids needs are met, one way or another.
I, as a moderate activist, am trying to decide where to cast my lot. I am looking for a voice of reason in the wilderness to follow. I’m not fond of the for-profit model, either, but I, like countless parents, have children with needs that are left unmet by the current system. I can’t ignore that reality.
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