Texas has given out charters to various non-educators. Being a celebrity is credential enough to get state authority to open a school.
There are charters run by a tennis star, a football star, a basketball star, and a horde of entrepreneurs with no educational experience. This is called “reform” for some reason.
The Texas Education Agency is currently investigating financial disorder and mismanagement at a charter school in Dallas founded by a former football star.
According to news reports from Dallas, the school fired its founder–for the second time.
Remind me why charter schools run by amateurs are supposed to be better than schools operated by credentialed professional educators.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I wonder if a group of real teachers could get together to form a nonprofit public charter school– that could actually teach students what they need to know, devoid of RttT, testing, and idiocy?
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They could not afford the overhead of putting a dozen state legislators on their (under the table) payroll.
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My question was just heavy sarcasm. However, it would seem that if complete bozos can open a charter that real teachers could offer an alternative to the test crazy, Pearson crazy mess that is taking over.
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You are asking why a locally owned grocery store cannot compete with Walmonster?
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That was supposed to be the idea, wasn’t it? To use charter schools as laboratory schools and scale-up best practices?
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But that is the point. That is NOT happening. It seems that education has been put on the back burner in favor of profits.
And if teachers were making profits for starting up a charter school, then there would be more of a public outcry than there is now. For some reason people would rather look the other way when a celebrity or sports person is running the schools.
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BTW: does anyone have an example (or two) of a charter that is doing this? An honest question…I just don’t know…
I wonder if scale-up was always an elusive goal? IMHO, the best schools follow a clearly identified pedagogy that the whole learning community stands behind and supports (parents, teachers, admins), places teachers in a central decision-making role and has a strong mechanism for mentorship so that innovation can spread throughout the organization. I am not sure how much of that innovation you can pick off and scale-up without needing to replicate the cultural and organizational structure in which it emerged anyway. Despite the interest in finding best practices, there seems to be zero interest in fostering democratic and collegial schools (not to mention expressing a pedagogical approach that can at least somewhat be backed up by research in neuroscience, child development, etc.) So, I wonder if the goal was always elusive?
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Emmy,
You might contact Joe Nathan (joe@centerforschoolchange.org) for examples of teacher created charter schools. He has posted about such schools here in the past, but has become a much less frequent poster.
It is my understanding that The Community Roots Charter School was created by some teachers and parents in Brooklyn. You might be interested in seeing their web page: http://www.communityroots.org/
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I currently work for a charter school that was created by teachers, some continue to work here, others sit on the governing council. The group of teachers that worked to start the school interviewed & hired the principal and recruited teachers. We do use best practices and because we are our own district we can control (to a certain extent) what types of assessments we give. We are certainly very poor – however we get to teach and our kids are learning, most importantly – they are happy!
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As I recall about first learning about this school (I think on this blog), Sanders was looking at developing a school that focused on football prep and was looking at making it into some kind of reality tv show. If it is a sports prep school, I wonder why the TEA would even approve this school.
I do like Deb’s suggestion above–the original vision of a charter school.
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Clothing line – check
Fragrance – check
Vodka/Mixed drink line – check
Charter School – check
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Yeah. It is either sex tape or charter school. 🙂
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What is really bothersome is the fact that it is the news reporter that usually uncovers these misuse of funds in charters. Only then does the State move in to investigate with a usual closing of the charter without recovering of misused funds or punishment of officials! The charter just shuts down there and opens somewhere else!
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Well, it’s because they’re “agnostics”. Being an “agnostic” apparently means eagerly supporting and funding anything that is sold as a “school” as long as it isn’t a PUBLIC school.
Arne Duncan says that charters “deliver on the dream”.
Has anyone here heard Duncan say anything remotely as positive and inspiring regarding public schools? Ed reformers might want to look up the word “agnostic”. Charters are proliferating because ed reformers in government are promoting charters over public schools.
http://www.wacharters.org/arne-duncan-says-charters-deliver-on-the-dream/
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I am not so sure that there aren’t plenty of teachers who do NOT agree with what their districts, states, testing advocates are doing to students, but their hands are tied. They can’t afford to break free from the chains of the creative paralysis that has been forced upon teachers who are dedicated to the betterment of children’s worlds.
We are fed up …yet forced to participate in the changes. We are told, “you must do…”. Before we know it, we are in the middle of things we detest and can’t escape.
I don’t think alternative schools must be “bad” by nature. I guess what I wish for is: teachers need to take back their profession. For my preference, get rid of administrative evaluation and input. Our school has been very successful IN SPITE if having a terribly ineffective administration. They seem to pat themselves on the back for what we do. We succeed by ignoring as much as possible from their demands and by doing what we know is correct.
We have the students’ best interests at heart…and they do not.
I don’t know how to undo the mess they have created. How do we put the testing Chen is back in the bottle?
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“I don’t know how to undo the mess they have created. How do we put the testing Chen is back in the bottle?”
I don’t think it’s entirely your responsibility to fix this. Perhaps the parents of public school children could stop swallowing this ed reform stuff whole and ask some questions.
I can’t identify a single benefit of “ed reform” in my local public school system, and I have 4 children who range in age from 26 to 11, so I’ve watched it unfold in my district over more than a decade. My local public schools have less funding, fewer programs, much more testing and unhappier teachers than they did PRIOR to ed reform lobbyists capturing both my state legislature and the federal government.
Not only has ed reform not benefitted this rural district, kids here have been HARMED. My 11 year old goes to a “worse” school than his elder brother did, and it’s the same school.
It’s great that teachers like you are advocating for public education, but perhaps it’s time for parents to take some responsibility for allowing this to happen to their local public schools.
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You are SO RIGHT Chiara! However, keeping in mind, that Corporate America has kept a majority of parents so busy trying to hold on to their job(s)–yes, so many must maintain more than one job to try and stay afloat financially, or heaven forbid, in this recent recession, have to look for a job. Sadly, and unfortunately, parents don’t have the time to lobby and pressure on behalf of public education. With the momentum from Diane and the rest of us, and the economy improving, I hope that we will see your point come to fruition! Thanks for your point! We, teachers, are so hard on ourselves!
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How many states require a university to sponsor a charter school? I tried to search for a comparison by state, but was unsuccessful.
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No states require a university to sponsor a charter public school. Some states permit it.
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The assertion is made, “Being a celebrity is credential enough to get state authority to open a school.”
Actually, it’s not. A lengthy proposal must be submitted detailing a variety of features of the school. And not all proposals have been approved in Texas or any other states.
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