After reading Jeff Bryant’s article on abuses in charter schools, a teacher posted this letter on the site where it was originally posted:
She writes:
- Charter schools suffer from the problems that this article highlights–gobs and gobs of public money with virtually no public supervision.
- That money is a magnet to profit motivated conmen/conwomen, simple disarmingly pious crooks, and megalomaniacs. The truth is that those millions of dollars keep flowing with few questions once the charter is granted and the school opened.
- The school systems are run by an executive staff that is answerable to almost no one except their hand picked board. Administrators often draw huge salaries not merited by the student population density (or their expertise and contribution to their charter systems).
- I can speak with authority because I was a “teacher” at a charter school. I say “teacher” because I have no training in anything but the the subjects which I supposedly taught.
- Teaching is a craft like any other I discovered when I tried to teach for a single year. A craft that I had not learned.
- I was underpaid, over worked, and, to be honest, had no idea what I was doing. I also had no curriculum to teach from in either of my subjects. Believe it or not I was not the worst teacher there.
- While I was trying to teach without any sort of training and without text books or a curriculum the President of this educational Potemkin village was drawing $250,000 per year for a total student count over seven schools of less than 1000. He once remarked to me that he “didn’t give a damn about education!” and proved it every day..
- Technically he wasn’t even stealing. The board had voted him one bonus and pay increase after another for doing very little positive. I won’t go into all of the issues with run down buildings, bathrooms that didn’t work, roofs that leaked, no toilet paper/paper towels, special Ed….
- When a system without controls is created these sorts of abuses are invited and they, indeed, come right in.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
All I can say is: I hope that the people teaching in these schools try to do as much for the kids as they can. It is tragic to put people in need of a job into a situation where they know they aren’t able to succeed and see the abuses that they can’t fix happening right before their eyes. Everyone deserves more than this.
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“educational Potemkin village”
What an apt and utterly horrifying turn of phrase.
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According to Wikipedia, racketeering is a criminal enterprise that provides “… a service that is fraudulently offered to solve a problem, such as a problem that does not exist, will not be affected, or would not otherwise exist.”
Is this not an apt description of charter schools and so-called education reform in general?
I know it’s a vain hope, since the perpetrators of the 2008 financial crisis have enjoyed their ill-gotten gains without so much as a single indictment, but everything described by this teacher confirms that those pushing and running charter schools are literally racketeering, and should be indicted under the RICO statutes.
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So how is this any different from the way many corporate boards function? If the shareholders (or investors) are getting a good profit the CEO is rewarded. If the bank CEO got the profit by issuing fraudulent loans it doesn’t matter… and the taxpayers ate the costs when the balance sheet got out of whack… why should it matter for the CEO of a for [profit charter school when he got profit by using low wage untrained teachers to get so-so results? Both CEOs are shortchanging their customers, increasing profits for their investors, and receiving taxpayer dollars. “Run schools like a business”…
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We don’t talk about it all that much but WHY DO PEOPLE SEND THEIR KIDS to these CHARTERS? Where is the parent’s role in this whole mess…if they didn’t send their kids to charters the charters would close, simple enough. We need to get more parents to read this blog and the others like it!
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I’ve wondered that myself. In one of the articles about the “padded cells”, one parent admitted she had seen them when she was applying at the school. You see something like this and you not only don’t go running to the nearest police station, but you actually send your kid there? What does that say about your opinion of your kid???
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I’ve heard many parents who justify their patronage of charter schools because they have unresolved problems in the public school system. Among these are bullying, unresponsive administrators, and a perception that certain teachers are biased against their children. No amount of reading about someone else’s experience will stop them from trying out a charter school. The truth is that many parents lack the ability to effectively deal with conflict and they have an easy out when they can just “take their taxpayer dollars elsewhere”. This is not logical, but it is human nature. Effective administrators and teachers face a difficult task to not only teach, but to “sell” the services they offer in this environment. You can’t satisfy everyone, but unfortunately charters need to satisfy very few to stay in business.
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The parents in urban areas have been fed a load of bs by politicians and the media. Also, when a neighborhood school is closed they often send their kid to the nearest school within walking distance. One of the most sickening things is that the people in the most needy areas have had their schools closed and been given this in return. Just think about all of that tax money you paid and it is being poured into the pockets of people exploiting children. It is shocking.
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Yes, the parents are lied to, mostly with shop-worn marketing techniques, “limited supply” as in bogus waiting lists with professional PR campaigns selling the charter. Many of the charters here have a core of elitist, well-heeled “founders” with their kids, and people are “referred” to pad out that core group. They recruit quietly amongst themselves, creating a mirage of desirability that outsiders perceive as exclusive ie. better. Our local papers print supportive articles about charters, while ignoring traditional neighborhood schools, in an effort to attract richer, whiter people into the city. Some people are treated royally, some people are royally screwed.
When the charter reality sinks in, as evidenced by the attrition rate, the family usually has to disrupt the childs life to get out. The charter lumbers on. The rich get richer.
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We’re in a sad and pathetic state. And trying to get the word out is even harder. it’s all been part of a brilliantly evil scheme to take over every corner of this planet for profit for a few. There’s no media; no internet–no way to inform and educate the public–particularly as the privatizers work hard to dumb down our children and their parents. It’s brilliantly evil. But, please tell me why anyone would want to or can live like this=-doing nothing for anyone but themselves and their bigger and bigger mansions, fancier and fancier cars and more and more planes and country clubs.
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I don’t understand it either but this country seems to be producing this type of person in large numbers. There is no end to the people out there making money off of school children.
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Deregulation helped open the eyes of opportunity for those prepared to be on the take to begin their year by year schemes to flatline anyone not into their games. More and more people were bought and sold. Over time, hedge fund operators and big corporations continued to take advantage of the unsuspecting. By the time Citizens United was put in place by the Supreme Court, the handwriting was on the wall. People have been duped into voting against their own best interests. And here we are. We need to expose and close ALEC and all similar organizations. As it is, parents are generally in the dark, having been told that their schools are failing. They are out of the loop. Reports in the papers need to be hammered by those of us who know what is going on. Every newspaper needs to be informed and online sites need to be bombarded with questions, facts, and demands to uncover the truth.
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Yeah ,i am agree with you here : ” When a system without controls is created these sorts of abuses are invited and they, indeed, come right in” and overall you did a great article on charter school ,anyway thanks man.
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What a very sad state of affairs. That parents whose kids’ public school is called ‘failing’- & whose public school perhaps indeed is crumbling for lack of resources- should opt instead for a local charter school such as the one described, where the physical plant is poor and the teachers lacking curriculum or texts, yet the ‘ceo’ draws big bucks from the failing public school system… here indeed is the picture of ‘school choice’.
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The Supreme Court, in two decisions in the 1920s, read the Fourteenth Amendment’s liberty clause to prohibit states from interfering with the private decisions of educators and parents to shape the education of children. In Meyer v Nebraska (1923), the Supreme Court struck down a state law that prohibited the teaching of German and other foreign languages to children until the ninth grade. The state argued that foreign languages could lead to inculcating in students “ideas and sentiments foreign to the best interests of this country.” The Court, however, in a 7 to 2 decision written by Justice McReynolds concluded that the state failed to show a compelling need to infringe upon the rights of parents and teachers to decide what course of education is best for young students.
Read more here:
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/rightofprivacy.html
If Common Core Lives, Freedom Dies.
http://www.killcommoncore.com
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