Twenty-five new charter schools will open in Phoenix, targeting low-income Latino students. The project is funded mainly by the Walton Foundation. The schools will rely on Teach for America recruits.
The story in the NY Times notes that charter schools in Arizona get more public funding than public schools and charter schools get lower test scores.
This is privatization for the sake of privatization, taking advantage of a chance to break public education with low-wage workers and promises.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Okay, they’re state-funded. What does Walton have to do with it?
They’re “arts-infused” yet progress to be measured by test scores?
They want better teachers, so they use TFA?
Andy Borowitz is behind this, right?
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Don’t mention lower test scores.
Jay P Greene believes it is unfair, nay wrong, to have non public schools that take tax dollars to have to take the same tests as public schools.
Of course he does. (He is the chair of a section of University of Arkansas that was created by the Walton money.)
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Yes, Diane is right, this is a national war on public education for which there are several fronts and command posts all drawing on the same supply depots of endless materiel–the billionaires and their foundations, and the taxing power of state and local govts. taken over by corporate policies. While conservative Republicans and corporate democrats aggressively de-fund public schools and colleges while over-funding private charters, all those liberal democrats have to step up and fight back with the same militance to stop the assaults on the public sector. DeBlasio has to be the Lexington and Concord here, stand up to the armies of the billionaires, end all favors and subsidies to charters in NYC, demand market rent for any charters allowed to evict public schools under King Mike, and taxing the rich to over-fund the public schools of NYC, build children’s parks in all neighborhoods, keep schools open until 6pm for sports and arts and academics, pay the artists of NYC to visit public schools every day to perform, sing, dance, show kids how to sculpt, film, paint, etc. Put a chldren’s health clinic in every district. If DeBlasio blinksat this crucial moment after winning a landslide, failing to stare down and push back the charter invasion, public education will lose another huge chunk of resources to the privatizers nationwide, and will be dead in one generation’s time.
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The NYT figures exclude property tax revenue, which creates a $1900 difference in favor of district schools. Selective utilization of source material can be expected from that newspaper. I suggest reading Arizona’s charter law rather than screaming hyperbole and playing the victim card.
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Most charters get an enormous amount of money from private benefactors, usually much larger than the public school property tax difference. Public schools get much less money from private wealthy individuals. Furthermore, there is federal and state funding just for charter schools for start-up costs and other things, so generally charter schools have much more money than one might believe.
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Some public schools get private support as well. There is an endowment for public schools in my town, for example. The PTA for PS 321 in Brooklyn, a school familiar to regular readers of this blog, received just under a million dollars in private donations and revenue in 2012.
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As is so often the case, you bring up a factoid that is meaningless to the overall debate, but attempts to divert the discussion.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but since you’re economist, I assume you hold tight to the widely-held delusion that what you practice is “science:” if that’s the case, why do you use the slippery propaganda phrase, “Some public schools…”
Take a look at PS 321’s demographics, and you will see that it is located in a very affluent area, with a highly active parent body. It is a far cry from the typical NYC/urban public school.
But that inconvenient fact would undermine the ideological basis of your comments, wouldn’t it?
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I’ve worked for an AZ non-profit charter for 13 years. We receive $1900 less per pupil per year. We are audited three times per year. Hyperbole and partisanship aside, the facts are there if you are willing to see them.
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Consider me a primary source in your research… in AZ, charters get about $1900 less per pupil per year- including no funding from titles 1-3. This is why many charters(not my employer) sued the state two years ago.
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But if public schools could have 18 kids per class, supportive school climate, supportive families, and spend 40% of their time on literacy, wouldn’t they do just as well?
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http://www.vistacollegeprep.org
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Many AZ districts are converting their public schools to charter schools because they’ll get more money. The non-district charters are whining. “Not fair,” they claim. Boo hoo.
http://www.azcentral.com/community/scottsdale/articles/20130604charter-school-transition-funding.html
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So a district converts schools to charter. Does he funding then come from the state?
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