Jack Schneider, a historian of education at the College of the Holy Cross, writes that public schools actually outperform private and charter schools but it is a deeply kept secret.
There is a reason.
Private schools and charter schools build their brand.
They aspire to be selective.
They market themselves to create a sense of scarcity.
Parents think they are lucky if their child is accepted.
Public schools don’t have scarcity: they accept everyone.
They don’t have a brand: they are the community public school.
They don’t put up flyers, send out post cards, buy television advertising, boast that they are better than the competition.
Schneider writes:
None of this is intended as a takedown of private and charter schools. Many do good work, and they should be valued for that. Rather, the point is that public schools suffer from a divergence between public perception and measurable reality. Knowing this, we might conduct fewer conversations about an ostensible crisis in public education, driven by the troubles of a small number of schools, and, instead, concentrate on the importance of cultivating positive reputations among the vast majority of public schools that are doing just fine. Traditional public schools need not build their brands in order to ensure survival—after all, they educate 90 percent of young people. But they may need to do so in order to secure the good faith of the American public—faith that is essential to a healthy and thriving system.
The problem is that it is expensive to build a brand identity. Why should public schools spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to compete with the charters or with each other, when all that money should go towards paying for the arts, smaller classes, supplies, and other needed resources?
Strange to say, the column was underwritten by the Gates Foundation and Participant Media, which sponsored “Waiting for ‘Superman,'” which did so much damage–unfairly, unethically–to American public education.
Maybe the Gates Foundation would agree to spend $1 billion restoring the public reputation of public schools, which it has done so much to vilify–unfairly.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The only way to talk up public is through social media and dialogue with parents and other community members.
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Most wealthy business owners are singularly fixated on money and have sociopathic tendencies. They are like rats in maze seeking a pellet. When they enter into the national policy area, narcissism, is an added descriptor. They learned while they were growing up, that to achieve their goals, they have to disguise their methods. We are currently seeing the pattern, when they use a shell game of corporations to hide their spending and try to obfuscate, by saying they didn’t, directly, fund, the activity. We see it, when they associate with people who describe the weakest people, like grandma, as schmucks, from whom to steal. We see it when, the profit motive turns up later, as vested interests announce their entry into a market designed to be a monopoly. And, we see it when they hijack, the term, philanthropy.
They ascribe to the concept of Caveat Emptor, Buyer Beware. At its foundation, it is the idea that the best targets, are the most vulnerable people in society. What’s more vulnerable than an area, dominated by women and children?
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If you went to a great public high school, speak up! If you teach at a great public high school, speak up! The public only knows what they read or hear, as these days a small percent of population have real contact with public schools. The older generation always thinks the “old days” were better than today. Correct that idea with facts. Better PR for public schools can be provided for free. Write letters to editors. Have your club invite speakers from ranks of public school superintendents or principals. Give these programs a “catchy” title. Like “An Inconvenient Truth About Our Public Schools.” Then tell how good they are.
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Speaking of the press as a loud-speaker system….
Today’s Wall Street Journal says that charters outperform “conventional public schools” (p. A 11).
This Opinion piece, by Karl Zinsmeister, functions as a press release for his just published “From Promising to Proven: A Wise Giver’s Guide to Expanding the Success of Charter Schools” published by The Philanthropy Roundtable.
The author portrays charters as if these are entirely the by-product of ” a self-organizing movement.” He credits the growth of charters to “independent social entrepreneurs and local philanthropists.”
He does not mention that many charters are for-profit, or the role of the courts in enabling these schools, or the fact that Congress helped to seed the growth of charters in NCLB, and since then, how thoroughly USDE has nurtured their growth.
The author thinks that it a good thing that” 561 new charters opened last year, while 206 laggards were closed.” He relies on a study from Stanford’s Center for Research on Educational Outcomes to claim that these closures and replacements have contributed to better models for education than “conventional public schools.”
He predicts that “performance advantages will accelerate in the near future” in part from the fact that charters typically grow from small operations and expand grade-by-grade.
As models of charter excellence, the author cites schools that require “longer school days and longer years, more flexibility and accountability for teachers and principals, more discipline and structure, more curricular innovation, more rigorous testing.”
Examples include KIPP. Success Academies, Uncommon Schools, Democracy Prep, and Achievement First. He claims that urban charters schools (in NYC and elsewhere) operate with about 72% of the per-child funds for “conventional public schools.”
I doubt if the Wall Street Journal will be eager to publish any rejoiner, least of all from Diane, or other credible sources.
The Stanford study deserves scrutiny as does the source of Stanford’s funding for “educational outcomes” research.
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Laura Chapman, the Philanthropy Roundtable began as a group of rightwing foundations who felt overshadowed by Ford, Rockefeller, and Carnegie. It is still dominated by rightwing privatizers.
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Oh, and by the way, Laura, the charters in NYC spend more than the average public school. Bruce Baker did a study and found that Success Academy spends an extra $2,000 per student and KIPP spends an extra $4,000. Of course, the Harlem Promise Academies (Geoffrey Canada charters) spend even more. On the 2013 Common Core tests, the NYC charters got the same scores as the public schools, despite the fact that the charters have far fewer students with disabilities and far fewer students who are English language learners.
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Forgot to mention..that Wall Stree Jounal article did not mention the diversion of public funds to schools that are designed to repond only to market forces and “customer choice” not to sunshine laws and other forms of public accountabiity.
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Might I suggest something that is relevant to this? It was written by a successful businessman who made the mistake of telling a group of teachers that if he ran his business the way they ran their schools he would fail. Read The Blueberry Story by Jam,ie Vollmer.
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When 5 major corporations control about 80% of what is described as “news” and people have to dig for the real story, the public has been and continues to be bamboozled by a few seconds of sound bytes. Those who read and have followed the Columbia Journalism Review for a decade or so will understand. Fortunately, as we now know, there are a few like Bill Moyers who still do REAL journalism.
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