Edward F. Berger, blogger in Arizona, knows that our education leaders are obsessed with data, but the one datum they don’t track is what happens to the kids who were pushed out or dropped out of their schools.
He writes:
Where are the follow-up studies of those dropped on their heads by the schools? We don’t have information – at least not in any district or charter schools I know of – about the kids pushed out of schools. We like to call them “dropouts,” but they really are “push outs.” For whatever reason, these kids are damaged and forced out as soon as they reach the legal age to drop them. We need to track them. My state, known as the “Wild West of Charter Schools,” has what may be the highest push-out rate in the US. It is created by ideologies that have failed, but are still in place and never accountable.
There are no funds to repair the damages and help the push-out kids get caught-up. Few community colleges can provide the remedial work and tutoring necessary for these damaged human beings to master the essential skills and pass the GED – or at the least, get the basic skills necessary for employment. As it stands, few employers will hire them. The military doesn’t want them. They have no futures. We are creating a massive welfare generation of very angry alienated citizens.
Parents sold on school choice, pull their children out of comprehensive public schools and enroll them in partial schools in the hope that this choice will deliver a better education. Then two things happen: 1)The partial school works for their child and what has been left out of a comprehensive education may not hurt the child’s chances. 2)The partial school must show progress on test scores and college admissions. Kids that don’t perform well are most often dropped and kicked back to the district school. They arrive back in the district schools way behind the other students who have experienced teachers and a comprehensive curriculum. As they experience the failure built into this reality, they most often drop out, or fade until they are passed on to get rid of them….Tests have been forced on our schools by those who buy into a business model for education and believe more data will make schools accountable and better. The irony is that they have not collected and analyzed the data about children failed by the schools as a result of failed ideologies.
Don’t we have an obligation to follow these young people and find out what happened to them after they left school?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
If not already in process, this would be a perfect study for students in Grad Schools of Ed for Masters thesis, or PhD dissertation. I am forwarding this to some with whom I work.
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Let Relay conduct some studies.
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“We are creating a massive welfare generation of very angry alienated citizens.”
A generation of very angry, alienated citizens? Yes, absolutely. But any claims about “welfare generations” are just plain wrong, ever since Clinton’s draconian “Welfare Reform.”
It is so difficult now for needy people to obtain cash assistance, such as to help pay their rent, because that program is called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and it really is TEMPORARY. People can receive assistance for a maximum of 5 years in their LIFETIME. TANF is also just for FAMILIES, specifically, those who have children 18 years old and younger who are living in their home, i,e., absentee fathers are not eligible. To qualify for TANF, parents must also be either working or attending school to improve their job skills.
THERE ARE NO MORE WELFARE GENERATIONS, so please stop scapegoating what is now a bare bones safety net, for which very few families qualify during a brief period of their lives. (Singles without kids are not eligible.)
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Cosmic…agree in part. Welfare generations as we knew them, are generally gone. However, the impact of those who will struggle with survivial all their lives, which now include the ELL, hard to teach, and Special ED students also leftover in public schools when charters skim the rest for their profit, will result in America dropping further into Third World status.
Your facts are correct but leave out the leftovers, those people living on Skid Row including the multitude of children. Califoria has over 56,000 of these poverty stricken families, children, and others, who were impacted by CalWORKS and Clinton’s welfare to work program of 1996. The TANF rules are so convoluted that they required lawyers and professors, I was one, to explain them to social workers so as to implement them. Many of us predicted the glaring flaws of this legislation.
Yes, this welfare plan is finite. And some few did get a bit of education and found low pay jobs, but the greatest number did not. The Urban Institute has long term data, should you want to do a search.
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It’s a horrible system now and it does not warrant calling the families who benefit from it “welfare generations.” That is false and it just feeds into the misconceptions that right wingers in both parties have about welfare today, as well as their misperceptions of those who benefit from it.
When Welfare Reform rolled out, I was the director of a child care center and I personally saw how it impacted many low income families. After a short time, the state suddenly declared those families ineligible to receive child care subsidies because they had minimum wage jobs –which did not pay enough to cover the cost of child care so parents could work– and they had to pull their kids out.
This system stinks, but it’s all that we have now, and right wingers would love to see it eliminated altogether, so people need to stop promoting the myth of “welfare generations!”
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Agree with you 100% Cosmic. It does indeed stink. America, particularly religious Americans, prides themselves on helping the weakest among us. Where are these folks when legislation is being passed that weakens families and puts them into poverty for endless generations? Then “welfare” becomes a dirty word.
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Is there a problem with requiring recipients to work or to attend (free) job skills programs?
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The problem that evolved was putting such a tight timeline in place, and thereafter, with a mandate that this program could occur only once in your lifetime. At first it was sold as a 5 year cycle, and if you could not maintain a job nor education, you went to the bottom of the list to start over. This all happened while most candidates were living on Skid Row, so the motivation (and ability to even find a shower and clean clothes to interview) became an oxymoron. Some small number were housed, as witht the amazing program of the Sisters of Charity for mothrs and children, but the greatest number could not “pull themselves up by their boot straps” as was the watchword of the African American woman selected by Clinton to be his enforcer.
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Ellen, in many states, the limit of 5 years in a lifetime still stands.
Robert, Minimum wage is not a livable income, but earning it disqualifies many people from being eligible for TANF, as well as from receiving subsidies for child care in many states –which are needed so parents CAN go to work or school.
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There’s nothing wrong with expecting people to work. However, these rule changes were supposed to come with affordable daycare that never materialized. People getting paid a minimum wage cannot afford daycare!
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Alternative copy and paste Tweet that leads back to this post:
Edward F. Berger asks what Happens to Kids Who Were Dropped by corporate Charter Schools and sent back to Pub-Ed
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Lloyd.. thanks for bringing the conversation topic back! I am willing to bet that somewhere in the depths of all the supercomputers used by the likes of companies equivalent to “In-Bloom” they know full well what is happening to the forced charter school drop outs! Sadly, these students (made into puppets) serve their purpose. They leave and charter school testing states and grad rates rise and public schools continue to get weighed down by impossible/ unmeetable/ill-suited “ed reform” requirements. Another ancillary question might be… WHAT HAPPENS TO ALL THE STUDENTS WHO ATTENDED CHARTER SCHOOLS THAT WERE CLOSED DOWN DUE TO MISMANAGEMENT AND THE LIKES!
Even closer to “the fire”.. what happens to all the charter school graduates? Most have lived under such RIGID learning environments. I cannot believe they know how to deal well with creative thinking that comes along with academic freedom (if they actually make it to college). What happens to this “life is not a bubble in test” crowd???
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artseagal….the topic asks ‘what happens to the rejected students’…and many of us find it all interrelated. Without an adequate education these students, generally already living in poverty, are doomed to exist their entire lives living at or below the poverty level. To cut off discourse on the realities of American government policy (which includes the education ‘reform’) and which will affect most of these students, in my view leads away from developing solutions.
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yes, absolutely a researcher should look at rejected students – rejected from a variety of schools.
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Where is the research about the students who arrive at my charter school as Juniors or Senior with less than 5 credits from their district school and then graduate (maybe not at their cohort year, but with a diploma non-the-less), because teachers (all experienced) took the time to know them as individual learners and created a personal learning plan to fulfill the requirements of graduation and still maintain their dignity.
I don’t want to get into a long debate about the merits of choice in education, but it is a tiring argument to cover ALL charter schools with the same broad brush strokes and not recognize the many benefits that some students and parents are receiving from charter schools. Charter school across the country are no more the same then traditional district schools are.
It would be refreshing to share the many ways that teachers and administrators in all types of schools are making a difference in the lives of students despite all of the obstacles put in front of us. There is no one perfect school system for all students, but putting each other down at every turn helped no student ever and it just strengthens the standardizers, and corporate reformers.
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The front page of your suburban charter school, with its 78% white students, advertises how it compares with traditional schools on measures of teacher-student ratio, retention and hands-on learning, and without mentioning the primary population it serves, so start with own school first.
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cx: start with YOUR own school first
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Again my argument is not that we, or any other charter school, is perfect, but that there are many things that need to be improved in education and it doesn’t do students any good for us to be in-fighting. Traditional schools do not work for all students, charter schools do not work for all students, but I think we can all agree that our goal as educators is to help students and families find the best fit so that the student can be successful.
I also want to acknowledge that I am strongly opposed to the corporate take over of schools, especially charters, the privatization of many charters across the country, and the obsession with standardization – but that’s not our school.
Just as an FYI – yes we are a suburban charter school with low teacher-student ratios, hands-on learning, & high retention rates, but we also currently serves nearly double (46%) the number of special education students as the local district, we serve slightly more (50%) students on free and reduced lunch than the local district, the majority of our students are classified as “at-risk” in multiple categories and our demographic almost perfectly mirror the demographics of the local district. We do this in a dedicated teacher led school, we are highly trained, and receive competitive wages – all from the same funding formula as the district schools in the state.
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The question should be not CHOICE, but why do we have to destroy public education to test an unproven theory that a market based CHOICE will make a difference when we already have at least 20 years of information proving that the market-based, private sector doesn’t work in education.
Find one country that has done this successfully where the publicly funded, private sector schools were more successful teaching all of the children with no exception.
In countries that have had the most success, instead of turning children over to publicly funded, corporate Charters, these countries have invested heavily in early childhood education and teacher training.
And in the one country, Chili, that had this market based, publicly funded, profit model forced on them thirty years ago, they are now returning to the public model and abandoning the private sector as a tax funded CHOICE.
http://theconversation.com/sweeping-reforms-set-to-end-for-profit-education-in-chile-26406
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If any charters are that good, then they should be offered as choices WITHIN school systems, like as magnet schools. They should not be privatized schools that siphon tax dollars and are outside the purview of local school boards and exempt from laws that traditional schools must follow.
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Right on, Lloyd. This is a moment to look at Finland and their dedication to free education for all, pre K through university or lesser skills training, with good pay, respect, and excellent training for all teachers…all of whom are unionized.
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In addition, Finland holds the 30 private sector schools in that country to the same rules and laws that govern the public schools and that might explain why there are so few private sector schools in Finland, because they can’t hide what they are doing or how they are using the public’s money.
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Finnish schools operate in different ways. For example, some publicly funded schools are associated various religions and promote their religion. In this country, we would call this vouchers…something a number of us including me, opposed.
Moreover, consistent with democratic principles, families are allowed to choose among these and other publicly funded schools. While some people in this country refer to this as “markets” others of us see the freedom to make important decisions about key issues, within some limits, as one of the central aspects of American liberty.
Of course wealthy families always have had the opportunity to send their children to private schools, or since the years after World War II, exclusive suburbs. So the debate is not about whether families will have choices among various public schools. The debate is what choices will low and moderate income families have?
Sometimes public school choice programs are implemented badly. But the question remains, will low and moderate income families have some options among various kinds of public schools. Some of us think the answer should be yes.
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About 1% of Finland’s schools are private. That’s about thirty. Not a significant difference. In addition, almost 80% of the population of Finland are Lutherans—one denomination— and this means schools that teach students from other religions are in a very small minority. The second largest religion makes up only 1.1% of the population and that is Christian Orthodox. 17.7% of the popularization have no religion.
Finland also doesn’t have the same challenges the US has with minorities and religions, because 93.5% of the population of Finland is Finnish and 5.94% are Swedish—the largest minority. Russians make up the 3rd largest minority group at 1.22%. All other minorities are below 1% of the population.
Let’s compare that to the challenge the U.S. would face if the same choices were offered.
78.4% of America’s religions are Christians but there are about 3,000 different denominations. Protestant make sup 51.3%, Catholic 23.9%, Mormon 1.7%, etc. The U.S. has a lot of religions that are not Christian: Jews, Hindu, Buddhist , Muslim …
77.7% of US population is white alone
13.2% is black
1.2% is American Indian
5.3% is Asian
17.1% is Hispanic or Latino
Finland has a population of about 5 million.
The U.S. has a population of more than 316 million, the 3rd largest in the world. That means the smallest minority, American Indians, is almost 4 million and the second smallest, Asian, totals almost 17 million, 3.3x more than the total population of Finland.
What works smoothly in Finland for school choice could become a nightmare in the United States when every ethnic group and religion wants its own school with no transparency.
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Lloyd, you are the person pointing to Finland as a model, not me. I agree that Finland differs in many ways from the US.
There are some things Finland does (like insure high quality early childhood education) that I wish we would do. There are other things – like fund k-12 religious education that I am glad we don’t do.
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I’m not pointing at Finland as a model of school Choice, but as a model for how teachers are treated as professionals and allowed to have total control of curriculum—-something that has never happened in America where top down is the norm and teachers get all the blame when the top down decisions fail and they often do fail.
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The school where Peter works is a model of empowering teachers. I understand you don’t like it. But it is a place where the teachers working their are the majority of people who set the salary and working conditions. It’s a professional option that some teachers want. Others want to work in a unionized environment. I think teachers should have both options.
A recent national poll found that 54% teacher are interested in working in a “teacher led” school. http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_ahead/should-teachers-run-schools/
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I never said I dislike the school Peter works at. I didn’t know anything about it or where it is located.
What I meant was that even the good charters might get beheaded when public opinion catches up with the facts, and the majority of voters realize how much they have been fooled by the oligarchs misleading propaganda.
And just like many good public schools that have been closed and good public teachers who lost their jobs, some or all of the few good charters—according to Stanford that is about a quarter or less of the total—may end up getting the axe along with the bad charters when they get flushed.
But what if the corporate reformers win and destroy all of the public schools? I’d be willing to bet that Peter’s school, if it is as independent and successful as you say, will be targeted by someone like Eve Moskowitz, who wants more than a half million dollar annual salary, because this is the dirty world of market based competition.
The few good ones that are not owned by a big corporation that profits Hedge Funds and Wall Street will all be targeted—-you can bet on that. The Walmart model will be used to sweep them in the dust bin. Remember, the reform is market driven and that means competition no matter how good you are. Quality doesn’t count in the private sector. What counts is who gets the job done with less and brings in the the biggest profit for the biggest shareholders.
This is why that professor from Stanford recently said market based competition doesn’t work in education.
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That person (she’s not a prof) doesn’t know what she’s talking about when she tries to compare district & charters – it’s like trying to compare the mileage of rented and leased cars. Not meaningful.
She also does not know what she’s talking about re markets and education. For example, Allowing Mn families to have $ following high school students to colleges and universities, paying all tuition, book and lab fees, has encouraged many high schools to set up new within school dual credit options.
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Lloyd, Finland does not have school choice. No charters, no vouchers.
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Families in Finland have a number of schools from which to choose. I realize you are not a choice fan but it happens to be available in Finland.
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Even if there is some form of choice in Finland, 99% of the parents send their children to the local public schools, because they trust the teachers—-something missing in America’s witch-hunt culture, where instead of trusting teachers, blames them for just about everything that goes wrong in this country.
The scapegoat of choice.
Giuliani’s latest blame game is another example. About twenty years ago, I read that a GOP candidate for a senate seat in the Midwest blamed teachers and their unions for the uncreased prison population—there was never any mention that the growing private sector prison population that was supported by the GOP was sending lobbyists to Washington and state capitals working to get tougher laws and longer sentences. I wonder if Bill Gates owns a share of any of those prisons.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the milk in a refrigerator went sour, some parents would blame teachers for that too.
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I didn’t think Finland had vouchers or even a shadow of the reform choice exploding in the US, but don’t they fund the 30 private school, while requiring them to operate under the same regulations that the public schools do?
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As I am the blogger on this issue who first brought up Finland above, I am agreement with all that Lloyd writes. The operant issue as I see it from a public policy perspective, is that Finland, certainly far from a diverse and mass population, nevertheless accepts high taxation to fund public education, and the government and the populace see teachers as the vital professionals who are entrusted with forming the minds of all their students. To this end, they support their unionized teachers and pay them on the same scale at their doctors, lawyers, and accountants.
This is a far cry from how teachers are treated in the US and must re remedied.
However, in my lifetime of work with Grad Schools of Ed, I am convinced that there is a need for more stringest higher ed procedures and oversight of students, and a need for choosing students seeking teaching creds more carefully, considering the vast numbers of diverse youth who are educated in America’s public schools.
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Ellen, to what you wrote about teacher preparation, I’d add that there is a need for much more involvement of classroom teachers in schools that are doing a great job with students. Recently the Mn Senate and House heard from state “teachers of the year.” They had terrific insights. I asked whether they had been asked to work with colleges of education. most said no. I’ve asked the questions of many state teachers of the year and received the same response.
Moreover, I’ve asked the question over the last 35 years all over the country, in district & charter schools that are producing a lot of progress with students, measured in various ways. Mostly they report being ignored by teacher prep programs.
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Time to trash teacher prep programs again, huh? The only reason why I went into Teacher Ed was because some professors at my ed school ASKED me to do so. First, they asked me to give presentations in several of their courses while I was simultaneously a student and a classroom teacher. Then, after completing my first graduate program, they asked me to teach a number of courses for a professor on leave. After that, they asked me to teach my own courses. These were real jobs, not work as a graduate assistant. That had not been one of my career goals and, in fact, teaching college had never even occurred to me. However, I got some great mentoring and it turned out to be a good fit.
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Peter,
How many students each year “arrive at my charter school as Juniors or Senior with less than 5 credits from their district school and then graduate”? And what is your school population and what is the cohort retention rate from grades 8-12?
What is your school’s name and location?
Thanks,
Duane
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According to what I’ve read, I learned that most of the successful charters are run by teachers who belong to a teacher’s union and are still part of a traditional public school district.
There is a HUGE difference between the original concept of Charters and corporate Charter movement.
The original Charter concept was from a teacher who ended up being President of the AFT. His concept did not meant to make profits for hedge funds, Wall Street and corporations like Pearson, or paying $500,000+ annual salaries to CEO’s like Eva Moscowitz.
The original Charter concept was designed to free teachers from smothering administrative control and allow the teachers to be in charge—in fact almost exactly what teachers do in Finland.
The corporate Charters hijacked the name, dropped the concept, and used propaganda to fool as many people as possible. In corporate Charters teachers often do not even have to be college educated teachers, they are paid mush less, on average, and have little or no say in what they teach or how to teach it and the turn-over rate is dramatically higher than the public schools.
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“There is no one perfect school system for all students [I agree and there never will be], but putting each other down at every turn [pointing out lies, disinformation, false data, etc. . . whether from charters or community public schools is not the same as “putting each other down”] helped no student ever [and more likely than not hasn’t harmed any student either] and it just strengthens the standardizers, and corporate reformers [yes, I tend to agree with you on that].
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Peter’s school serves suburban students with whom traditional high schools have not been successful. Suburban youngsters matter too.
The website provides information to help families and student make informed decisions about whether they might want to learn more about the school.
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Joe,
I’m missing something but what is Peter’s school. I don’t see it referenced here.
Thanks,
Duane
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Duane, Peter works at NorthWest Passage school where the majority of members of the board of directors are teachers who work at the school. Here’s a link to info about the board members:
http://nwphs.org/about-us/personnel/
Is this what you were asking? If not, I apologize, please ask again what info you are seeking.
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Click on Peter’s name, Duane.
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Thanks, Joe and yes that’s what I was looking for.
And Teacher Ed, thanks for living up to you name in instructing this teacher about clicking on the name. I didn’t realize one could do that.
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@Peter: my issue is that, as a taxpayer, I am not interested in my tax dollars going to a charter school “CEO” and not the teachers. Bottom line: your school would not exist if you did not get paid better than a public school employee. Sorry, not on my dime.
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Titleonetexasteacher your assumptions are way off the mark – I make less than most principals of comparable sized schools in the state. I have been with the school for eleven years, I am a licensed Life Sciences teacher and still teach several classes a year plus leading overnight learning expeditions and I am the only administrator for the school. Our budget is based on the number of students enrolled each year, with no access to local levy dollars. There is no room for paying outlandish administrative salaries (like many district superintendents) when the schools goal is to keep student to teacher ratios at 16:1, provide high quality one-to-one emerging technologies, provide top notch staff development, and offer field studies and overnight learning expeditions at no cost to parents and students so that everyone can participate. Sorry no Cadillacs or beach houses for me – I do it because I love the job.
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Tracking should be easy … they likely pass through the juvenile justice system and prison system. The data exists if you know where to look for it.
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Yes, exactly, Cornelius. Many end up in the Juvenile Justice system. Again, suggest The Urban Institute for facts and data support.
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“partial schools”
What an apt description for the vast majority of charter schools.
TAGO!
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This is a particularly apt question in light of Michael Petrilli’s full-throated advocacy for charters pushing out undesirable students in yesterday’s New York Times “Room for Debate” piece. A link to his post along with my response can be found here: http://parentingthecore.wordpress.com/2014/12/11/writing-off-those-kids/ Peter Greene also wrote an excellent response, here: http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2014/12/charters-break-american-promise.html
For Peter Wieczorek: There are exceptions to every rule, of course, and this goes to an earlier piece I wrote about how close I came to involvement in the education reform movement, and my general take that with some exceptions (see above), I do think that many in the education reform movement are sincere and well-intentioned.
However, so long as the Michael Petrillis of the world are advocating warehousing “problem” kids (and, as pointed out above, not studying what happens to those kids), the charter movement has a huge PR problem. While I do think the percentage of “failing” public schools is far smaller than portrayed in the media, there is no question that some public schools can and should do better. But so long as the charter school movement takes money from ALL taxpayers but promises to educate only SOME kids, it’s a movement that creates far more problems than it solves.
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Sarah….thanks for your comments. Hope all bloggers here click on your name and read your blog site article on these issues. You address the problems clearly and with truth.
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Lloyd,
I couldn’t agree with you more that we as a nation need to spend more money on early education, and teacher training, plus acknowledging the role of poverty on student success. Again, I strongly oppose “publicly-funded for-profit schools”. However, I will stand by my original contention – traditional schools are not the right fit for all students. Without schools such as ours and many other fantastic charter schools (all public schools, all not-for-profit, open to all students, and meeting the same graduation requirements as other public schools) throughout Minnesota an entire group of students would have either dropped out, or passed through unnoticed. One size does not fit all and many large school districts can’t or won’t make the changes necessary to provide an appropriate education for the students who are attracted to our school. This fact should not be viewed as a threat, but embraced as a positive alternative to better meet the needs of students.
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Does that mean the charter school you work at is run be the teachers who belong to the teachers’ union and the school is part of a traditional public school district that’s transparent and run by an democratically elected school board?
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Ask him how much he makes…
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Our public school has magnets, STEM, alternative, vocational, arts, immersion. There is no one size nor fit. You confuse choice with location.
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This is for Peter,
Let’s reverse the situation. Imagine thousands of college educated teachers who have worked teaching children for years doing what they were told to do according to increasingly more demanding laws with less funding to achieve those demands.
At the same time, billionaires spend hundreds of millions of dollars painting those teachers as lazy and incompetent, but those teachers are working more hours every school year than all but two OECD countries.
The billionaires also supported, with hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions, candidates for school boards, state legislatures, governors mansions, the White House and the US Congress, who will support their war against public education.
The war against public education is succeeding, hundreds of schools closed, thousands of teachers and other supporting staff lose their job in states and cities across the country all based on the promise that the theory of market based education will improve the U.S. PISA ranking.
Someone called Peter benefits from this war, because he lands a job in one of these private sector market based Charter school—that studies from Stanford report are mostly worse or the same than the public schools they have replaced.
Several years go by, and Peter feels great with his steady income and pride at his job, because he actually thinks he’s doing a better job than those incompetent and lazy teachers that the billionaires kept telling him about through their propaganda.
Then the tide turns and the corporate reformers lose the support of the White House when a new president is elected with a landslide vote and a mandate to support public education. A majority in Congress and many state legislatures are also elected with the same mandate—-to support the public schools and stop funding corporate and private sector Charters with public funds based on a failed theory.
One summer, Peter discovers the private sector charter school he works for has lost all of its public funding and all the teachers and staff have lost their jobs.
This is America. I’ve lived long enough to have witnessed the pendulum swinging from one extreme to the other and back again more than once. I hope you are saving money for the public funding drought that will probably hit your emerging private sector Charter schools sooner or later—annual Gallup studies are showing public opinion is shifting. Just in the last few years, the shift has been dramatic as the evidence of fraud and the fact that the vast majority of private-sector Charters are doing worse or no better.
The reason the odds are strong that hundreds/thousands of private-sector Charter school jobs will be lost in the next few years is because of the methods the billionaires are using the achieve their goals. They are making millions of parents, children and teachers very angry with their bully tactics and cherry picked lies—-many more than the few parents who are actually benefiting from the minority of private sector Charters that are doing a good job.
The 2012, Stanford study of Charter School Growth and Achievements in 27 states reported in Reading that 75% of private sector Charter schools are worse or no different from the public schools they were compared to, and 71% were worse or the same in Math. Minnesota was one of those states studied—and charters in Minnesota began in 1991 (for 23 years). In addition, Minnesota’s Charters had negative scores in Reading and Math below the 50th percentile.
Click to access NCSS%202013%20Final%20Draft.pdf
I think once a majority of the public becomes aware that they have been lied to and fooled for decades, the pendulum will start to swing the other way really fast in support of democratic, transparent, public schools. You might work in one of the few private-sector Charters that are doing a good job, but will that be enough to save you from the budget axe that’s coming?
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You haven’t answered Swacker’s question. Please do that before you offer more opinions. Otherwise, you begin to look like a troll, Peter.
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Michaellangford2012 – not sure which questions I haven’t answered, but I will be glad to answer any you or Swacker have.
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Duane Swacker
December 12, 2014 at 2:04 pm
Peter,
How many students each year “arrive at my charter school as Juniors or Senior with less than 5 credits from their district school and then graduate”? And what is your school population and what is the cohort retention rate from grades 8-12?
What is your school’s name and location?
Thanks,
Duane
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btw, Peter. You might just make sure all the participants in that thread get those answers…Michaellangford2012
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Ed reformers finally noticed that public schools have lost funding under their state and federal leadership:
http://mobile.philly.com/news/opinion?wss=/philly/opinion&id=285571181
Agnostics make lousy advocates.
Why aren’t public schools doing better with this giant payroll of government and ed reform org advocates? Remember when they were hired and they said they would improve public schools? When does that start?
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Lloyd,
We are in fact our own independent school district, authorized by a local university and accountable to the Minnesota Department of Education. Our teachers choose not to be a part of a teachers’ union because we make up the majority of the democratically elected school board. I have nothing against the teachers’ unions, in fact I a strong supporter on most issues, but you don’t need a union when you run the school.
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Thank you for the information, but there is no need for schools outside of the regular democratically run public school districts to meet the needs of at-risk children. Proper funding would take care of that. In fact, the district where I taught in California still supports an alternative high school on its own campus that teaches the most at-risk high school students in that district and has been doing that job successful since the 1960s.
That alternative high school doesn’t abandon students when they turn 18. They are served as long as it takes until they earn their HS diploma. When I was still teaching, they had one student graduate at age 26. He had to work a full time job from a young age to help support his family—thanks to poverty wages—but this school was run by the teachers and the scheduling and classes were flexible to meet the needs of the students. This is also the site in that district where all the pregnant teenage girls went to be taught if the girl agreed. If the pregnant teen wanted to stay at the regular high school, they were allowed to stay. It was their choice, but the alternative high school offered child care during the school day after the teen mother gave birth. The regular high schools in that district were not set up for that type of support.
A district like the one you describe is an unnecessary duplication when the public schools are properly funded and the teachers allowed to make the major decisions with curriculum like teachers do in countries like Finland. What you describe is not unique and can, if funded, exist in the public schools too.
In addition, that same California public school district where I taught for thirty years has specialists and special education teachers at every school with their own rooms and adult aids to provide more support for the most at-risk children.
If this support for public schools doesn’t exist in your state, that explanation is probably because the corporate reformers and their bought and paid for governor and state legislature don’t support public education properly—starving the schools of funds—and want to see the public schools fail so they can replace them with market driven corporate Charters.
I don’t see any justification to support the non-public school/schools where you and the other nonunion teachers work.
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Thanks, Lloyd! May be your best post ever.
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What is your salary? How long were you in the classroom? What is the salary range for your teachers? Are they credentialed?
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If you are asking me what I make it is less than most principals of comparable sized schools in the state. I have been with the school for eleven years, I am still in the classroom teaching several classes a year plus leading overnight learning expeditions and I am the only administrator for the school. Our teachers salaries are within geographic norms and they are all licensed and most of them are highly qualified. We all wear many hats just like every other teacher in the country but we unanimously chose to remain teacher led, but non-union.
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Peter, in a market-based eduction system, your little charter school will be up against the1,600+ strong Walton charter chain and other large charter chains. If they get rid of the public schools, don’t think for a second that the little mom-and-pop teacher run private sector charters will escape.
Market-based means competition—-it doesn’t mean quality. If it meant quality, Microsoft would have lost out long ago to Apple and other applications that were much better than Windows.
And if the corporate fake reformers lose and the people fight to bring back the public schools, the odds favor that your mom-and-pop teacher run private-sector Charter will get the axe too. The only way your school might survive if that happens, is if your track record looks good enough for a local democratically run school district to bring you back into the fold under the protection of a local school board.
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Actually, Lloyd, the vast majority of charters in the US are not affiliated with a group of other schools. They represent the kind of thing that Peter and his colleagues have done: a group of educators, sometimes with families and community groups, that have seen a need and created an option to help meet it.
Unquestionably there are some charlatans in the charter world. But there are a lot of people like Peter and his colleagues.
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Again with this canard, Joe: “Actually, Lloyd, the vast majority of charters in the US are not affiliated with a group of other schools.”
Perhaps. However, the vast majority of students are enrolled in one of the charters run by chains, such as KIPP or Uncommon.
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Christine – first, the bottom line for many people is how are the students doing, measured in various ways.
The vast majority of American students are enrolled in district public schools – and the largest combinations of those schools are in urban districts such as NYC, Chicago and LA. So simple putting students together under one organization does not strike me as necessarily good or bad. The question is how are they doing?
Second, I have not research showing the majority of students are enrolled in groups of charters such as KIPP, UnCOMMON, etc. Have you?
But again, I wouldn’t necessarily criticize the Chicago Public Schools or LA Public Schools or NYC because it enrolls large numbers of students.
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Is there a site that lists all the private sector charters starting with the biggest chain. If the Walton’s have more than 1,600 (about 28% of total), wouldn’t their corporate Charters be the largest chain.
I found this:
From school year 1999–2000 to 2011–12, the percentage of all public schools that were public charter schools increased from 1.7 to 5.8 percent, and the total number of public charter schools increased from 1,500 to 5,700.
http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=30
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgb.asp
AN UPDATE: In November, U.S. News & World Report says, Number of U.S. Charter Schools Up 7 Percent, Report Shows.
The number of charter schools surpassed 6,000 at the start of the 2012-13 school year, as these schools – publicly financed, but privately run – steadily increased by 7 percent throughout the United States that year. This annual growth contributed to a 47 percent increase in the number of charter schools over the seven years since 2006-2007.
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/11/03/number-of-us-charter-schools-up-7-percent-report-shows
In addition: Charter schools now account for more than 60% of the public schools in New Orleans. Some are run by KIPP a chain with 162 schools.
There are 146 carters in the Gulen chain
Eve Moskowitz of $500k+ annual salary fame, runs more than 32 in New York—-is this small—the district where I taught for 30 years in CA had 19 schools and about 19,000 students.
And here’s an interesting piece in Forbes:
Charter School Gravy Train Runs Express to Fat City:
On Thursday, July 25, dozens of bankers, hedge fund types and private equity investors gathered in New York to hear about the latest and greatest opportunities to collect a cut of your property taxes. Of course, the promotional material for the Capital Roundtable’s conference on “private equity investing in for-profit education companies” didn’t put it in such crass terms, but that’s what’s going on.
Charter schools are booming. “There are now more than 6,000 in the United States, up from 2,500 a decade ago, educating a record 2.3 million children,” according to Reuters.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2013/09/10/charter-school-gravy-train-runs-express-to-fat-city/
Or this one from The Nation:
Venture capitalists and for-profit firms are salivating over the exploding $788.7 billion market in K-12 education. What does this mean for public school students?
http://www.thenation.com/article/181762/venture-capitalists-are-poised-disrupt-everything-about-education-market#
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Lloyd,
The problem with your argument is that you seem unaware that charter schools in Minnesota (with our Democratic governor, and long standing record of both school choice and educational excellence) are truly public schools. Charters in MN must take any student who wants to attend, and they use the same funding formula as other public schools (minus the levy dollars that charters can’t ask the tax payers for). The concept that you espouse that charter schools are “starving the schools of funds” assumes that simply by existing in a specific geographic location all students must attend that school, whether or not the school is meeting the needs of the student. I would be perfectly happy if the local district school ran us out of business because they meet ALL of the needs of EVERY student in their district, but they can’t (or won’t). So until that time happens we will continue to do our best to serve every student, regardless of disability, socio-economic status, race, or age (until 21 as designated by state law) who wants to attend our school.
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I don’t see any problem with my argument. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t I ask you to show me a country that ranks high on the PISA test that uses public funds to support successful market based private sector school choice?
You may want to read this Op-Ed in The Washington Post that explains what is wrong with School choice.
The lead paragraph says, “Imagine a state outsourcing the education of its disadvantaged children to dozens of private entities, asking for only minimal updates on the students’ learning and their financial management of taxpayers’ dollars.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/05/20/whats-wrong-with-school-choice-heres-what/
Or this from Bill Moyers & Company
Sabrina Joy Stevens, executive director of Integrity in Education, told BillMoyers.com, “Our report shows that over $100 million has been lost to fraud and abuse in the charter industry, because there is virtually no proactive oversight system in place to thwart unscrupulous or incompetent charter operators before they cheat the public.” The actual amount of fraud and abuse the report uncovered totaled $136 million, and that was just in the 15 states they studied.
http://billmoyers.com/2014/05/05/charter-schools-gone-wild-study-finds-widespread-fraud-mismanagement-and-waste/
Or this from tcedfair.org
Earlier this month, a report put out by The Center for Popular Democracy and the Integrity in Education project found that since charter schools first appeared in the early 1990s, they have been responsible for costing taxpayers $100 million in fraud, abuse, and waste.
In the introduction of the nearly 50-page document, the authors list three prototypical examples of the type of fraud the report focuses on, two of which are taken from Minnesota charter schools.
http://tcedfair.org/2014/05/23/think-of-the-children-fraud-and-minnesota-charter-schools/
And this site that tracks crimes by corporate Charters mentions Minnesota 28x
Arizona was mentioned 32.
California 85x
Florida 77x
New Jersey 34x
New York 78x
Ohio 53x
Pennsylvania 40x
In all, forty of the states have had some mention of corporate Charter crime and fraud. Minnesota and the seven listed above are have the most stories about corporate Charter crime and fraud.
http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/search/label/*Minnesota
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Is the PISA test or any other federal or international standardized test what we want to use to measure school success? But since you asked I would refer you to the following article by Yong Zhoa http://zhaolearning.com/2013/12/02/reading-the-pisa-tea-leaves-who-is-responsible-for-finland%E2%80%99s-decline-and-the-asian-magic/
I would also say that there is plenty of fraud and abuse to go around in charter schools AND traditional schools (“Former Atlanta schools superintendent reports to jail in cheating scandal”, “Centinela Valley schools chief amassed $663,000 in compensation in 2013”, “Former Wall superintendent indicted on fraud, theft and official misconduct charges”, and on and on). The difference is that in most cases the charter schools are closed after such scandals.
My only intent in originally commenting on this post was to ask that the mud slinging between people with the same goals – stopping corporate take over of our profession, eliminating or at least giving local control to standardized testing, and providing the best opportunities to ALL children. It is disheartening to think that highly educated, passionate people can’t work cooperatively to reach these goals.
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Peter, thanks for your efforts with youngsters. Yes, there are some educators who see ways to work together. Then there are others who speak out in anger and frustration. There’s a lot to learn from both.
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Charters found scamming have not been closed in my district nor in many other districts across the country. No, the difference is that fraudsters in traditional schools aren’t usually caught taking millions of dollars and they typically go to jail, while charter school cheats usually get and keep millions of dollars and they aren’t even charged with crimes.
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Schools in my district stopped implementing the Project Approach and Reggio Emilia because of federal and state demands. Children should not have to attend privatized schools that are exempt from those demands in order to get such wonderful curricula.
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I agree that districts ought to offer the Project Approach and Reggio Emilia. What state or federal laws prevented the district from offering these kinds of schools?
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That happened to early childhood programs in Arne’s district, while he was CEO in Chicago.
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The one bit of data Arne, Gates, or Amplify have no interest in tracking.
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So true
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To some educators who might agree with me:
To some educators who will agree with me:
From Other Spaces
December 12, 2014 at 7:01 pm
“Children should not have to attend privatized schools that are exempt from those demands in order to get such WONDERFUL CURRICULA.”
From Lloyd Lofthouse
December 12, 2014 at 5:06 pm
“A district like the one you describe is an UNNECESSARY DUPLICATION when the public schools are properly funded and the teachers allowed to make the major decisions with curriculum like teachers do in countries like Finland. WHAT YOU DESCRIBE IS NOT UNIQUE and can, if funded, exist in the public schools too.”
“…In addition, that same California public school district where I taught for thirty years has SPECIALISTS and SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHERS at every school with their own rooms and adult aids to provide more support for the most AT-RISK CHILDREN.”
From Peter Wieczorek
December 12, 2014 at 5:55 pm
“The problem with your argument is that you seem unaware that CHARTER SCHOOLS in Minnesota (with our Democratic governor, and long standing record of both school choice and educational excellence) ARE TRULY PUBLIC SCHOOL”
“…we will continue to DO OUR BEST to serve every student, REGARDLESS OF disability, socio-economic status, race, or age (until 21 as designated by state law) who wants to attend our school.”
From three above specific viewpoints, the main point is that the “TRUE” (=knowledgeable, experienced, compassionate and considerate) educators really care for the welfare of all students regardless of their physical, socio-economic, and mental background.
However, the emphasized principle should be in CORPORATE CHARTER SCHOOL where all educators need to unite and to tackle on its POLITICAL policy, such as looting public education fund, administrated by UNQUALIFIED, criminal background, and fake DEGREE owners, administrative staff and some or most of INEXPERIENCED, unqualified young teachers from TFA corporation.
Educators should not exhibit extremist preference, but should focus on DEMOCRACY which will strengthen the real PUBLIC EDUCATION where children can enjoy learning, and educators can enjoy teaching regardless of level at-risk or gifted students.
All educators should unite to oppose all testing schemes in primary school. TESTS only serve ONE GOAL that is to make sure LEARNERS can attain, show, and apply some SPECIFIC knowledge and skills for certain SPECIFIC professions. Otherwise, general education should be a continuous and joyful journey of learning for life. Back2basic
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Since some university profs and grad students read blog, I hope you WILL consider a project looking at students who leave schools and attend others. Please consider including in your sample, mainsteam, district and alternative schools.
Many urban and some suburban and rural districts have set up alternative or second chance schools to work with youngsters with whom traditional schools have not succeeded. I’d hope that these schools and their students also would be included in a sample.
Some years ago another Univ of Mn colleague, Prof James Ysseldyke and I studied students attending such alternative schools. Many fascinating conclusions, including the fact that rates of “special needs” went down for many not all students) in the alt schools. That’s because the students were able to receive more individual attention.
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Joe Nathan,
Is it possible that the more serious special needs cases never enrolled in the alternative schools? Cases of severe autism, for example, will not magically disappear due to increased attention. Children with complicated medical conditions and physical limitations will not be restored by waving a wand. Your claim is specious at best.
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NJ Teacher – I completely agree with what you wrote here. As you know, there are a broad range of conditions that fall under “special needs.”
A number of studies have raised concerns about the over-identification in some special needs areas of “students of color” – especially young men. These categories sometimes are called “emotional behavioral/disturbed” or “behavior problem” or something like that. This was one category that was dramatically reduced when youngsters attended alternative (district) or alternative schools established cooperatively by several districts.
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Peace to you Lloyd, and may our paths cross again.
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