Max Brantley, columnist for the Arkansas Times, writes that legislation has been filed to create a statewide district for low-performing schools. The legislators apparently want to copy the failed Achievement School District in Tennessee (which has made minimal progress towards its goals of turning low-performing schools into high-performing schools within five years) and the failed Recovery School District in Louisiana (one of the lowest ranked districts in the state). The distinguishing characteristics of these districts is that 1) they eliminate public education; 2) they eliminate school boards elected by the people; 3) they allow the legislature to lower standards for teachers; 4) they enable the schools to be turned into privately managed charter schools, often (usually?) run by out-of-state operators. The proposed legislation says that the new district will be run by a nonprofit but experience shows that the nonprofit outsources many of its functions to for-profits and pays its executives salaries that far exceed those of local superintendents.
Some of the key elements of the bill:
The commissioner can assign whole districts or single schools to the state “achievement district” for purposes of such out-sourcing.
The law significantly advances existing takeover powers by allowing the commissioner to waive the teacher fair dismissal act. Due process in firing? Gone. The state can also waive the fair hearing law and any requirement to engage in collective bargaining. Employees become at-will — fireable for any, or no, reason
The nonprofit operators need not hire licensed teachers.; observe laws on length of day and holidays; or have a school board. The nonprofit operator DOES get to claim the voter-approved local property tax, whether residents of the district like that or not.
If only a specific school is taken over, the rest of an existing school district can be forced to provide transportation, meals and such for the taken-over school. This scheme is followed in some other states where charters have taken hold on a broader basis. You could call it taxation without representation. The Walton Family Foundation and the education “reformers” it subsidizes at the Walton campus of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville probably would call it canny business practice,
The nonprofit operator can get existing school buildings — again built by local tax millage — for free (sorry, $1 a year.)
Minimum takeover period would be three years. But it could be five years before residents would get their schools back under local control.
Yes it applies after the fact to the Little Rock School District.
One thing we have learned from the New Orleans experience. Those schools that are taken over will never be returned to their local school district. The state will keep raising the bar to keep them privatized.
Call it legal theft. Give big campaign contributions. Control the legislature. Ask them to give public schools and public property to entrepreneurs. Privatize public education. It is more than breathtaking. It is sickening.
A public school or school district that is classified by the State Board of Education as being in academic distress and taken over by the state board as of the effective date of this act is eligible to become part of the achievement school district at the discretion of the Commissioner of Education.
Breathtaking.
I’m surprised the bill specifically doesn’t allow these charters a waiver from civil rights, gun, vaccination and public record laws, given the Republican backing. Gays MAY be discriminated against, of course, because they are not covered by state civil rights law. And Bart Hester aims to keep it that way.
I’ve had persistent reports of Gov. Asa Hutchinson having met with some of the wealthy Arkansans who are backing the “reform” movement to talk about dramatic upheaval in education. This would certainly be it. It first faces an Education Committee evenly split on partisan lines, but the Billionaire Boys Club (Walton, Stephens, Hussman, Murphy fortunes) has also worked to win friends on the Democratic side.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Dr. Ravitch’s charge against charter operators, repeated ad nauseam for the past several years, is that they are cherry-picking their students, and that she would like to see them take over an entire district.
Yet when someone proposes to let them take over an entire district, she is suddenly against her own idea.
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Should they be required to give the district back to the public system when they fail to “outperform” the public schools? If they’d agree to that, I think one or two experimental all-charter districts wouldn’t be such a bad thing. But remember the “urgency of now” – I don’t think the charter district should have more than two or three years (at most) to prove themselves. And considering it was the charters who said they could do more with less, they should get less funding than public schools to show how “efficient” they are. Do you think charters could bring it under those circumstances?
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They did take over an entire district: Muskegon Heights, Michigan. Just Google Muskegon Heights and you’ll see what happened.
Also, when charters appear take over a city (like New Orleans), it is not given to one chain. Rather it is disbursed to multiple chains in order to provide choice and competition. What has happened? Schools open and close with some frequency. Paretns are usually not provided their first choice (but often their second or third option). Parents usually choose the closest geographic school.
I don’t know that you understand what is meant by “achievement district.” I live near Detroit which has the EAA. Check out its pathetic track record. And it has regular ol’ public schools to send kids to.
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Everyone needs to watch this Rachel Maddow interview.
Go and watch Maddow tell it as it is and how the GOP set up our senate for the entire decade
It shows the same a genius strategy that allowed the GOP to turn all the states RED. By simply looking at those races and palces where victory can be assured by a huge infusion of money to the corrupt legislatures, and the media (which seeks the sh%#t for shinola,) they are privatizing the INSTITUTION of public education.
What makes it possible, is that there are 15,880 districts and people are too busy, stressed, uninformed and ignorant to know what is afoot in their own district, let alone what is on going in Michigan or Arkansas, Oklahoma and Nevada.
Entering those states in the search field here, will demonstrate the insidious, relentless war on public education, which the corporate entities want us to believe can be run effectively as a business.
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Which charter is it that you work for WT? I don’t remember.
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Geeze…Were you born stupid, or just became delusional because you are surrounded by a corrupt culture… and this is the wrong place to attempt to foist erroneous opinionated horsepoop, because Dr Ravitch has documented the reality and the people here actually think critically about facts..
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If there is one thing Charter School Districts have shown, it’s that they are not the solution to inequity in education, nor to closing the achievement gap.
They appear to be just another step in a large and well designed plan to privatize and monetize public education, while dismantling unions.
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http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Bill-allows-outside-nonpro-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Education_Employees_Laws_Legislation-150309-279.html#comment536501
“Breathtaking,” Ravitch notes and adds:” I’m surprised the bill specifically doesn’t allow these charters a waiver from civil rights, gun, vaccination and public record laws, given the Republican backing. Gays MAY be discriminated against, of course, because they are not covered by state civil rights law. And Bart Hester aims to keep it that way.”
As the public gets wise, resistance grows.A parent experiencing this writes;
“The forces advocating privatization of public schools are well-funded and relentless. They cloak their goals in high-flown rhetoric about “saving kids from failing schools. Or they cynically claim the mantle of the civil rights movement as they seek to disrupt communities and replace public control with private ownership. The oligarchs and corporate interests are giving services like schools and even libraries to privateers… which are always promoted as being able to provide better services. With dwindling tax dollars public entities can unburden themselves of unions, costly health care, and underfunded pensions. Under elaborate PR campaigns boards and councils are sold on the ideas. ”
“The gray area of being ethical is where the privateers work in. Their campaign is well groomed. The parent revolution website is well written to appeal to parents. Just what parents would want to hear. He researched those opposed to PR and found explicit examples of not doing what they promised. He said “bait and switch”.
“Privitization is just another way for the 1% of America to mine new monies for profit to line their pockets. Their desire to help students is only if there is profit to be made. Besides if things don’t work out well and these kids hit the street being undesirables there are privitized psychiatric hospitals and private prisons these people can be warehoused with tax dollars and at a profit.”
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It begs the question why no one enforced or enforces the Brown vs. the Board of Education or the civil rights laws. We need some civil rights lawyers on our team to go after the abuse of corporate power.
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Yep! and we need some people of integrity in our Congress but we have that piece of ‘freck’ McConnell. Did you see the NY Times editorial on him today. Here it is at Oped with my link to Jon Stewarts take not his turtle in the comment
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/A-Reckless-Call-From-the-S-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Editorials_LEADER_Majority_Manifestation-150309-393.html.
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McConnell is bought and paid for by the coal industry. Nothing can be accomplished to move the country forward when special interest groups continually buy influence.
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Of course he does… Have you read this… it took me 2 days, a little at a time, but it is worn every minute to know about these robber barons.
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oops, here is the link to the Rolling Stomne article on these miserable human beings.
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Can someone please explain to me how plans like this work when governments have shown a nearly complete inability to turn around a single school, much less a district of them?
It seems to be that the “achievement districts” (how horribly named like opportunity scholarships…what’s next…innovation diplomas for standardized test scores?) are just an end run around the populace because the government assumes power only to hand it off to anyone but themselves.
It’s amazing that for demanding so much data of learning outcomes they demand so little of the “entrepreneurs” to prove that their “reforms” – which are really statistical and recruitment games – “work”.
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WT Unless your point is simply to snipe at Dr. Ravitch, you might want to read the history of Arkansas’ Lake View vs. Dept. of Education, a landmark case on “equity” which should have resolved the issue of how poorer schools are financed. Until the state supreme court decision regarding Eureka Springs in 2011, we had a viable constitutional equity.
Now we have a state legislature dominated by reactionary Republicans who are controlled by the big money interests, as is our own University of Arkansas.
Unless you are a Walton by birth, you might also want to dig into how the Stephens fortune was made out of “bond conversion” a practice of stacking the deck in favor of the bond issuer that is now (thankfully) illegal. Stephens, Inc. then turned it’s financial power to backing the corporate powers, Walton and Tyson, which now dominate the state’s economy and politics.
How’s that for “ad nauseum”?
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Let’s put it bluntly.
The eduedeformers and privateers are attempting (and succeeding at times) in STEALING from the COMMON GOOD, in other words ALL OF US.
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This is kind of like creating nuclear village managed by private electronic corporations and their supervising government body named Ministry of Deformation, Economy, Information, Trade, and Industry. No one in this ‘Team Reform’ is going to be held accountable for the potential risk of radiation, water leak, explosion, meltdown whatsoever. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them claming their vested intersts by saying that “we have responsibility to take care of the site for decomission!” to clean up 25 years accumulation of charcoal mess with taxpayer’s money. A pretext for permanent takeover of the site. Nuclear Village. Have we seen next Fukushima in private education reform yet? Or is it the scenario we will likely see in near future?
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The commissioner has too much power! How can he have the right to turn an entire state over to a private corporation without a democratic vote? The people of Arkansas should be up in arms. How is this offering anyone a choice? Isn’t this one of the basic tenets of privatization? Now this is what I would call a monopoly! They want to do this to profit from the schools, nothing more. They figure the citizens are asleep, and they can pull a fast one. It is time for civil disobedience.
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Breathtaking disruption and appropriation of public education for without any regard for a civic culture or responsibility for the general welfare.
Segregation now, segregation forever, segregation by choice. Make that policy official and the premise for doing business in Arkansas, including the business of education.
The anti-democratic ethic is “I got mine, you get yours, and forget the rest.” Arkansas is the home of the Walton family, who have built a palace for their art collection, endowed a university department of education with pay and perks for scholars who promote their views of schooling. The Waltons are visibly collaborating with other billionaires in the grand project of claiming expertise in all matters of education, along with the super rich (some of whom Diane has dubbed the billionaire’s boys club.)
Now the largest of the billionaire foundations are collaborating with big banks and major financial institutions to expand charter schools facilities if, and only if, these charter schools are located in distressed neighborhoods and serve low-income families. The intended spillover seems to be that of killing interest in supporting the public schools through voter approved tax levies and bonds. KIPP schools are a darling of investors.
Why bother with public oversight of schools, especially if the charters can market themselves as providing better education at lower cost. That kind of marketing has been succeeding, even it the hard facts are ignored.
A December 2014 article in the Economist…where money matters… sings the praises of the New Orleans Recovery School District, the firing of New Orleans teachers who belonged to unions, and the fact that 94% of the district’s students attend charters. The Economist also notes, and regrets, that the per student cost has risen to $12,797, and that academic performance is nothing to brag about.
This article includes a bar chart that shows New Orleans at the top of the list of metro areas/counties with 25% or more of students enrolled in charters, with Detroit, Washington DC, and Flint MI topping 40% followed by Cleveland, Gary IN, Kansas City, Halt County GA, Victor Valley CA, and Philadelphia.
So, one of the largest and most systematic American experiments in education, financed and endorsed by billionaires and big banks, is designed to enlist low income families and students living in distressed neighborhoods as guinea pigs.
What is so astonishing is that this grand experiment is endorsed by members of the Leadership Conference of Civil and Human Rights. Of course, some of the members of that organization are also beneficiaries of the largess of these same foundations. They have, so to speak, been paid to endorse the experiment. I am deeply disturbed by that. I see this expansion of charter as a not-so-stealthy way to maintain income-and race segregated schools, a manifestation of voter suppression in the public sphere, and a stark reminder of the anti-democratic impulses in our society.
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Any group seems to be able to be co-opted if you throw enough money at them. I think it would be difficult to prove that the entire state is distressed, especially with the Waltons’ compound located there. It seems like laws are there for the wealthy to manipulate and skirt.
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Although money is being used, the reasons for privatizing everything has to do with ideology. People with money love the ideology because it justifies their success. Most people rationalize their success (or Jesus would get in their way) by taking all credit for themselves. Dig deep enough and you will find the Public and Tax money played a large role in their success.
The elephant in the room as always is the demand to separate the asocial children from the compliant. Once judges began accepting parental lawsuits asserting that the child had to be educated, districts could not keep up with placing these students in alternative settings and have kept them in classrooms that then became dysfunctional. There are teachers who can kind of deal with them but most cannot. Therefore, parents are more than willing to opt out of these public schools. When I called parents to see if they would be sending their child who had special education disabilities to the child’s home school, the first concern was not the program at the home school but whether or not the school was the home school for the housing project (infamous for its drugs and gangs). When I answered yes, the answer was “no.”
The charter at which I now assist receives threats from parents they will withdraw their child from the school if certain children are not kicked out, and threats from parents of problematic children that they will sue to shut the charter if their child is denied entry. You can see where this is going. These are the tough questions faced by all schools and privatization is becoming the answer that fits together with the big money supporters. The principal, who does the absolute best one can at being the instructional leader providing methods to increase intellectual competence (not just test scores), spends a lot of time with the police dealing with the out-of-control parents who have bought into how schools are failing their child.
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Let us not forget that the new Commissioner of Education (once the law allowing him to be commissioner is passed) in Arkansas has no public school experience at all, and he is in bed with the Walton Family Foundation.
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I find myself numb and I know that the answer does not lie in my shock.
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