Martin Levine writes in the NonProfit Quarterly about the war between charter schools and public schools in Chicago. Two years ago, Mayor Emanuel closed almost 50 public schools, most of which will be replaced by charters.
Levine writes:
“What is happening in Chicago illustrates well the debate going on nationally between those who believe that the solution to our educational challenges lies in creating a more robust educational marketplace where every parent and child has the ability to choose the school that is best suited to their needs, interests, and talents, and those who believe that ensuring a quality education for all children requires dealing with issues of proper school funding, poverty, race and community. The struggle in Chicago seems to indicate that the advocates for a market-based strategy are winning this tug of war.
“The Chicago Tribune ended an editorial this week with this plea: “This is a war that has to end. It does not serve children.” But with limited school budgets and little data to suggest the marketplace model of education actually outperforms or even matches the public school model, it seems unlikely that their wish will come true.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What he failed to mention is that the conservative Chicago Tribune wants to see charter school expansion throughout the city, so charters have been trying to expand into the north side, including in integrated neighborhoods, but when people in those communities get wind of it in advance, they have been opposing them.
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AMEN!!! I just quit the Chicago Tribune because of their inept editorializing. When the man answering the phones asked why and I answered, in a LOT more detail than can be printed here, he said and I quote: WOW, you just made my day.
It is not the reporters, some very good ones, but the owners who control the editorial staff who have destroyed quality journalism. Anyone who has followed the Columbia Journalism Review for a decade or so will fully understand this.
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I’ve met the Tribune editorial staff. If they are indeed being “controlled” by the owners, that control has been deeply internalized. Never met a more rabid bunch of right-wingers (“balanced” by a small handful of “liberal” Obama-apologist centrists). It’s a good thing the editorial board meeting I attended met before lunch. Otherwise it would have been a waste of a perfectly good meal.
If anything, I’d say the reporters are being controlled, but there are few real reporters these days anyways and I don’t think any work for the Tribune.
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“But with limited school budgets and little data to suggest the marketplace model of education actually outperforms or even matches the public school model, it seems unlikely that their wish will come true.”
I doubt that there is budget issue, all things considered.
The marketplace model is moving money from public schools to market-based options.
Market based models cannot be compared with public schools, especially if market based schools are skimming students and refusing to teach students whom the public schools must teach.
The concept of “outperforming” is undefined but it usually refers to scores on standardized tests and graduation rates– totally inadequate for truthful comparisons.
Insofar as market-based schools are protected from full disclosures of every aspect of their operations, including pay schedules, perks and bonuses, teacher and personnel churn, contracts and sub-contracts, and a host of other indicators of “performance” then the so-called wars will continue.
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Well, it looks to me like they set this up to ensure unlimited charter growth:
“Under current Illinois law, local school districts have a difficult time integrating charter applications into a strategic planning framework. As written in the Chicago Sun-Times, Jack Elsey, the chief officer of innovation and incubation for the Chicago Public Schools, said the district “can’t base its charter school decisions on need and location because of the Illinois Charter School Commission, which can override CPS if it denies a charter and then fund the school with money that the district would have otherwise controlled. CPS would have no oversight of the school in that case.”
Was that an accident? Surely someone in government knew this would happen.
I know this is an unimportant detail, but how are the existing public schools doing under ed reform leadership? Anyone looking at that, or are those kids just the designated losers in this government-created “market”?
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Illinois didn’t have a state Charter School Commision that could over-rule and usurp the authority of local school boards until 2011. It’s straight from the ALEC playbook, so beware other states! I don’t know for sure but some assumed that Repubicans introduced it here, however, the GOP has been in the minority in our state General Assembly for quite awhile so I believe Democrats are just as culpable: http://www.chicagonow.com/chicago-muckrakers/2013/08/how-big-is-alecs-footprint-in-illinois/
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That legislation is the work of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA), which openly worked with ALEC to push it until ALEC became too hot politically, at which point NACSA removed the ALEC reference from its website but continued to push the legislation. NACSA has been up front that the legislation is intended to override the ability of local communities to decide if they want a charter school or not. http://mobile.philly.com/news/?wss=%2Fphilly%2Fnews%2Fhomepage%2F&id=137456663&deliver=iphone&c=y&viewAll=y#more
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The Chicago Tribune has been the equivalent of the Soviet Union’s TASS news agency when it comes to corporate reform, regurgitating every lie there is. Check out “Unchain the Charters!” : (notice there’s an ad for “K-12 Online Charter School” embedded in the article)
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-03-25/opinion/ct-edit-joyce222-0325-bd-20130325_1_andrew-broy-charter-schools-new-charters
For example, the 19,000 waitlist lie has been debunked by George Schmidt at others elsewhere. Many of the charter are severely under-enrolled, and never should have been opened in the first place.
In the editorial, the Trib says that it has been recently corrected… the new waitlist figure is 23,000. The source…. the Illinois Charter Schools Association. You’d think they might exercise caution when that group is the source. It’s like believing the tobacco industry when they say cigarettes don’t pose any health risk.
This editorial was covered here:
DIANE RAVITCH: “The ‘waiting list’ is sheer propaganda. No one knows if it exists. No one knows how many duplications there are. No one acknowledges that charters spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to generate demand and “waiting lists.” The lists are a marketing tool.
“The Tribune wants to end public education in Chicago. Even if the charters got higher test scores than the public schools –- and they don’t -– this would be an abandonment of civic responsibility.
“Suppose the Chicago Tribune did a poll and discovered that most of the parents in the CPS want more resources, smaller classes, arts programs, and social workers in their public schools? What if their poll showed that most parents prefer public schools, not corporate chain schools? Would they print that?
“Don’t hold your breath.”
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Here’s a good debunking of at charter waiting list in Chicago:
http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2013/04/02/the-need-for-charter-schools-the-tribune-overstates-the-case
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It looks like another example of charter school advocates “cooking the books.” Why not let the newspaper spread your false statistics for free?
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When public schools are gone budgets will balance, teachers will all be “excellent” and students will all be College and Career Ready.
That’s how “markets” always work, right? Everyone wins?
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Here’s the recent editorial from the Trib:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-success-charter-school-union-teachers-chicago-edit-0601-bd-20150529-story.html
When the corporate reformers closed 50 public schools back in 2013, they swore up and down that it was due to underenrollment, and that no empty school buildings would be given to charter operators—all to defuse the public protests. Look how this Trib editorial describes their reneging on this promise. It’s says the corporate reform school board is now “easing back on an ill-advised pledge.” The article also makes the same claim that any attempt to restrict charter expansion is just to protect the- “status quo.”
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In Massachusetts, Boston is the largest city and the public school demographics are a challenge: Of 57,000 students: 78% low SES; 87% non-white; 20% SWD; 46% English not the home language; 29% ELL’s. The standardized test results are quite predictable.
But thanks to the way the charter laws are written, Boston is singled out for special treatment:
“Under current law, the state may direct up to 9 percent of the money the district spends on students to fund seats at local charter schools. In low-performing school districts like Boston, the state can direct up to 18 percent of that spending to fund charter schools before it is capped.
The increase in charter seats in Boston is a reflection of Boston Public Schools’ more than $1 billion budget for the 2016 school year — the district’s largest budget ever.”
So, of the state’s 80 charters, 34 operate in the city, and we’re going to get more – up to 668 seats more. Boston’s increases to school funding = increased $$ for charters, which cream off the most tractable kids, which means lower “performance”.
Neat, huh?
http://learninglab.wbur.org/2015/06/04/new-charter-schools-could-come-to-boston/
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Diane, let me suggest that this charter school movement was seized upon by corporate computer “wise guys” aided and abetted by corrupt politicians and fraudulent administrators who were not able to control the environment within their schools and allowed this ruse to gather momentum to cover up for their inability to do their job. This has caused a racial divide within the public school system that has left the black and Hispanic communities to fend for themselves. The white middle class no longer supports the concept of noblesse oblige, and possibly are not even aware that a civilized society demands it from those who are better off. Very soon there will be no teachers who will remember how great the public school system was, and no senior teachers who know how to cope and teach in this kind of environment that has been allowed to deteriorate through benign neglect. Gadflies like me should be recruited to act as ombudsman or possibly “czars” to flatten the administrative pyramid, and return the system to it’s former glory before it’s too late. I would offer a year of my life for expenses only, to change the system for the better, but I would have to be drafted, and allowed to make the necessary recommendations to the public.
Ian
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As a teacher at one of the “highest performing” (according to MAP test data) charter schools in Chicago, I have to say that our school has done some amazing things for students. Test scores are not the only measure of success, but they are a measure, and our test scores significantly beat the average public school scores. The vast majority of students graduate high school and go to college. Beyond that, our school culture is one of love, creativity, inquiry and ambition. Our kids are amazing, our school environment encourages them to set high goals for themselves, and the teachers at our school go above and beyond for their students everyday. Our school used to share a campus with a Chicago public school and the disparity between cultures was extremely evident in student behaviors and teacher attitudes. The disparities in test scores seemed to correlate with the different cultures.
Our charter school isn’t perfect, our students aren’t perfect, and our teachers aren’t perfect. But it is still a pretty amazing place, and I feel very fortunate to work at a place I am confident is making a profound impact on young children in Chicago. It breaks my heart to even think about this school not being an option for families living in poverty in our community. The issue of education in Chicago is not black and white. Advocates of charter schools do not believe a “market-based strategy” is the end-all be-all in fixing education! Obviously we need to address issues of poverty, race, school funding, and community also. Stop this divisive language that we are in a “war.” This is not a war. We are all in this together.
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