You may recall a few recent posts about Nashville Prep, a no-excuses charter school that boasts of its high test scores. This is the school that assigned a book called “City of Thieves” to seventh graders and caused local consternation. The founder of the school insisted that the school was actually using a bowdlerized version of the book, with the salacious passages removed. The National Coalition Against Censorship criticized the school for using a “censored” copy of the book.
This is also the same school that posted videos on its website about its practices; one was called “Six Minutes in Ms. McDonald’s Fifth Grade Social Studies Class,” and it showed children responding robotically and chanting answers to the teacher’s questions. As soon as the video was mentioned on this blog, the school blocked access to viewers.
Guess what? The U.S. Department of Education has just awarded $9.6 million to RePublic Schools, the sponsor of Nashville Prep, to spread its model throughout the South.
The Department’s press release says:
The U.S. Department of Education announced today a grant totaling $9,599,599 million to RePublic Schools. This five year grant under the Charter Schools Program (CSP) will enable RePublic to replicate its school model to serve more students and families and expand its computer science education initiatives across the South. With this investment, RePublic will grow from serving 1,335 students in 2015-2016 to 7,215 students each year by 2022.
With the combined millions of the federal government and foundations, the RePublic model will open more schools in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee.
More of your taxpayers dollars going to compete with and undermine public education.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Just another case of the school-to-prison pipeline backing up — soon you won’t be able to tell them apart.
You are right Jon, I just have one problem with the situation. The wrong people are going to prison if you know what I mean. Arne would look good in some stripes (not the pinstripe variety).
“The founder of the school insisted that the school was actually using a bowdlerized version of the book, with the salacious passages removed. ”
A point of detail, but if the bawdy passages were actually removed, wouldn’t that actually be a “debawdlerized” version?
A book that is edited to remove “offensive” material has been bowdlerized. Nashville Prep bowdlerized the original.
missed your pun!
“Bawdlerdash”
RePublic Schools are bawdlerdash
Ephemeral nimbus plinths
They’re really an insufferable hash
Enough to make you wince
I have just spent several frustrating hours trying to do my Commoners Core ‘closet’ reading of decontextualized informational texts but soon after I started my flashlight batteries ran out [I can’t understand why; they had the VW engineering seal of approval]; I persisted without illumination, trying to build up my rigor and grit. This posting is the first thing I’ve read since escaping from the darkness into the light…
Am I getting unnecessarily confused with word play and typos and such, or are y’all not talking about bowler—as in hats? Or maybe bowling—as in alleys?
I’m not sure what to think. Maybe, as another of today’s postings suggests, I could clear my mind of all those cobwebs by applying to the USED for a grant to open a charter in Ohio.
They say $tudent $ucce$$ has a wonderfully cleansing effect, removing any scruples and doubts from all but the most wary and upright.
Rheeally! And just thinking about doing good for myself by doing it to, er, for the kids makes me feel all tingly, in a most Johnsonally sort of way…
Perhaps I’ll feel different after a good rest…
😎
LOL!…only it is soon sad!
Really troubling. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR5ApYxkU-U If I went there I would be singing this Pink Floyd song.
All because they get high test scores. And how do they get those scores? By narrowing the curriculum significantly. Founder Ravi Gupta explicitly states in an introductory video that the school spends nearly the entire day on math and English.
This is what I mean about playing the game. They’ve geared the school for high test scores. Period. That’s their goal. That’s why this is bad education, or at least very limited. Except in the eyes of reformers and economic researchers.
That’s among the many things wrong here but it’s the one that irritates me the most. My hobby is board gaming. I understand how to build a “winning strategy.” And that’s all Gupta has done. We can argue about whether this constitutes quality (because I know some posters would argue that what Nashville Prep does is fine), but it’s part of that wonderful unfair competitive advantage that charters have. If a public school principal did this (and one in Dallas did), they would be fired (and she was) even though it was a Blue Ribbon school by test score standards.
Such garbage.
Cross-posted at http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Nashville-U-S-Department-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Charter-School-Failure_Charter-Schools_Department-Of-Education_Taxpayers-150929-681.html
My comment AT OPED has embedded links like the one below..
If you read my links about education please tell others how fast the privateers are taking over the ‘schools’ and thus, our democracy.
http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/winter2009/hirsch.pdf I post an almost daily account of legislative takeover of schools with no educators on board, or the handing over of taxpayer money to private charter schools which have no oversight and fail the kids, stealing the money.
Go to the Diane Ravitch blog and get the daily feed, to see the ongoing and quick destruction. and put or corruption or ‘FRAUD’, IN THE SEARCH FIELD and get the truth about the end of the INSTITUTION of public education in America.
Yes, you read about ‘privatization’ of schools, but the reality is that an ignorant public cannot participate in a democracy which depends on shared knowledge, as E.D. Hirsh says.
While our people watch the media circus, the road to opportunity that lifted everyone is disappearing.
Liberty Collegiate Academy was also reading City of Thieves. I told them my daughter was not to continue reading it but they ignored my wishes. The lady from the BOE told me that the children could read an alternative book. I asked her how is that possible when they are reading it aloud in the classroom? Her response was oh…I didn’t know they were reading it aloud in the classroom. I have the copies my daughter was given. It was not edited very well from what I can tell. My daughter went there last year. We didn’t have many issues until the end of the school year. When she started back this year I couldn’t get her out quick enough. She was out of school for a week because I refused to send her back. There are a lot of things going on and the book was the straw that broke the camels back. I demanded her to be put in another school. A lady with the BOE seemed to want to get her moved asap too. Then I found out that she was actually part of the Charter.. They are teaching according to the test. I know this because last year my daughter made all A’s and B’s. On the TCAP she was advanced on most subjects and proficient on a few. She is at her new school and it is clear that they don’t teach to the test but teach like they are supposed to. I am glad to see my daughter smiling. I could share so much but haven’t decided yet what I plan on doing.