The Detroit Free-Press speculates about why Ichigan did not win $45 million to create new charter schools. Well, it could be because the stat does not exercise oversight of charter authorizers or charter schools. It could be because the state’s charter schools perform poorly. It could be because the Detroit Free Press ran a series about charters and their lack of accountability or transparency or quality.
But why did Ohio win $71 million for its equally poor charter industry?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Well, since we’re speculating on a mysterious and completely opaque process, the Obama Administration grant to Ohio coincided with the Kasich Administration and Ohio lawmakers vastly expanding privatization authorization with a new state law that was passed over a 48 hour period with no debate.
Maybe unrelated, but it is a fact that those two things occurred at the same time.
Cross posted at http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Why-Michigan-lost-shot-at-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Accountability_Charter-School-Failure_Charter-Schools_Education-151029-833.html#comment569495
with this comment, which contains embedded links back to this site, where so much valuable information can be found!!! Thanks Diane!
This story is a bit more than a year old, but it remains relevant as an update on the education “reforms” i.e. charter schools — favored by the mammoth Walton Family Foundation which has spent more than a billion on its far-right, free-market vision of school reform. The foundation estimates that it has provided funding for one of every four new charters in the country.
“Charter schools (and there is little difference between for profit charters and charters run by private charter management organizations which include most of charters in Denver, for example) are not public schools and “reformers” who keep saying that are naive or misinformed or worse.”
And as posted at the Ravitch Blog,: Alan Singer reviews some of the many charter school scandals, some of which were reported here. But he has some new ones that you should know about.
Here are some good examples:
While the New York Times seems determined to promote charter schools, other news agencies and educational groups are expressing increased reservations about their lack of performance, excessive expense and political and financial backing. The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) reports that 2,500 charter schools have failed since 2000. The list includes “ghost” schools that collected public funds but never served any students. These include 25 charter schools in Michigan that were awarded federal grants of between three and four million dollars in 2010-2011 but never opened. CMD estimates that during the last twenty years the charter school industry has received over three billion dollars in federal tax dollars that should have gone to public schools”.
A recent study by the National Bureau of Economic Research on North Carolina charter school enrollment and performance from 1999 to 2012 found that “charter schools in North Carolina are increasingly serving the interests of relatively able white students in racially imbalanced schools.” Enabling legislation “explicitly stated that charter schools could not discriminate on the basis of race or ethnicity.” However, the study found the percentage of White students attending North Carolina charter schools is increasing as is the number of schools where White students predominate. In Durham County, “where the rapid growth of charters has not only increased racial segregation,” it has “also has imposed significant financial burdens on the school district.” Their research suggests that charters are systematically recruiting White and academically higher performing minority students to boost school-wide performance on standardized exams and that the trends they observed will continue and accelerate”.
Detroit 90/90, a charter school management company that operates Detroit’s largest charter school network is busy fighting efforts by its teachers to join a union. The company is currently challenging a National Labor Relations Board ruling during the summer that Teach for America recruits should be in the same bargaining unit as regular teachers. Maybe they are on to something, but the charter management company claimed TFA recruits were” temporary service workers,” not professional educators, and ineligible to become part of the teachers’ union.
There seems to be a very strong push by hedge fund managers to charterize more and more public schools. Perhaps they are afraid that the public is catching on and time is running out for them. They see that their millions are harming the vast majority of kids, who are in public schools, but they don’t care. They don’t care about results. This is a game for them, a hobby, a better activity than polo. It is about money, power, and greed.
I live in Michigan, and would love to repost this piece, but there are too many typos. Could someone correct the spelling, please?