I recently heard from a teacher who taught in a charter middle school in Detroit. He is a certified social studies teacher, who has taught in both public and charter schools. The school he describes here is one of Michigan’s many for-profit schools (80% of charters in Michigan are run for profit). I asked him if he could write about his experience, and he sent the following:
“You are there to produce results, specifically test results; you are there to provide structure; you are not there to think; you are there to obey; you shall follow the curriculum; you shall train students for future careers and colleges; you need to enforce the rules and procedures; if students do not follow the rules and procedures, they need to go.
“White men in suits will watch your classes and nitpick your every move; every mistake and negative outcome is your fault. There is no excuse- there are never any excuses. Arrive earlier, stay later, care more, think less; others will go, maybe you will go; students will go; others will take your places. More structure- more discipline- take away recess- make the students sit in classrooms silently at lunch. Force students to march on the blue line all through the school- they need to obey. But don’t ask why all of this happens- never ask.
“Math and reading; reading and math; reading and more math” is what a student told me when I asked him what he worked on during summer school. These are taught because they are tested. Your job and the school’s charter depend on test score results. So, you teach math and reading test questions, even in classes named “Leadership,” “Workshop,” and “Computer Science.” History is the subject that doesn’t matter, science is the subject that doesn’t matter but gets computers. Gym, recess, art, and music are frivolous- there’s no time for that. Drill students more on test questions. Use the internet more- don’t reinvent the wheel- let your dean and principal do the thinking.
Stop the students from talking, from talking to one another; don’t let them talk using that hood talk, that’s not correct; they are not living correctly. You need to correct them, so put them in front of the computer and let the computer teach. Let the student’s mind go- they need to pass the test- THEY NEED TO PASS THE STANDARDIZED TEST OR ELSE WE FAIL.
“Let the curriculum do the thinking- your thoughts aren’t valued here. Your values aren’t valued here- that’s for JC Huizinga and Clark Durant (look them up). That’s for rich white men who didn’t go to charter schools or urban schools, who never taught in charter schools, who have no training in how to educate young minds. These are the same men who skim a buck off of broken down buildings and communities and who make $300k per year as figureheads but want to tell YOU how to uplift the poor and vulnerable on an at-will contract and a $40k/year salary.
“Let’s do something” Durant and Huizinga and the others must have said; they cared; they really did. But they asked the wrong questions; they didn’t learn their history. They created their own history; they want to take a giant eraser and erase the painful moments for those who are in pain; but you can’t erase pain. Pain and suffering and exclusion caused by systemic racism and lead poisoning and drug addiction and unstable home lives cannot be simply erased with business practices, more structure, and fancy gimmicks. These gimmicks, procedures, and pressures will not bring the jobs back to Detroit nor will it erase the poverty that causes shame and despair for the Black people that remain in the ashes. The charter schools rob the already crumbling public schools of money and students, rob the community from knowing what’s really going on, and pin full responsibility for uplifting students out of poverty on teachers.
“The true solutions require messy answers, holistic and complex answers, and they require the rich white men to give back some of their money, not just using their money to tell other people how to live- people that they don’t know, black faces in black spaces, places that these men would themselves never step foot in.
“So if you want to know what it’s like to teach in a charter middle school in Detroit, it devalues your life as a teacher, takes away your power and values just like it takes away the students’ power and values, substitutes them with gimmicks and buzzwords, and tells you that it’s your sole responsibility to uplift students out of poverty.”
That’s funny, because this is one of the divisions of the US Department of Education:
https://twitter.com/ed_oii
How is this different from a public school? We have standards to follow, we have outcomes that must be achieved or your budget gets cut, reading and math drive ALL curriculum. I see no difference other than we don’t have the option of denying a student from our school. Public is public regardless and everyone has that right.
Also, Diane, it’s impolite to talk about the reality of ed reform in these unfashionable states.
Please ignore ed reform in MI, OH and PA and focus exclusively on 5 high-performing charter orgs in Boston and NYC.
Illinois will be the next charter disaster zone, incidentally. They’re doing in Illinois exactly what they did in Ohio and Michigan.
I’m sensing a pattern here…
The pattern is the blind leading the blind.
And, when it comes to the demographics of charter schools – their funders, administrators, teachers, PR flacks, et. al. – it’s also the blond leading the blond.
Off-topic, but, as an avid Pokemon Go player, I thought I’d share this new Pookemon Go (Away) game for a humor break today: http://www.viewfromtheedge.net/?p=9293
Off topic as well. But after reading about the horrifying accident at the Kansas waterslide, can anybody suspect Brownback’s massive cuts somehow contributed? From Flint lead to now this. When will people learn that cutting government services does not improve the economy but has real consequences?
In fact, all the hoopla about savings in privatization is a myth. I currently live in a military community with lots of military contractors. My husband does taxes for them. He was told by more than one that employers keep two sets of books, one for them and a padded one they charge the government. All privatization does is destroy middle class jobs, contribute to income inequality and provide a source of public funds to private vendors. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/study-privatizing-government-doesnt-actually-save-money/2011/09/15/gIQA2rpZUK_blog.html
WOW! Thanks for this!
Cross-posted at http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Teacher-What-It-s-Like-to-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Charter-School-Failure_Charter-Schools_Diane-Ravitch_Procedures-160809-217.html#comment611821
with commentary that links back to this site.
This article struck a nerve with me. It is so sad that this is the state of many of our schools.
As a former Detroit Public Schools high schools mathematics teacher, I have to say that my teaching experience was very similar to this teacher’s experience.
The pressure to have students perform on standardized tests was unreal. We also had courses where content wasn’t taught what the course title implied. For example, Spanish was really “English”. Probability and Statistics was really “ACT Mathematics test prep, with some algebra foundation sprinkled in”. Standardized tests drove the entire curriculum and course planning, to the point that students were enrolled in multiple mathematics and english courses every term. Our lowest performing students didn’t get the opportunity to take elective courses, and our highest performing students had limited offerings too.
Though there are many similarities between my experience and the teacher’s experience, what gives? I was a teacher in a Detroit PUBLIC school. Our similarities are too similar. I had to respond and let folks know that this is not just a charter school issue in Detroit.
Sorry for the typos. Also, sorry for the brief response to Diane’s post (I wanted to type so much more)! Unfortunately, I’m on my iPhone and it would be too much to type.
The reality is charter expansion hurts public schools as they try to serve the neediest, most expensive students to educate on a diminished budget. With high stakes testing and VAM, teachers in public schools are in survival mode. The big losers are students.
Charters have all of the issues the districts have. My school is a for profit charter in Detroit and we are well supplied and do not lack supplies or materials. All schools are dancing to the standardized test tune if your school is not producing acceptable test scores it affects everything especially funding. Charters are not really the problem… It’s all the mandating and changes at the state and federal level. Educators are always aiming for a moving target. Look at all the big curriculums to see how and who those companies are linked to in government and how decisions are made about what should be used… Open court, Reading Street.. Money and power corporate education…. It not about the kids it about selling educational product as a solution to poor test scores.
These charter schools reduce the teacher to a fearful trembling indentured servant. Even if a teacher survives all the micro-managing and browbeating, no teacher can survive the accumulation of years of experience process. Meaning, once a teacher achieves the veteran status with many years of experience, said teacher then has a target on his/her back for being eliminated for any trumped up excuse. There’s no union, no tenure, no due process, no seniority and no LIFO principle.
AH, Joe. You figured this out? it began in the late eighties, and was perfected in the nineties as the media sang a song of these ‘incompetent, perverts’ who teach our kids.
You got it right, but you do not realize how enormous is the conspiracy by the EDUCATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
Click to access eic-oct_11.pdf
Did you read this, which I posted here many times. http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
I was famous in NYC and the state… my resume at my author’s page here. http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html
They did it anyway, because the UFT under Randi Weingarten, looked theater way. http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/2013/07/its-time-to-fire-bad-union-leaders-like.html?spref=bl
That was the nineties. VAM came next to make it easier!
Here is one piece in the chronicle of LAUSD at this amazing site:
http://www.perdaily.com/2015/01/were-you-terminated-or-forced-to-retire-from-lausd-based-on-fabricated-charges.html
Read Lorna Stremcha’s book, because her story is hat they did to over a hundred thousand teachers across America.
http://www.amazon.com/Bravery-Bullies-Blowhards-Lessons-Classroom/dp/0991309936/ref=cm_sw_em_r_dptop_dn1Avb040EW4Q_tt
here is what happened to her, http://blog.ebosswatch.com/2013/05/one-womans-legal-fight-against-workplace-bullying/
http://nycrubberroomreporter.blogspot.com/2013/10/lorna-stremcha-and-her-rubber-room.html
and here she tells about the Lawlessness.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGMBKF2UMq4&feature=em-share_video_user
EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you for publishing this. The details about the wealthy whites from the financial sector reaping financial rewards and political power from poor Black and Latinos is sickening. These “caring” people do not have any contact with the people they “care” so much about and don’t have any experience or knowledge about education. Disgusting.
I still can’t get a single reformsters to explain how, specifically, high test scores lift students out of poverty. How do test scores pay for tuition, rent, car payments, insurance, utilities, medical care, child care, savings, or groceries?
The formula seems to be:
Charter schools + high test schools + MAGIC = end to poverty.
Where are all of the formerly urban and rural poor who have benefited from this magic formula?
Don’t insult me with anecdotal stories of a few exceptions. Name the communities and neighborhoods that are no longer poor due to charter schools and test scores.
Or better yet, stop spreading pernicious lies that appeal to people’s laziness and unwillingness to do the hard stuff to end poverty.
You’re blowing a hole in the myth of “reform.” For the charter strivers that make it into college and perhaps a better life, there is no way to prove that these resilient students would not have done as well or better in a well resourced, comprehensive public school. Many students from tough urban public schools succeed, but we don’t have PR tracking machine documenting their success. Public education does not have a mechanism of self promotion.
“The charter schools rob the already crumbling public schools of money and students, rob the community from knowing what’s really going on, and pin full responsibility for uplifting students out of poverty on teachers.”
I tried to move back to MI a couple of years ago, and I just refused to humor any job postings at the zillions (!!!) of charter schools, for these exact reasons. They are such a poison. I’m still really far away from my family, in Seattle, WA, working in a challenging and rewarding school, and I feel for the population of Michigan, where extreme Republican/TEA Party nonsense has scarred the very people and land they were charged with leading. What an extremely sad state of affairs.
There was a huge scandal this last spring when pictures were published in all the local papers of mushrooms, mold and vermin infestation in Detroit’s public schools. Plaster and ceiling tiles falling. But what was the first step in the dismantling of the Detroit Public Schools many years ago? Privatization of the custodians! Without anyone to take care of the buildings, of course they will fall apart! This last year they privatized custodians and bus drivers in many of the suburban schools: Troy, Novi, Farmington, Canton, Birmingham, etc. And so it goes.
I have not taught at a charter school, but the principal I had last year had some charter-like practices. This sounded very familiar to me.