http://www.fixthemitten.com/blog/do-cornerstones-religious-charter-schools-have-a-separate-existence
A businessman named Clark Durant founded private schools and charters schools in Michigan.
The private schools are religious.
But this blogger says that it is hard to tell the difference.
Michigan’s state constitution specifically prohibits public funding of religious schools.
But:
Stephen Henderson of the Detroit Free Press has penned a glowing column about Cornerstone Schools. In the piece, Henderson writes about Cornerstone’s private schools and charter schools. He explains that businessman Clark Durant founded Cornerstone Schools 25 years ago; he describes the schools’ history and growth. He portrays Cornerstone Schools as constantly improving. He emphasizes that Durant recently reassigned a particularly effective principal from Cornerstone’s private high school to one of Cornerstone’s charter schools.
I’m sure Cornerstone provides a satisfactory education for many children — in both its private and charter schools. That’s not the problem. The problem is that it can be difficult to tell the difference.
Try a Google search for “Cornerstone Schools Detroit” sometime. Then check out the results. Are you looking at the website for Cornerstone’s private, religious schools? Or are you on the website for its charter schools? Can you tell?
Sure, you’ll notice that Cornerstone’s religious schools are headquartered at 6861 Nevada on Detroit’s east side. By contrast, Cornerstone’s charter schools are based at a location in Royal Oak. The private schools and charter schools have different telephone numbers, and their websites list different media contacts.
But they also share many similarities. The boards of directors have members in common, including Durant, Oakland Circuit Judge Michael Warren, and attorney John R. Nicholson. Both websites state, “We see transformed lives, for good; and a new city for all.” And both sites reference Cornerstone’s “Christ-centered” beginnings.
Christ-centered? Yes. You read that correctly. Unlike Cornerstone’s private schools website, the charter schools site does not explicitly mention “Jesus.” Nevertheless, the religious undertones are present if you know where to look. Under “The Cornerstone Charter Schools Story,” beneath the subtitle “Read More About Our History,” the website specifically recounts how Cardinal Adam Maida once “asked the community to help build cornerstones for the city,” and makes clear that Cornerstone’s charters grew out of “a Christ-centered schooling alternative . . . .”
With so much overlap between Cornerstone’s private and charter schools, one has to wonder whether the charter schools are simply an alter ego for the private schools. They certainly appear to be two sides of the same coin. Do they have separate identities? Or are they so closely related that they make up a single unit? One founder. Common directors. The free transfer of employees between the two. Similar websites. Identical mission statements. These factors strongly suggest a unity of purpose, and provide at least some evidence that one entity is a mere instrumentality of the other.
Since reformers are agnostic about public schools, they see no reason to distinguish between their “public” charter schools and their religious schools. Does the state constitution say it can’t be done. Ignore it.
SO? The politicians see what they wish to see. This distinction on charters and religion has been known and commented on for a LONG time. Anything change?
I did my field experience last year in a charter school in Columbus, Ohio where Arabic was taught to every student regardless of religion starting in Kindergarten, for the specific purpose of them being able to read the Quran. Religion was even mentioned on their website.
Within ten years every single ed reformer will be promoting vouchers for every school, public and private.
Once they redefined “public” as “publicly funded” it was inevitable.
Democrats support vouchers now, and less than a decade ago they vowed that would never happen. Most of them say it – they want the money to follow the child. That’s a backpack voucher, which used to be a far Right proposal. It’s now mainstream in ed reform.
Very sadly well said, Chiara
Happy to see free markets are working in edreformland.
Did the public school parents pay for this charter ad campaign smearing their kids?
“A promotional mailer claiming to be from a new Catasauqua charter school paints Liberty High School students as drug users, sparking outrage among many Bethlehem residents.
Innovative Arts Academy Charter School denies it had anything to do with sending out the promotional mailer, which lists the school’s return address.
The postcard references the September 2015 drug arrest of a 17-year-old Liberty student and asks “Why worry about this type of student at school? Come visit Arts Academy Charter School. Now enrolling grades 6-12.”
It shows a stock image of a teenager holding their head in their hands and reprints a Morning Call headline: “Teen busted by Liberty HS officials with more than $3,000 of heroin, cocaine.”
http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/bethlehem/index.ssf/2016/08/why_worry_about_this_type_of_s.html
We’ll see if this is investigated. It’s in one of the ed reform “disaster” states so it won’t be.
This week John Oliver featured some of the problems with charter schools. He did not talk about the philosophical aspects of charters; he mostly highlights all the waste and fraud of charters in Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio, in a very entertaining way. His clips show that these laws are being exploited by fraudsters and opportunists while our leaders do nothing more than authorize more of them. http://theweek.com/speedreads/644265/john-oliver-points-some-pretty-glaring-problems-charter-schools
Jesus is, of course, completely unrelated to “Christ”.
Charter cheerleader site The 74 makes excuses for the disaster that is ed reform in Ohio and Pennsylvania :
https://www.the74million.org/article/smith-a-few-thoughts-about-john-olivers-bleak-unrepresentative-sample-of-public-charter-schools
I didn’t see the Oliver piece. Did he also mention that Michigan is a disaster?
Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan are a good chunk of people. Ed reformers might want to take a look at what they’re doing in these states.
Private schools in Florida are celebrating a recent court decision that gives wealthy citizens a tax break to underwrite a voucher, known as a “scholarship,” so that students can go to private schools. Those that benefit the most are the Jewish students and schools. Most of these parents probably would have sent their children to a Yeshiva anyway, and the same is true for many Catholic schools. Any additional challenges will have to be on the federal level as the Florida courts have been captured by “reform.” http://hamodia.com/2016/08/17/florida-court-dismisses-lawsuit-state-scholarships-private-school-students/
What a shame that none of the thousands of public employees on the state education payroll in Florida can find any time for public schools.
I suppose we need a requirement that public employees who are supposedly paid to “improve public education” support public schools.
Freaking ridiculous. We’re paying thousands of public employees who are opposed to public schools.
They even have the audacity to sneer when they mention “government schools,” as an insult, even though these representatives are paid from the same public till. Many conservatives only want the government to provide defense, and not much else.
Sheesh. It sounds to me like so many of those in power are mistaking capitalism for a political system (speaking of their own reductive education). Shall we tell them that capitalism is not equivalent to a republic? . . , and that “doing business” is not equivalent to the fullness of education to live well humanly in that republic/democracy?
Also, it seems we are re-fighting the basic idea behind the Civil War where the whole idea was to keep the democratic/republican Union ONE and whole.
In this case, as the writer of the article says, “I’m sure Cornerstone (school system) provides a satisfactory education for many children — in both its private and charter schools. That’s not the problem. The problem is that it can be difficult to tell the difference.”
It’s difficult to tell the difference because the difference is not in what they do (educate developing children), or even that they are separate schools (all schools are different in many respects, and some religious schools adhere to democratic standards). Rather, the difference emerges more clearly when you look at the deeper level of foundations. At this level, separation of the tree (particular educational institutions) from their democratic root (education for all to live well in a constitutional democracy) CREATES THE EASIER CONDITIONS for subtle but profound diversions from the assumptions and values that flow, and should flow, directly from their original roots in that democracy (open discourse [and by inference, learning], equality under the law, freedom, including of religion, and again of speech, assembly, and the press–I could go on).
Those diversions can be fueled by any one of a number of biases and covert “interests,” e.g., dark money funders that more easily benefit from those diversions at that deeper level. The list is long as is so obvious on this and other blogs.
For instance, give schools public money, but don’t expect to regulate them fully or according to public-democratic standards.
To regulate “private” or charter schools (a variation of the tree) rightly in a democracy (the root) is to hold their feet to the fire of the Constitution, its Amendments, and associated public regulations. Hence, for instance, Catholic schools must adhere to the standards set by the U. S. Government for basic education (and from my experience, though tensions abound, in most cases, they do). Charter and private schools, however, need not, but CAN easily slip away from such direct adherence, as the above note suggests, along with many other of the references here on Diane’s blog. Where the bond with the root is damaged or severed, or reduced to their ONLY receiving public funding, the choices of diversions from the principles of a democracy become many and pretty-much arbitrary in content, method, and intent (ideology).
With the tree severed from its foundational root, then, such schools can hang around awhile operating in the qualified “air” of their adherence to that democratic root and its principles; and so they can easily become systematic and a part of the landscape where “the poplec” will get used to them. The issue can too-easily be, however, not IF those unconnected institutions change course in insidious ways, but WHEN.
As an aside, it also appears that an embrace of capitalist values as the leading foundational guide has unleashed a torrent of immoral opportunists who, unhinged from their democratic foundations, now get to choose which capitalist they want to serve: usually it’s themselves. Fortunately, we have courts.
This is not to say, howeer, that the U.S. Government or our Departments of Education are always right or to go unquestioned. It’s a matter of constant dialogue and refinement, as is anything worthwhile and human. The question that emerges, it seems to me, and from a foundational view is: are we to be a democracy/re-public, or are we to be an oligarchy, or worse?
Thank you for your thoughtful comments. Income inequality is an enemy of democracy. Citizens should be vigilant in a climate that intentionally blurs the lines between public and private ‘partnerships’ often funded by dark money.
“. . . that “doing business” is not equivalent to the fullness of education to live well humanly [and humanely] in that republic/democracy?”
Exactly!
Which brings us to the question: What is the fundamental purpose of public education in the US?
To answer that question I have reviewed/analyzed the 50 state constitutions for commonalities. 25 state constitutions give no rational for public education, they just authorize it. Of the remaining 25, five have a purpose that extol the benefits of public education to the state, fifteen commending the benefits to the individual and five a combination of benefit to both state and individual, resulting in 80% of those with a stated purpose having the benefits for the individual as primary.
So I looked at the wording in those 20 and came up with the following as the fundamental purpose: “The purpose of public education is to promote the welfare of the individual so that each person may savor the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the fruits of their own industry.”
As usual, none of the bold disrupters in ed reform considered the effects of their actions on the children in public schools, who DID NOT get to choose whether their schools would be thrown into chaos:
“On the first day of school, more than 500 new students swarmed into Livermore public schools, the vast majority fleeing the city’s two embattled charter schools in light of a litany of accusations ranging from fiscal mismanagement to criminal wrongdoing.
The Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District got nearly double the number of new students it was expecting as parents a few weeks ago began pulling their children out of Livermore Valley Charter School and Livermore Valley Charter Preparatory.”
Why weren’t the public school students considered when this was launched?
They’re just there as the disfavored back-up for the choice schools? I reject that designation. i reject this idea that they can designate public schools as the safety net when their experiments fail. I think the children in public deserved an advocate in this process.
Good point. Also, how is that fair to that school district? They have to scramble like mad to accommodate this rush. Then no one will be happy with them.
Let the market open and close schools. No ilinstability there!
“Reformers” use students as guinea pigs. When the experiment or lapse of judgment fail, the struggling public schools pick up the pieces and carry on. Public schools are being treated like the “black sheep” of the educational family. How can they plan and organize to do good work under such unfair, hostile, and irresponsible conditions?
First, Henderson has typically been critical of charters. The Free Press, unlike it’s Tea Party companion rag The Detroit News, has greater editorial balance.
Second, Cornerstone is a tough target. Durant makes over half million per year but he has not been an aggressive expansionist until recently. (He did lose the Republican primary for US Senate a while back.) Cornerstone has not been a publicity hound either. They keep off the radar. I don’t say these things to defend them. Rather noting that there are far more egregious actors in the charter realm.
As for the religion part, that’s common Michigan practice. One middle class suburban has multiple charters run by NHA and they cater to local non-denominationall mega church families. Worst kept secret on this side of the suburbs.
So, yeah, that’s an entanglement but the free market regulates itself. (Sarcasm.)
God loves herself a free market!
IMHO, public education is the bedrock of democracy with responsibility to humanity and civilization. This is the principle that citizens pay tax to fund the public education. Period.
All different kind of private education with its own goal to protect and to sustain their interest or ideology, the founder must fund his private education privately. They can do fundraising and marketing WITHOUT TAPPING into public tax fund.
Republican, Democrat, Green, and Libertarian Party leaders cannot abuse their power to take away PUBLIC EDUCATION FUND to support other education interests, like Charter, voucher, or religious whether it is Christian, Jewish, Gluen, Muslim, Buddhist, or…
Public education system is an open minded place where young learners learn to tolerate and to mutual respect for other cultures, beliefs on the foundation of peace, harmony, civilized, and definitely NON-VIOLENT or NON-EXTREMIST view in political ideology.
Whenever the righteousness and rightfulness agree on the importance of transparency in process of the establishment or the foundation in the protocol for PUBLIC education, the clarity and the validity of all BASIC curriculums should be honored for life.
The genius and the illiterate will be shown distinctively. However, the average and above average will be the aim of the achievement to build our society where the majority is the skillful and compassionate workforce. Being considerate for the welfare of all is the focus point in any civic society. This is how to build the great America. Back2basic
It’s not only about funding. It’s also about basic field-developed and endorsed standards and regulations.
Catherine Blanche King,
Can you please explain more about what you mean by “basic field-developed and endorsed standards and regulations!
Duane Swacker asks about a prior note of mine: “Can you please explain more about what you mean by ‘basic field-developed and endorsed standards and regulations!'”
My reference there was to content and methods standards of rigor (evidenced based, as in [generally] empirical method) that are defined by and that flow from specialized fields of study, for instance, English or mathematics. I was referring to what goes on in fields before we get to what is commonly meant by “school standards,” so of course they are related, but different also.
Here and in most Western countries at least, someone who teaches mathematics, for instance, is trained (with some oversight) in the specialty of math which, as a quite specialized field with many sub-fields, has its history of hard-won development (from the early Greeks forward), as well as a field’s interrelation with other fields, e.g., in “science” you have biology and chemistry; and in social sciences and fields of study, you have philosophy, psychology and sociology; which are distinct fields with their own specific “field endorsed” methods and content, but which are also intrinsically related.
In turn, that specialized field development of content and methods comes to the K-12 student through the trained (and hopefully otherwise-educated) teacher who understands the rigor of that field, working in unison with chosen curricula, from content to testing and assessments. In turn, people who chose that curricula depend on quality content and rigorous methods, and teacher quality, depending on the requirements and expectations of the field.
Again, that curricula is “sourced” and flows “down” from each specialty field which is commonly critical, vibrant, creative, and open to change according to their own critical standards of field research, verification, and review, which varies according to specific content. The fields also foster contested, publicly reviewed, and leading edge movements of thought and ideas, e.g., in Ph.D. programs and professors who take their contributions to their fields seriously and who are doing seminal peer-reviewed and published work to move their field forward.
As we get from college and university teaching and field training into K-12, the specialties get condensed where one teacher teaches from several fields, and teachers (in most cases) are required to have a certain amount of training in age-specific child development. Teaching methods become central; and content is age- and child-development-specific.
That’s what I meant. And all of that movement of thought, meaning, and rigor has informed what in education we commonly and more generally mean by “standards.” Catherine
Thanks for the reply, Catherine!
I understand your concept of what are “more generally mean(t) by ‘standards'”. However it seems that the current usage of the term standards does not include all of that prior historical thought and practices, i.e., discourse but rather is meant to delineate a goal or objective of the curriculum to aspire towards (as if the teaching and learning process can be broken down into little discreet bits of information that can be “measured”).
Another way to look at it is that the term standard has many different meanings and the confusion lies in using standard in one fashion when it doesn’t warrant that connotation. Confusion abounds when these confusing meanings obtain.
There is a lot of discussion about charter policies on this blog.
These vary by state, but key features of policies for all states, updated to 2016, can be found at the Education Commission of the States website
http://www.ecs.org/charter-school-policies/
You can see the Michigan policies here.
http://ecs.force.com/mbdata/mbstprofexcL?Rep=CSP15&st=Michigan
Note that policies in the ECS database do not cite the legislative action that produced the policies. Those citations would have to be found in order for lawyers to work on issues.
For a good case study of that legal work, based only on public records in California, see the violations of state law found in 253 charter schools in California (20%). The report lists the strategies in use to select the students and how the illegal sorting works after enrollment: https://www.aclusocal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Report-Unequal-Access-080116.pdf
Postscript for Duane Swacker–it’s not only about funding–in that context, schools cannot (yet) teach anything they want or avoid teaching “the basics” to the above kinds of standards–for instance, several of the fields (math, English, etc.) must be taught in private schools; and even home schooling has standards to meet and verify at the local level, which in turn, is state (publicly) guided and regulated.
The assumption, of course, is that “the public” in a democracy/republic (small d/r), though there is no guarantee where human education is concerned in a free country and culture, need to have a certain level of education to become knowledgeable and responsible citizens, and that moving everyone towards that set of goals is essential to all concerned; and it’s the responsibility of public education that is intimately connected with our political form of government which we claim to love. I’m sure that set of ideas has an interesting history.
These two notes are too long, but I hope helpful. Catherine
Hello Duane: Of course you are right about confusions of meaning in common discourse (like blogs). This is why it’s always good to ask for explanations of meaning in common discourse, as you have, where we are not sure what someone means and multiple meanings apply. It’s confusing, but also holds great potential for enrichment. God Bless Freedom of Speech, Assembly, Press, and Religion. Catherine
Duane: Your perusal of the States led me to look up the U.S. Department of Education’s mission statement, which is copied and linked below.
I was glad to see their “twin goals” of both “equal access” and “excellence.” though in today’s way of doing things, we should watch for it these to mysteriously disappear down the Dark Power Rabbit Hole, along with the Department itself.
Also, considering their brief account of the Department’s history, their notion of “global competition” was rooted in the dismay of the Soviet’s endeavors in space and the collective gasp we experienced when we realized they were beating us. That terminology is not necessarily, but also not exclusive of, a relatively new interpretation that puts it in the ballpark of global economic power in the form of oligarchic interests where our competition with the Soviets, based on their interest in world domination, in-authentically. recedes.
Mission (quoted in full)
“Despite the growth of the Federal role in education, the Department never strayed far from what would become its official mission: to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.”
“The Department carries out its mission in two major ways. First, the Secretary and the Department play a leadership role in the ongoing national dialogue over how to improve the results of our education system for all students. This involves such activities as raising national and community awareness of the education challenges confronting the Nation, disseminating the latest discoveries on what works in teaching and learning, and helping communities work out solutions to difficult educational issues.”
“Second, the Department pursues its twin goals of access and excellence through the administration of programs that cover every area of education and range from preschool education through postdoctoral research. For more information on the Department’s programs see the President’s FY 2017 Budget Request for Education.”
Link: http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/role.html