Massachusetts will vote in November on Question 2, which would expand the number of privately managed charter schools, a dozen a year forever. The promoters of charters claim to be “saving” poor minority children. But the NAACP for New England sees through the propaganda.
The Chairman of the Education Committee of the New England Area Conference of the NAACP weighed in at the Boston Globe:
AUGUST 27, 2016
“IT IS precisely because of our grave concerns about the devastating impact on black and brown children that the NAACP is part of a broad-based statewide coalition to defeat Question 2, which would lead to unfettered charter school growth, taking billions of dollars in state aid away from local district public schools (“Charter question divides Democrats,” Metro, Aug. 16).
“The battle over this ballot question is not between teachers unions and low-income and minority families. On one side are those who believe that we must stop defunding the public schools that educate 96 percent of our students. On the other are those who support the diversion of billions of dollars of education resources to publicly funded, privately managed, selective, separate, and unequal charter schools.”
John L. Reed
Chairman
Education Committee
NAACP — New England Area Conference
West Roxbury
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Now where have I heard this before? Oh yes …
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Reblogged this on Matthews' Blog.
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I wonder how the Michigan chapter will react to this?
http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2014/06/22/michigan-spends-1b-on-charter-schools-but-fails-to-hold/77155074/
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Some biographical information that may be of interest:
“A member of [National Education Association] NEA’s Board of Directors, Reed served as chair of the NEA Black Caucus for two years. He also held offices in the Massachusetts Teachers Association as well as the Barnstable Teachers Association.”
http://www.nea.org/home/12567.htm
“John L. Reed, chair of the NEAC’s Education Committee and a former member of the MTA Board of Directors, was instrumental in promoting the new partnership between the two organizations.” (The two organizations being the NAACP New England Area Conference and the Mass Teachers Association (MTA)).
http://www.massteacher.org/news/archive/2013/naacp.aspx
I have been curious to learn more about the activities of the NAACP’s New England Area Conference, but have difficulty finding much (other than joint activity with MTA). There’s a Facebook page with occasional comments, but the organization’s web page naacp-neac.org hasn’t worked in a long time, and I can find nothing via Guidestar. Anyone here have some useful links that could help us understand the organization’s accomplishments?
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Stephen, you discovered that the president of the New England NAACP Is or was a teacher! How disturbing! That discredits him in your eyes but not in the eyes of this readers of this blog. Surely, we should listen to billionaires and hedge fund managers. They must know better than teachers what children need. Of course, I am being sarcastic. Mr. Reed heads a membership organization, and he speaks on their behalf. Why do you trust DFER, which speaks for a small number of rich white hedge funders, rather than the NAACP?
If Nr. Reed is or was a teacher, he is very well informed about the dangers of privatization
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Diane: “Why do you trust DFER, which speaks for a small number of rich white hedge funders, rather than the NAACP?”
I trust the kids and their parents in this house and up and down this block, trust their accumulated experience with both traditional and charter schools, much of it positive in both environments.
I have yet to see either DFER Mass. or local NAACP affiliates offer careful, comprehensive analysis concerning the ballot question’s costs and benefits.
Meanwhile, when reading primary research or examining DESE materials, I find that many of the arguments against the initiative are based on data that is outdated, incorrect, or misinterpreted.
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Give it a rest, Stephen.
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Stephen Ronan,
Here is why no one believes your claims of all the parents who support charter schools:
The ads. The fact that the reformers are trying so desperately — no expense spared — to convince the public that they are voting for something they are not.
Everything you post is nonsense. If you were telling the truth, the reformers would run honestly on let’s open more and more charter schools in your neighborhood to compete with your public school.
Not: vote for this to give more money to education.
The reformers themselves know that you aren’t telling the truth! That’s why they are spending millions and millions to fool the public.
There is nothing more you can say. Unless you think the reformers are wrong. Which tells us everything we need to know about trusting dishonest people with our children.
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The lawyers who lost the Vergara case have targeted ” the cruel ” limits on charter and magnet schools in Connecticut. The case is Martinez v. Malloy. According to the lawyer’s op ed in today’s Wall Street Journal, this will be a federal case, arguing for “a federal constitutional right to challenge laws that force inner city children to attend schools the state knows are failing to provide a minimally accept able education. These laws are especially cruel in Connecticut” ….
The lawyers claim that ” California’s refusal to protect its young citizens (from grossly ineffective teachers) has made federal protection essential. Public education meets the US Supreme Court’s fundamental-right test in Washington v. Glucksberg (1997) because it is ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition’ and (is) ‘implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.'”
I have poked around the Internet and found that the Connecticut legislature tried to prevent any freedom of information requests aimed at charter schools, on the grounds that would allow people to harass and spread lies about them. I think that the legislation session ended before that was acted upon… but it could resurface and foreshadow similar efforts in other states.
The outline. of the federal case Is presented in the WSJ opted written by the lawyers Boutrous and Lipshultz. The argument will go back to Brown in support of “equal opportunity” as the grounds for eliminating all caps of charter and magnet schools, initially in one state, then marching on to the Supreme Court.
My take is that the lawyers really want a deregulation of schools. They are working on behalf of the idea that money follows the student, per Milton Friedman’s perverted concept that a free market exists even when it is tax subsidized.
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If the commonwealth ignores the NAACP’s concerns, they should protest. They should work with parents’ groups like United Opt Out as well as teacher groups like BATS. This would help to send a powerful message to policymakers. They do not need more charters; they want their representatives to adequately fund the public schools that 96% of the students attend.
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Have people in Mass. figured out yet that their entire public education debate will be conducted exclusively around charter schools from this point forward?
Because that’s what happens in ed reform states. The public schools become the disfavored “default” system that no one in state government mentions anymore.
It doesn’t end either. The minute they get unlimited expansion of charter they’ll go to more funding for charters and after that it’s just a hop skip and jump to vouchers. They’ll go years without any discussion of existing public schools.
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A perfect description of the anti-public-school message now flourishing in so many venues.
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If Massachusetts has the best public schools in the country yet ed reformers are prescribing the same privatization fix they prescribe in all the other states, then how can this be based on anything other than ideology?
They replace good public systems and bad public systems. Public schools can’t win. Failing, succeeding, it’s exactly the same no matter how the public schools are doing.
Maybe we should work backward- what would be the set of circumstances where these people would support existing public schools?
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Chiara: “If Massachusetts has the best public schools in the country yet ed reformers are prescribing the same privatization fix they prescribe in all the other states, then how can this be based on anything other than ideology?”
Here in Massachusetts, Chiara, aside from the huge variability between districts, even within a single district there can be a great disparity of options, with far fewer appealing options for residents of low-income, largely minority neighborhoods. That’s why residents of such neighborhoods often find charter schools to be an additional appealing public option.
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Stephen,
Charter schools weaken the schools that the vast majority of children attend. We know the hoax. Stop saying the same things over and over. Go elsewhere where people are uninformed. You persuade only the gullible.
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“If Massachusetts has the best public schools in the country yet ed reformers are prescribing the same privatization fix they prescribe in all the other states, then how can this be based on anything other than ideology?”
Despite the best public schools, all of the evidence shows that Massachusetts charter schools do even better for poor urban kids (while doing somewhat worse for suburban whites). Go figure. Evidence and data don’t always conform to your intuition, so it’s important to pay attention to the actual scholarship.
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WT,
Readers of this blog know how certain charters get high scores. They exclude or push out those who get low scores. That’s no secret. It should not be replicated.
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Diane: “Go elsewhere where people are uninformed. You persuade only the gullible.”
Diane, in the “Make Charters Work for All” chapter of “Reign of Error” you write “Charters could become a positive force in American education if the conditions under which they are authorized are changed… Charters should become collaborators with public schools in a shared mission to serve the needs of all children…”
Much of what you suggest there seem eminently sensible to me… Rather than “go elsewhere”, I would prefer to examine those suggestions, discuss them with any who many be interested, including the degree to which any of them may already be in place in Massachusetts, the arguments for and against trying to effectuate the others.
And, whenever you showcase articles/events in opposition to the Massachusetts ballot question, my inclination is to discuss the implications of former BPS middle school teacher Meira Levinson’s finding that the Boston Public Schools (BPS) “school assignment plan violates equal opportunity by giving middle-class families privileged access to existing high-quality schools.” And to examine what alternatives, if any, might work as well as charter schools to fix what I hope you recognize as a serious problem.
I think what frustrates you is that many of the major anti-charter themes that may be valid elsewhere are not well supported by data here in Massachusetts. For example: “Readers of this blog know how certain charters get high scores. They exclude or push out those who get low scores.” I have feet on the ground knowledge of kids who have been expelled from many programs who are hanging in there in our Boston public charter system. But more importantly I have checked the data that should inform an understanding of such matters systemically… and it doesn’t well support many of the accusations that are commonly made either by those knocking on my door in paid opposition to the campaign or those further afield.
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Stephen,
Massachusetts charters also push out or exclude low performing kids. When I reviewed Boston charters, some had not even one ELL, while the BPS schools are double digit ELLs.
As charters expand, oversight grows weaker. If you want to protect the charters you have, vote NO on Question 2.
Also, the recommendations I made for charters was not that they compete with public schools but that they enroll the kids that public schools fail to educate.
Are you good with that?
End the cherrypicking.
Cap the salaries of charter leaders.
Take the kids with the highest needs.
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Diane: “When I reviewed Boston charters, some had not even one ELL, while the BPS schools are double digit ELLs.”
Quite likely you are alluding to one or more of the Brooke charter schools, which Jennifer Berkishire, Peter Greene and others have highlighted as having low levels of students classified as ELL. The Brooke annual report concedes that, stating:
“Overall proportions of special education students and English language learners at Brooke continue to be significantly lower than for the sending district across all three schools. However, we think the following context is important:
• Our new classes of 5th graders have continued to be very representative of the district when it comes to special education. The proportion of students with IEP’s has ranged from 18% to 23% over the last 3 years among incoming 5th graders. This data shows that our recruitment and retention plan is working. The discrepancy between the overall incidence of special education at Brooke vs. other schools is due to the fact that Brooke has systematically and historically identified a far lower proportion of its own students as special education.
• Our new classes of 5th graders have continued to be very representative of the district when it comes to having previously been designated as English Language Learners. However, because Brooke removes that designation from students at a far higher rate than the sending district, many of those students exit ELL status in their first year at Brooke. Therefore, we believe it is both more instructive and fair to measure the rate of EVER-ELL students among our 5th grade classes. When we do, as the graph below shows, the proportions of EVER-ELL’s among our new 5th grade classes is remarkably similar to the district.”
Click to access Brooke-Charter-Schools_School-Year-2014-to-2015-Annual-Report_FINAL.pdf
Diane: “As charters expand, oversight grows weaker.”
That seems far less likely here, where charter authorization powers are held by a single body, than elsewhere where such authority is widely dispersed.
Diane: “recommendations I made… that they enroll the kids that public schools fail to educate.
Are you good with that?”
As you likely know, we already have a substantial set of free, publicly accessible “Approved Massachusetts In-State Day and Residential Private Special Education School Programs” that, while not chartered, are operated by public charities throughout Massachusetts. http://www.doe.mass.edu/pqa/spedpvtlist/
And we have several Phoenix charter schools that I think fit the model you envision.
Diane: “End the cherrypicking.”
A unified enrollment plan has been proposed in Boston: “Rather than have to fill out an application for each school, parents would fill out only one application through Boston public schools for whatever schools — charter or non-charter — they seek to enroll their child in.”
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/09/16/proposal-would-offer-one-stop-enrollment-for-boston-district-charter-schools/cDP45w3fnLjXBgdK0qtViO/story.html
In my view, that could go a long way towards addressing your concerns about potential differences in populations served. But it has been vigorously opposed by the Mass Teachers Association.
Diane: “Cap the salaries of charter leaders.”
Sounds good to me.
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Stephen,
The purpose of “unified enrollment” is to cement the status of charter schools. They are supposed to be on a “charter,” meaning temporary status. If they don’t succeed, they should be closed. That rarely happens.
I oppose unified enrollment.
Public schools are public schools. Charter schools are not public schools.
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Another common “reform” trick is with the methodology of studies. Comparing students to an avatar is not research. Any so called charter gains are minuscule at best, and they are far behind authentic research based gains from Pre-K and class size reduction. https://cloakinginequity.com/2016/08/26/10-things-to-know-about-the-charter-school-debate/
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Readers of the actual scholarly literature would know that what you’re talking about makes no difference. All of the most rigorous studies on Massachusetts charter schools uses the following method: when students win the lottery to attend a charter school, the researcher counts those students against the charter school’s numbers, even if the charter school allegedly pushes them out or even if the student never shows up in the first place!
So it is literally impossible for the charter schools to look better in this analysis by kicking out low-scoring students — those low-scoring students are still going to be counted as “charter” students no matter what.
Readers who are of a more scholarly bent might recognize that what’s going on here is called “intent to treat analysis.”
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WT,
You are wrong about “the most rigorous studies” of Mass charter schools.
Someone who leaves or never enrolled isn’t counted as a student of theirs forever. That would be absurd.
I think you are referring to a study of high school only, where the students coming in already had 9 years of education elsewhere. So you know where an incoming 9th grader stands and can follow his progress after he leaves a charter school. That is a very limited and irrelevant number.
The high performing charters that are expanding exponentially are the ones that start in Kindergarten. There has never been a simple study that examined how many of the original winners of the K lottery made it to 3rd grade. Or 5th grade. The only longitudinal study I have seen was done by the NYC Independent Office which showed a 49.5% attrition rate (aggregated) in a group of 40 or so charters by 5th grade. That’s terrible that half the kids are gone, but what is REALLY terrible is the charter that is at the high end of that average! Is it 70% gone? 80% gone? You’d sure think someone would be interested. But since the oversight is SUNY and they are “see no evil as long as test scores are high”, none was done.
It’s certainly easy to look at data and see that at the very highest performing charter school network where kids start in K, that schools having “99% proficiency rates” are also charters that lose enormous cohorts of 2nd grade students before 3rd grade testing. No one is studying where those kids go. No one cares. Least of all the people who oversee charters whose goal is to promote charters. Whatever keeps test scores high is mighty fine with them. And no questions asked.
That’s why the NAACP is concerned. As oversight goes, the charter oversight board’s guiding philosophy to ask no questions about “anomalies” as long as test scores are high is not something that the NAACP trusts. I guess they don’t agree that it’s fine for the majority of kids to suffer in exchange for the few cherry picked kids to have the “best” education billionaire hedge fund money can buy.
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Many charter schools have been launched specifically for the purpose of resegregating schools in certain locales. The fact that billionaires and hedge funds could pocket tens of millions of public tax dollars from this new kind of segregation was just a bonus. The first calls for “reform” in the form of vouchers arose immediately after the 1954 Supreme Court ruling on Brown v. Board of Education in which the Court declared that separate but equal was inherently unequal and ordered racial integration of the public schools. That ruling triggered “white flight” from public schools to private schools — but parents quickly realized that the tuition cost of private schools was more than they wanted to pay out-of-pocket. That realization led political and private resegregationists to the concoct the “reform” of vouchers, and to sell it to eager parents by deceptively marketing it then (and now) as merely giving parents free “choice.”
But the 1950’s voucher reform faded away when it became clear that because of school attendance boundaries no more than a few token blacks would be attending formerly all-white public schools. In 1972 when the Supreme Court finally ordered busing to end the ongoing de facto segregation, the reform movement rose from its grave and has been alive ever since then trying new tactics to restore racial segregation because it’s unlikely that the Court’s racial integration order can ever be reversed. When it became clear in the 1980’s that vouchers would never become widespread, the segregationists tried many other routes to restore racial segregation, and the most successful has been charter schools because charter schools can be sold to blithely unaware do-gooder billionaires as well as to unscrupulous profiteers who recognized charter schools as a way to divert vast amounts of tax money into their own pockets and into the pockets of supportive politicians at every level of government.
An essential part of the strategy to mask their underlying motives has been for segregationists to sell the public on the necessity for charter schools because public schools are allegedly “failing.” With all manner of “research” that essentially compares apples to oranges against foreign nations’ students, and with the self-fulfilling prophecy of dismal public school performance generated by drastic underfunding of public schools, and with condemnation of public school teachers based on statistically invalid student test scores, the segregationists are succeeding in resegregating education in America via what are basically private charter schools that are funded with public money.
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