You know this story already, as it was decided a few days ago, but it is nice to see the headline in the Washington Post:
National Labor Relations Board decides charter schools are private corporations, not public schools
The National Labor Relations Board decided in two separate cases last week that — as far as federal labor law is concerned — charter schools are not public schools but private corporations.
The decisions apply only to the specific disputes from which they arose, involving unionization efforts at charter schools in New York and in Pennsylvania. But they plunge the labor board into a long-running debate over the nature of charter schools: publicly funded, privately run institutions that enroll about 3 million students nationwide.
Charter school advocates have long argued that charters are public schools because they are tuition-free, open-enrollment institutions funded primarily with tax dollars. But union leaders and other critics describe charters as private entities that supplant public schools, which are run by elected officials, with nonprofit and for-profit corporations that are run by unelected boards that are unaccountable to voters.
In its recent decisions, both issued Aug. 24, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that Hyde Leadership Charter School in Brooklyn and the Pennsylvania Virtual Charter School are — like other government contractors — private corporations that receive taxpayer dollars. In the New York case, for example, the board found that even though state law describes charter schools as existing “within the public school system,” the schools were not directly established by a government entity and the people who administer them are not accountable to public officials or to voters.
“Hyde was not established by a state or local government, and is not itself a public school,” reads the board’s majority opinion, signed by Democrats Kent Hirozawa and Lauren McFerran.
The decisions mean that the schools’ employees must organize under the National Labor Relations Act, which applies to private-sector employees, rather than under state laws that apply to public-sector employees.
This is not the first time that the NLRB has ruled that a charter school is a private nonprofit corporation, not a state actor. In several previous cases, charter operators fought unionization by contending that they were not public schools and thus not subject to state labor law.
In Philadelphia in 2011, the New Media Technology Charter School insisted that it was not a public school, as it resisted efforts by its staff to unionize, even though it was publicly funded with $5 million annually. Even as it was fighting unionization, the leaders of the school were indicted by a federal grand jury in April and charged with stealing $522,000 in taxpayer funds partly to support a small private school they controlled, a health food restaurant, and a health food store. The Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board refused to accept jurisdiction over labor negotiations at this or other charter schools because the schools were not public schools subject to state oversight. The NLRB took jurisdiction over the battle at New Media, which insisted it was not a public school; the staff joined the union. The founders of the school were convicted and sentenced to jail. Founded with Gates money, the school closed in June 2016.
There was a similar NLRB ruling in 2012 in the case of the Chicago Mathematics & Science Academy. The school (a Gulen-affiliated school) insisted it was not a public school. The NLRB agreed because it was not created by the state or governed by the state.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard a case in 2009 from Arizona, where a charter school teacher claimed that he was fired and defamed by his employer. He wanted a hearing to clear his name. The Court ruled that the charter school was not a “state actor,” even though state law defines charters as “public schools,” dismissing the employee’s charges against it. The Court concluded that the charter operator was a private corporation with a contract to provide a public service and was not bound by the same laws as public schools.
When the founders of a charter school in California were indicted for misappropriating $200,000, the California Charter School Association submitted an amicus brief in their defense, contending that the charter was operated as a private nonprofit corporation, and thus its founders could not be convicted of theft of public money. Despite their plea, the founders were convicted.
As it happens, I wrote a post about these issues in 2013. Be sure to read Julian Vasquez Heilig’s link on charters and discipline.
Not even state law can turn a privately managed charter school into a “public school.”
The misuse and abuse of language is not limited to charters. Many of current educational practices, actually malpractices are due to misuse and abuse of the meanings of words to suit the people who benefit from them.
They almost had to, really.
Once charter operators asserted that they were private entities and not subject to the rules that govern public entities (as in the White Hat case in Ohio) it would be pretty silly for it to go the other way.
The Ohio Supreme Court has essentially recognized them as private entities, too. That’s why operators in Ohio say they own the assets that were purchased with public dollars.
“The defendantsappellees are private for-profit companies White Hat Management, L.L.C., and WHLS of Ohio, L.L.C., and ten subsidiary companies (collectively, “the
companies”)2 that operated and managed the schools (collectively, “White Hat”),
pursuant to contracts with each school. ”
White Hat is a for-profit but I don’t think it would matter if they were a non-profit. “Non-profit” doesn’t mean “public”- never has in any sector and it doesn’t in the privatized school sector. If it did all the private insurance companies in the healthcare exchanges would be “public”. They’re not.
The for-profit/non profit distinction will disappear in charter ownership and management. It’s meaningless outside of a talking point.
Once they redefined “public” to mean “publicly funded” all bets were off. They can include private schools under the ed reform definition of “public” too, and they do. That’s why vouchers always follow charters. These distinctions don’t mean anything.
Click to access 2015-Ohio-3716.pdf
I wonder how many cases in how many states would be needed to make it official that charters are private corporations.
There’s another big charter marketing effort underway:
Since present and former members of the Obama Administration are enthusiastically promoting this effort, can the public get some transparency on how much coordination there is between the Obama Administration and these charter promotion outfits?
I’d like to know what I’m paying for in DC.
What’s is a name? A lot it seems according to “reformers.” They always create democratic or inspiring names to do quite the opposite. The title of “charter” sounds innovative with a willingness to explore the unknown. As a result of the NLRB decision, these schools should be known as corporate schools. That is, in fact, what they are, and it would certainly alert the public to their authentic intentions.
I can’t call them public schools. But I also can’t call them private schools. They’re not really even schools fully evolved and rounded. I can call them automaton factories. I can call them scams. I can describe them accurately as graft. And I can keep in mind that anyone supporting the segregation they allow is a closet racist. I can call them all kinds of words, but none of those words have anything to do with positivity or public service.
Irresponsibly deregulated corporate scams. Who else sees the Charter School Bubble headed for a hugely destructive “burst?”
Sooner than later, I hope, Ciedie!
You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time but it is difficult to fool all the people all the time.
Maybe there is still hope for public schools.
Any system, government or otherwise where money is more important than people bodes poorly for people.
Happy Labor Day:
“New research from the Economic Policy Institute suggests that American unions play a similar role — or at least they used to. An EPI report issued on Monday argues that the decline of organized labor has seriously damaged the earning power of even non-union working men in the private sector.
After analyzing nearly four decades of wage data, EPI estimated that male non-union workers in the private sector would be earning, on average, $2,074 per year if the percentage of unionized workers in the private sector had stayed flat since 1979. Overall, EPI found that male non-union workers in the private sector have been losing about $109 billion per year. Women in non-union, private sector jobs took a much smaller hit to their income — about $24 billion annually — because men were significantly likelier to be union members in 1979.”
If our representatives really cared about wages and working people, wouldn’t they be supporting labor unions instead of working as hard as they can to eradicate them?
They’re all be issuing statements on Labor Day. Too bad they don’t care the other 364 days of the year.
Perhaps this decision has a silver lining. Many states don’t permit public employees to bargain collectively for wages, benefits, and working conditions, but if charters are considered private, then teachers and other charter school staff can organize and bargain in both bargaining and non-bargaining states. Also private sector bargaining generally permits bargaining on more issues than public sector bargaining laws.
It’s Labor Day – a day to remember the benefits of organizing and bargaining.
It is a seesaw – when it suits them to be public, they are public, when it suits them to be private, they are private. They are duplicitous.