Elizabeth Warren is a very smart woman. She knows that charters divide communities and destroy community support for education. This is her statement.
““ ‘I will be voting no on Question 2. Many charter schools in Massachusetts are producing extraordinary results for our students, and we should celebrate the hard work of those teachers and spread what’s working to other schools.
” ‘But after hearing more from both sides, I am very concerned about what this specific proposal means for hundreds of thousands of children across our Commonwealth, especially those living in districts with tight budgets where every dime matters. Education is about creating opportunity for all our children, not about leaving many behind.
” ‘I hope that the Legislature, the teachers, and the parents can come together to find ways to make sure all kids in Massachusetts get a first-rate education without pitting groups against each other.’ ”
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
Sounds to me like she’s trying to have it both ways and is still probably under the thrall of the faux-progressive Center for American Progress’s bogus idea that school choice is some kind of civil rights issue or something like that. How and why a person like Warren who has such an encyclopedic knowledge of the evils and corruption of Wall St. continues to just not get it when the same folks are doing the same kinds of things in the education sphere is beyond me. Someone needs to take her aside and present the evidence and facts to her and ask her why she is STILL so off the mark on this.
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She is not of the mark. This is the nature of politics we pick and chose our battles. How many battles would you like her to have with the democratic establishment. Because we only get 85 or 90% out of true progressives is reason for support not castigation. Far better than the 30 % delivered by Neo liberals democrats and the 2% from neo liberal republicans.
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off the mark and cross out an s
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Dominant-culture middle-class privilege is too often a “blinding” disease.
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Go Senator Warren
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Perhaps the moratorium from the NAACP influenced her decision. Politicians don’t want to alienate minority voters. Perhaps she took the time to talk to those that understand the implications of the vote. Perhaps she does not want her state to look like Ohio or Pennsylvania. Scaling up has always failed to produce better results. I just hope her position influences many other voters.
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It is about time, Senator!
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Shouldn’t Sen. Warren have stated that many public schools in MA. produce oustanding results too?
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Yes! She should have noted that MA has an outstanding public school system and does t need competition.
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Someone should tell Senator Warren that if she believes in “choice”, those choices should be done by establishing those schools as part of the public school system instead of as a separate competing system which doesn’t have to follow the same rules or educate the same children.
In fact, someone should tell the reformers that. There is nothing those charter schools offer that has not and could not be done by the same school set up under the board of education that runs the public schools. Any savings from kicking out expensive kids will at least be spent in the non-choice school that educates them.
The notion that we need a private organization to do what should be done under the public system should have been thrown out long ago. Is Sen. Warren also advocating private prisons? Is the reform justice system advocating private prisons because public prisons just aren’t working?
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Elizabeth Warren and others should do some fact checking and exercise some statistical savvy in address parts of this PR campaign for charters.
. Yesterday the Wall Street Journal claimed that Boston charter school students learned twice as fast as public school students. The opening claim and rhetorical question: “Boston’s charter-school students are learning twice as fast as their peers. Why vote against more charters?”
“(Boston charter school students) are learning twice as fast as their peers in traditional schools, on average. According to a 2013 study by Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes, Boston charter students “gain an additional 12 months in reading and 13 months in math per school year.” Remarkably, African-Americans in the city’s charters are progressing faster than white students at traditional public schools.” Find more here with a link to the CREDO study http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-bay-state-referendum-on-charter-schools-1474932876
This and other CREDO reports on charter schools are not usually in peer reviewed journals because the research methodology is weird. Conclusions are based on charter school test scores and scores in “comparison schools” that are virtual (made up, a hypothetical match).
The CREDO researchers add more ideology by using another statistical fiction—days of learning gained (or lost) in ELA and days of learning gained (or lost) in math.
This absurd metric of “days or months of learning” comes from economists who do not consider instructional time allocations for these subjects at all…at all.
They just provide this chart for translating standard deviations in gains into days of learning. See p. 16 of the CREDO report. It is magic for PR except in a recent case when a study of outcomes from a digital learning charter school produced zip days of learning, zero, nothing from an actual school year of the program.
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My understanding is that “days of learning” is an invention of charters and not a recognized statistical reference. They probably thought ‘days of learning’ would make charters look awesome.
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The billionaires who underwrite the charter schools are happy to underwrite any pseudo research that is pro-charter. Why aren’t these in any peer reviewed journal?
The comparisons in the CREDO study are always suspect. They never account for the high numbers of students who leave the best performing charters whose outsized results are the only thing propping up the results of the other charters.
It’s like a drug company paying CREDO to study their drug’s effects on learning. One “study group” (or charter school) simply dismisses every child taking the drug who has a bad side effect or who doesn’t get good test scores. The “control” group doesn’t have that privilege. And the faux scientific group studying that drug announces great results with 100% of the students! As long as you leave out every single student who the drug doesn’t work for.
If a drug used on children was tested this way it would be criminal. And the organization pretending to do scientific research claiming all the benefits would be arrested for conspiracy to harm children in order to enrich the makers of that drug because they were well-compensated by their pseudo-scientific research.
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Laura,
I have often cited the CREDO studies but I never forget that the studies are funded by Waltons/Walmart, which claims credit for launching one of every four charters in the nation and plans to send another $1 billion to open more over the next 5 years. They want Massachusetts! I wonder why the Waltons of Arkansas don’t fix their home state and show us the miracle of free markets
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They have fixed Arkansas. According to Business Insider its economy ranks 45th in the Nation. Low wages and a low GDP per capita . What would one expect with such fine corporate citizens as Walmart and Tyson .
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“A billion dollars to open more (charters) over the next 5 years…” This kind of money has an irresistible pull, like the gravity of jupiter.
How can our culture, social values, ideologies and economy not be warped by the force such large sums of money create?
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It’s also, our federal tax dollars spent to privatize public education.
“Progressive” Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, asked the US Dept. of Ed. to send a check for $71 mil. to Ohio to expand charters. Last week, he got his wish. Why are taxpayers paying for what the Waltons’ want and, are willing to pay for?
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HOW PROPONENTS OF QUESTION 2 PLAY THE RACE CARD;
I”m watching the latest Question 2 debate, and the pro-Charter guy Mark just made some hare-brained claim that the teachers union’s motives in opposing Question 2 are racist, or — at the very least — their motives are rooted in the fact that the union leadership is white, and their white-ness is driving them, subconsciously or whatever, to oppose Question 2 … again to the detriment to students and families of color.
Go here:
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( 35:02 – )
“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCsZZ-J7mcU
( 35:02 – )
MARK, THE PRO-CHARTER GUY: “We have our strongest opposition from the teachers unions across the state, whose leadership is primarily white… our goal, and whom we are trying to serve, are those black and brown parents and young parents who are trying desperately to get alternatives for their children.”
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Yeah, right, that’s your “goal” … unlike those crypto-racist teachers in teacher unions who only care about themselves, even if that screws the education of black kids. This is in spite of the fact that those unionized teachers are the ones teaching kids of all races and classes — including blacks —- for seven or more hours each day.
Naaah, only billionaire-backed charter folks care about black and brown kids.
So if Barbara Madeloni and other Massachusetts teachers union leaders were as black as Karen Lewis, Mark, the Pro-charter guy, wouldn’t attempting this line of argument? No, then he’d probably characterize those hypothetical black Massachusetts labor leaders as an Uncle Tom sell-outs, who value big union officer salaries more than she does helping out her fellow blacks.
What utter nonsense!
Thank God African-American anti-charter Tito Jackson was there to immediately counter this asinine attempt to frame this as a race issue, and inflame racial tensions.
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( 35:27 – )
“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCsZZ-J7mcU
( 35:27 – )
TITO JACKSON: “Mark, the leadership of the teachers unions is primarily white, but SO IS the leadership of most charter school in the city of Boston, and so I think that THAT is a critical component.”
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Tito then changes topic, then proceeds to debunk the vaunted charter school wait list numbers.
DEBUNKING THE WAITLIST
Think about it. If here were 30,000 – 40,000 people furious at being wait-listed and denied entry to a charter school, because there wasn’t enough of such schools, wouldn’t that mean these parents would have formed an army of volunteer campaign workers swarming the state pushing for passage of Question 2— knocking on doors, phone-banking, marching down streets, etc. ? They wouldn’t need $20 million of out-of-state billionaire money. The volunteer component would be enough to win the day.
No, there’s nothing of the kind going on in Massachusetts. The pro-Question-2 stuff is all big money commercials, mailers, and robo-calls, not live calls from live volunteer workers, or live canvassers knocking on doors.
Anyway, back to what Tito could have said to Mark regarding the overwhelming whiteness of Massachusetts charter leaders, as well as those leaders not living in the neighborhoods where their charter schools are located.
Here’s what Tito could have said, but was said by someone else at the other debate.
In the other debate, the FEMALE MODERATOR, in a question to Charter Lady Marty Walz, goes into detail about THE TOTAL ABSENCE OF ANY BLACKS, OR ANY LOCAL PARENTS OR CITIZENS IN ANY POSITION TO EXERCISE ANY DECISION-MAKING POWER OVER THESE CHARTER SCHOOLS.
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(34:30 – )
(34:30 – )
FEMALE MODERATOR: “Representative Walz, for some who oppose Question 2, one of the issues that it comes down to is this, and I’m going to paraphrase Carol Burris, she’s a former New York high school, and she says
” ‘The democratic governance of our public schools is a American tradition worth saving.’
” … and then the Annenberg institute for school reform at Brown University earlier this year released a study, and they analyzed EVERY board for EVERY charter school in the state of Massachusetts. and they found that ..
“31% of trustees (school board members) statewide are affiliated with the financial services or corporate sector. Only 14% were parents.
“60% of the charter boards had NO parent representation on their boards WHATSOEVER.
“Those that DID were largely confined to charter schools that served MOSTLY WHITE students.
“Here’s an example: City on a Hill (Charter) Schools in Roxbury — again, this is according to the Annenberg Institute Report — has schools in Roxbury and New Bedford, (has a) 14-member board, trustees for all three of those schools.
“ONLY ONE member of the board lives in New Bedford. Three live in Boston, but NONE in Roxgury. The rest live in (upscale communities) Brookline, Cambridge, Cohasset, and Hingham.
“So they (at Annenberg) ask:
” ‘How can those charter schools be considered locally controlled and locally accountable?’ ”
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Charter Lady Walz responds by claiming — and winning applause from the charter folks stacked in the audience — that local control through school boards has “wholly failed’ to produce quality schools and educate children, and need to be wiped out.
Those in the audience are cheering the end of democracy? Really?
Wait. Isn’t Massachusetts the highest achieving state in the U.S.? Really? She says that democratically-governed schools with elected school boards in Massachusetts have “wholly failed” students? Really?
At another point in the debate, Charter Lady claims their group is about improving all types of schools, but here she is recommending replacing all of traditonal public schools with privately-managed charter schools. So which is it?
The Moderator interrupts by insisting that Charter Lady answer the question about accountability, and Charter Lady brings up the only method needed — the Death Penalty AND THAT’S IT…. but no accountability to parents and citizens, while those schools are actually open, and ZERO OPPORTUNITY OR MECHANISM for those parents and citizens to enjoy any kind of decision-making power over shose schools while they are in operation.
And we need to watch John Oliver again to find out how well that works out:
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Well, the NAACP New England Area Conference just gave its Chaney Goodman Schwerner Award to Barbara Madeloni, President of the Massachusetts Teachers Association. That doesn’t quite fit into Kenan’s narrative, now does it?
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Ooops, I botched that link to the two clips from the latest Question 2 debate.
Here’s a better link:
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Thanks Jack for those vids and transcripts about charters, like the stats about the composition of the boards of charter schools.
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The lies are coming so thick and fast that public school advocates have a web site to rebut the falsehoods spread about by those monied interests who wish to turn more of our public funds over to private hands.
http://www.getcharterfactsma.org
The reformista Harvard Graduate School of Ed hosted a debate tonight on the question; the deck was stacked in favor of charter advocates 3 to 1 against, Boston’s City Councilor Tito Jackson:
Meanwhile, Boston parents and students have put out this terrific video whose theme is pretty much Stand Up, Fight Back:
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Sorry! One of the charter parents listed is indeed a fierce opponent of charter, so the debate was 2 – 2.
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Great link from those that support public education. I hope it gets lots of attention before the election. It is so well done that other states under attack should “borrow” and adapt the content for their state. It blasts holes in all the lies and charter myths by giving viewers the truth.
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If only Elizabeth had run for president…..I could have made that work without a lingering aftertaste.
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Hillary and especially Tim Kaine and his wife are much better than Elizabeth Warren on charters. I did not hear Hillary using the same tired rhetoric that is right out of the charters PR that Warren just did (and frankly, Bernie did, too). Hillary mentioned that charters don’t educate their fair share of students who are more expensive to teach. And Tim Kaine and his wife were among the few Governors that didn’t sell out public schools altogether.
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Somebody got to her, and it’s sad. She is an incredibly smart woman, and she seems to have forgotten that. I can’t take anyone in a position such as hers seriously if they think the charter movement is even acceptable, let alone ‘good’.
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This is a welcome step in the right direction, albeit a small one. Next is a serious effort to purge in some way sellout Democrats like Malloy and Bennett that use a semi-progressive posture on social issues as a cover for an anti-public school neoliberal agenda. Every party needs to stand for something—what is “democratic” about DFER? Warren’s bare minimum response is a start, but overall she seems captured—as Chiara would put it—by the charter propaganda machine. Can someone name any Democrat that has given full throated advocacy of public education in the past 10 years?
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Elizabeth Warren responded to the question purely on an economic level. She understands the economics, but I would guess that she is looking at test scores of charter schools when she talks about how great some are. For some reason too many people are enthralled by test scores and the rankings produced from them. She at least has been immersed in economic data and looks at the world through an economic lens. She at least gets, in her own sphere, how numbers can be used to manipulate reality. She probably needs the nature of education reform presented to her in the same way: all the way reformers fudge their facts to present a false narrative.
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“She at least has been immersed in economic data and looks at the world through an economic lens.”
I consider that (being immersed in economic data) to be a liability and not a positive thing. That economic lens has been spider cracked by economic idiology* for many years.
Idiology (n.) Ideology based on errors, falsehoods and invalidities. The ideology of idiots.
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For our purposes, no, but her knowledge has allowed her to be an effective critic of the financial sector. Her actions also demonstrate that she is perfectly capable of recognizing data that has been warped to present a particular picture on the economic front. That ability can be translated to the educational front with a little education. She already knows that numbers can be made to say anything you want them to say. Now we need to show her how that particular maneuver has been used by the reformistas to shape the education debate.
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She might also be thinking of people she knows, and may respect, whose kids go to a charter school and are happy with it.
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Not that I support charters, but I know many people whose kids go to charters and are happy about it. They prefer it to the local public school choice because the Philly public schools have to accept every challenging student, but have zero resources to support their social and emotional needs, not to mention the academic ones.
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Sadly there is truth here, but refusing to stand up and demand an all-student-inclusive equity by alternately SEPARATING yourself from the “public” is not democracy. It is privilege.
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From what I hear, there is not much left of the public schools in Philadelphia after years of the free reign of charter cheer leaders. From all reports, PA has been starving its public schools with their love affair with charters. What do you do if the public school has been cut to the bone?
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1/3 of the district is charterized. About 875 million dollars, which is 1/3 of the total annual budget, goes to charters, but charters have not taken away 1/3 of what it costs to run the public schools. So the already very underfunded district looses additional funds to the charters.
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IMHO, all veteran educators must unite and present their points of view coherently.
All educators must state the priority of AMERICAN GOAL in national education, for instance:
1) Transparency in all protocols in expenses like administrators’ salary.
2) National Board Certified Educational Teaching Career with 20 years minimum is required to qualify for input in national or state standard testing materials
3) All people work in Education must have valid and appropriate certification in educational field.
4) ONLY Public Education is qualified for education fund
5) American people are welcome all other institutes like Charter, Voucher, religious schools BUT these typical schools MUST FOLLOW all rules, regulations and audits exactly as in public schools IN ORDER TO qualify for education fund like Public schools.
6) Last but not least, educators must have tenure to protect their right to speak up on behalf of their students = American young learners will be responsible to protect American Democratic rights = this is how to make GREAT AMERICA.
In short, Senator Warren and Sanders pretend to misunderstand the REAL LOOTING public education fund into the hand of all DISQUALIFIED and UNQUALIFIED PRIVATE OWNERS who hire and fire teaching staff who are unfit in educational environment; Most of all, who open and close to loot money and to ruin or to disrupt students’ learning. Back2basic
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” ‘I hope that the Legislature, the teachers, and the parents can come together to find ways to make sure all kids in Massachusetts get a first-rate education without pitting groups against each other.’ ”
That’s exactly what makes running systems so difficult, though. It would be easy if it were simply a matter of “choice” and everyone got exactly what they want for each individual child.
That’s what ed reform can’t deliver, right? Every time they pull on a string in the system the fabric changes for everyone in the system. Pretending that will go away if everyone just goes along seems delusional to me. It isn’t true that adding charters doesn’t impact public schools. Of course it does. Deal with it.
We have a lot of controversy over discipline in schools where I live. We have small but vocal contingents on both sides. Both sides make good points. The parents who want harsher discipline believe their children are being harmed when there’s less order in schools. On the other hand, the parents who say punishment is excessive believe THEIR children are being harmed. They’re both right, as far as I can tell.
If we “solved” that problem by sending 10% off a no excuses charter and 10% off to a Montessori charter we haven’t “solved” anything- we’d just have a weaker public school that has to serve the 80% and two new schools who essentially pick their students based on parental preference. The clear loser would be the public school- the 80%.
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I had a very difficult time getting past the first word of Elizabeth’s Warren quote; namely, that “many” Massachusetts charters produce “produce extraordinary results.” That;s what happens when you only purchase organic blueberries from Whole Foods. (i.e. cherry-picking.)
Sorry, but I lost a lot of respect for Senator Warren while she sat on the fence during the primaries. She is an expert at Kabuki theater (grilling bank CEO’s). As far as actually standing up for the commons and progressive values? Meh.
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I agree with you Eleanor, but these crisis times warrant the taking of any ally or alliance position into our camp. Let’s cherry pick what Warren has done and said and use it to our advantage for justice, democracy, and protecting public education and preventing more charters from breeding like roaches.
I know ultimately I don’t have to worry about public education because Norway does not have these issues, but I am an egalitarian in my DNA and can’t help but feel for the American people.
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This MA resident agrees completely.
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If they want what are essentially “choice” magnet schools- schools that are not officially selective but serve a smaller group of children because parents self-select for certain school characteristics, why not just make them part of the public system?
Then at least it would be equitable and transparent. We wouldn’t be pretending choice schools are “just like” the public schools who will end up with the majority of kids.
It’s not the “solution” I would pick because I’m not sure it solves anything, but at least then they could retain the public nature and heart of the system and avoid turning existing public schools into the “safety net” for the choice system.
Why is it so hard for ed reformers to admit the obvious- public schools are impacted by opening new charter schools and there’s a good chance that impact will be negative AS TO the public schools? That’s what the public school parents are afraid of. They’re right, too. That’s entirely possible. They could end up with weaker public schools- a fragmented system with clear winners and losers.
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This is exactly what I think! If you are going to fight for “choice”, then the money stays in the system to help the schools that don’t get 100% high performing students. Or the ones who put unwanted kids on got to go lists and make them feel some of their patented “MISERY” until their parents “choose” to remove them from a charter school that promises only more targeted abuse unless they leave the school.
Choice is essentially what happens in NYC for high school (and sometimes in middle school). Students have choice within the system and there are fantastic public schools, okay public schools, and terrible public schools. The charters are no better than the okay public schools. They could just as well be choice public schools except for having to follow rules before drumming out unwanted kids. Even the top public schools have problem kids, but they can’t get rid of them quite as easily as charters can and have to work with the parents.
The problem in public education is always going to be what happens to the kids in a choice system who end up in the schools no one else wants to be in. Charters don’t address that problem at all. That is what they promised to do, but as soon as they realized they had no solution at all they decided to prostitute themselves to the idol of privatization, whose very wealthy proponents would pay them handsomely as long as they lied and pretended they welcomed all the at-risk kids in those failing public schools. It has provided a very lucrative living for people like Peter Cunningham whose Trump-like willingness to sacrifice the most vulnerable minority children should make him ashamed to look in the mirror but no doubt he is capable of as much shame as Donald Trump. When he cheers on charter schools who label huge numbers of minority 5 year olds as violent to excuse the fact that their system utterly fails most of the at-risk kids they pretend to help, he gives ammunition to the racists who claim that police are always justified shooting. Shameful. But like Trump, they believe it all and will say and do anything to further their own pocketbooks. Whether or not a few children are helped or even more are harmed is entirely beyond their concern because it is all about their own careers.
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I am very glad to hear Hillary speak out against private prisons and Elizabeth Warren to speak up about this vote in Massachusetts and for the NAACP to take a stand against the spread of charters. At this point, I am grateful. Why ? Our narrative is still so misunderstood. The reform crowd knows their PR and gets their message out there – fake as it is. It seems a corner has been turned on private prisons. It should turn – how shameful and greedy and neglectful and wasteful those private prisons turned out to be. I pray we will say the same about private charters one day.
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Contractors got greedy with private prisons. It became impossible to ignore. They’re robbing inmates. They charge them for everything and it’s a captive market. They;’re making millions on just inmate phone calls. The prices are outrageous. The inmate doesn’t pay of course- their family does. The food is so bad the contractor gets paid twice- they get paid for providing inedible food and then they get paid for charging inmates to buy packaged food at the jail or prison store.
It’s an absolute racket. They rob them every chance they get. That state lawmakers put these people at the mercy of these companies is disgusting. They’re robbing the poorest and most vulnerable families and it all has the state stamp of approval.
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Yes, it was good to hear Hillary attack the for-profit prisons that her husband’s crime bill helped bring into existence and to proliferate.
Better late, if at all, than never.
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Hear, hear.
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Tell all the people of Boston: many charter schools come from hedge funds, hedge funds on Wall Street in NYC, ergo many charter school owners and proponents could be Yankees fans.
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YES!
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Other than Red Sox fans I don’t think any despise any New York team ball teams (the other being the Pond Scum) as much as we Cards fans.
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We Dodgers fans hate the S.F. Giants. Personally, I love to hate NASCAR’s Skittles/M&Ms team. Sports rivalries are fun. Charter vs. public school rivalries for funds are not. Billionaires versus unions: not fun.
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Hey at least you got the Rams back!
Jokes on you!
Football is 6th or 7th on my list of sports to play and watch: Baseball, softball, hockey, soccer, college football & basketball, golf then NFL football.
Good luck with Kroenke but you’ll need more than luck with that Walton related @#$%##.
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I hope the taxpayers aren’t on the hook for the Rams’ new stadium (one never knows for sure) like we are for every Broad-Walmart scheme foisted upon us.
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St Lou is still paying on the dome. Nothing worse than giving taxpayer dollars to ultrarich pro sports owners. And I’ve always enjoyed sports, but what a ripoff of the common person who never has a say in these matters unless it is put up to a vote and then they will get voted down.
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In summary, taxes are not for private enterprises masquerading as nonprofit organizations, such as charter scams and the NFL.
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And Duane, my order of favorite sports:
Auto racing
Fly fishing
Baseball
and favorite contact sports:
Football
Hockey
Election 2016 debates
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Didn’t think to include fishing in my sports category. That would be tops! But I’m a minner and wurm guy!
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Even if you use worms to catch them cats, hope you enjoy this article as much as I’ve been. Diane and everyone else might like it too.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/19/patagonias-philosopher-king
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I use them to catch any and all fish. Trout really go for them. But to catch the big trout, I use big (3-5 inch) minnows. For big browns, sculpins work best.
Thanks for the link. Will read in a bit!
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Interesting article. From the irl I thought at first it might be about Argentina and the outdoors activities there. I had forgotten about the company called Patagonias, probably because I always viewed their products as elitist, which Chouinard has been self reflecting enough to realize. What he says in the article is quite correct about ruining the outdoors.
I’ve had a few EFFF’s* look down with disdain at me and my fishing gear, a simple cheap medium action rod with whatever version of Zebco 33 spooled with 4lb yellow stren and a small split shot and a 1/0 baitholder hook. Have use the rig for all my freshwater fishing usually at least a dozen times a year now for over 40 years. I laughed at their elitist attitudes knowing I had caught many many more large trout (for my son and me a large trout is one over 17 inches) than they would in ten lifetimes. Hoping to add to that total (I lost count a long time ago) in a week when I’ll go camping, canoeing and fishing in Southern Missouri. Or I may not fish at all-LOL!
*Coined that phrase about 25 years ago. It means “elite f@#&ing fly fisherman. Not that I am against fly fishing, just the attitude as expounded in “A River Runs Through It”. Hell you’re attempting to catch a pea sized brain fish. It’s not rocket science or a religion. Fish = food.
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Well, I suppose if we’re going to be friends and one day go fishing together in your neck of the woods, a culture clash is inevitable. I’ve been trout fishing with a reel too. And I’ve been boating. I just like the idealism of simplicity. Standing in a river with nothing but a stick, some string, and a fly sounds good to me, but maybe that’s the city dweller in me talking. I hope you don’t feel disrespected because I hold you in high regard, Duane. (I’m even a bit of a conspiracy theorist too, but don’t tell Diane.)
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Since city charters do better than charters outside cities and since Massachusetts caps charters in cities but does not cap charters outside of cities, is it possible that the cap is partly responsible for the quality of charters in cities?
There are fewer of them so they’re higher quality? The cap CONTRIBUTES to quality because there are fewer loosely regulated schools?
Part of Ohio’s problems with charters is they “flooded” cities with them. That’s their term, “flooded”. The state couldn’t properly regulate because they were opening all over the place. It was a disaster, but it took ed reformers FIFTEEN YEARS to admit it was a disaster. By then most of the state legislature was captured and the damage to existing public schools was already done.
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There’s a statewide cap on the number of charters, but the vast majority are in cities. Boston is host to 29 of 78 of these parasites.
As to quality, charter advocates insist that MA charters are some of the best in the nation (using the metric of test scores, of course). That ain’t sayin’ much. They aren’t comparing them to real public schools serving all kids.
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I’d be interested to see what would happen if they took a different approach.
Go the public and say “we absolutely admit that changes we make in in one sector impacts schools system-wide so let’s talk about possible upsides and downsides of privatizing a percentage of schools and how that will change your public school”.
They know this is a risk. Cami Anderson admitted it happened in Newark. Of course it’s a risk. People aren’t stupid. A new school across the street absolutely impacts the existing school on the other side. The one and only question is “neutral, positive or negative?”
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“Erika Sanzi @esanzi 2h2 hours ago
Erika Sanzi Retweeted Mass Teachers Assn
http://This.Is.Not.News . Monopolies don’t go quietly into the night.”
This is where ed reform completely loses me. Is it really impossible for them to fathom that there are people who support their public school? That’s unimaginable? The one and only reason one would support a public school is to “protect a monopoly”?
If it is, I would suggest that they shouldn’t be running public schools because they’ve already determined that public schools have no value, to anyone. I’m not imagining this- this is what these people say. It’s as if they cannot fathom that a parent could support a public school.
It’s just so far from my experience over 25 years and 4 kids that I feel as if it’s proof positive that this is an echo chamber. I have NO financial interest in public schools and either do the vast majority of people. I have no secret evil intent.
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“Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush will join the Kennedy School of Government as a visiting fellow in the Program on Education Policy and Governance this fall, according to a Tuesday announcement.”
So here’s my question. Jeb Bush refers to every public school in the country as “government schools” – he denigrates public schools.
That’s okay if the target is public schools? Why? There is absolute outrage anytime anyone even questions the value of charters. Yet arguably the most high profile ed reformer in the country bashes all public schools, constantly and he’s a visiting fellow at Harvard.
Some double standard the “agnostics” have there, isn’t it?
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Harvard has a long history as a provider of union-busting foot soldiers and services, going back at least to the early twentieth century, when students in the Ivy League and other elite universities frequently allowed themselves to be used as strikebreakers.
The Kennedy School of Government and Harvard’s graduate school of education are currently providing that service to the Overclass, via bogus research and a pipeline for the managerial apparat of so-called reform.
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The public schools have problems that money alone can’t fix, and parents are wary. Heck, the last POTUS to send a child through the public school system was Jimmy Carter.
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Solution is simple. If a Charter School wishes to exist and not follow ALL THE SAME RULES OR LAWS AS REGULAR PUBLIC SCHOOLS, THEN THE PARENTS WISHING TO HAVE SPECIAL TREATMENT NEED TO PAY FOR ALL OF THE COSTS TO OPERATE THE SCHOOL OR FIND OTHER INDIVIDUALS TO PAY FOR ALL OF THE COSTS. NO MONEY SHOULD COME FROM THE LOCAL SCHOOL BUDGET AND IF THE STATE WISHES TO HELP PAY THE COSTS, THEN THEY NEED TO RAISE TAXES ON THE WEALTHY, SO NO MONEY IS EVER TAKEN AWAY FROM THE LOCAL SCHOOL BUDGET.
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Unelected school boards sow the seeds of democracy’s destruction. Whether Warren’s knowledge base is economics, business, law, etc., she , as a US Senator, has an obligation to protect democracy.
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