Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education and experienced educator, traveled Calofornia to learn about charter schools. What she discovered was an industry that is growing by leaps and bounds, powered by billionaires’ dough, but rife with fraudulent practices that cheat students and taxpayers.
Although Arizona was once called the “Wid West” of the unregulated charter industry, California now appears to have captured that title. Big payoffs for the adults, poor education for students.
Carol’s article appears on Valerie Strauss’s “Answer Sheet” blog at the Washington Post. After I read her introduction, I urged her to remember that the very worst states in relation to charters are scandal-ridden Ohio, Arizona (where nepotism and conflicts of interest are fine for charters, and for-profit charters don’t have to open their books to the public), and Michigan (where 80% of the charters operate for-profit).
This article is the second in a four-part series.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And neoliberalism and charter schools keeps rolling along: What can anyone say that has not been, to one degree or another, said before in some form or another regarding charters and Walmartians! BTW – go to: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheWarReportOnPubEd/search/?query=walmartians
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Like that “walmartians”!
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CA Gov. Brown has increased funding for charter schools as of May 2016. The majority of the state legislature are Democrats.
They support the funding charter and other unbelievable online learning produced by their supporters–so nothing will change until the teachers and parents protest.
Eli Broad and silicon valley is happy to fund these charters and pocket the funding.
When Class DoJo is developing curriculum for CA schools and no one protests then this horror will continue until CA emulates NY.
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YES
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Sorry – will try to get the link going.
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I knew about Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida and Arizona but the California story is new to me.
At some point they have to concede this isn’t an “outlier” right?
That the ed reform states with successes are the actual “outlier”?
OH, MI, FL, PA, AZ and CA are a big chunk of the country. That’s a pretty big “exception”.
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Chiara, California is ripe for your keen eye. It’s the western front in the war on public education. Oakland, CA is similar to New Orleans in a million ways. Los Angeles, being the largest school district in the US that has an elected school board, creates a substantial obstacle to the corporate reformers. It is Eli Broad’s back yard. He actually pays the salaries for some of the staff inside the LAUSD headquarters. Los Angeles is also home to Parent Revolution, the Parent Trigger, Steve Barr (founder of Green Dot charters, head of California DFER and the list goes on. Oh, don’t forget Vergara and Friedrichs came out of California, too. California has an outsized impact on the rest of the country, too, because it has more congressional representation than any other state and provides more political donations than any other state. Whew! Email me if you want to talk! Karen@psconnectnow.org
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Also it has the largest and most diverse student body in the nation (with over 80% either ELL and/or other low income status students) …and one of the lowest state funding per student.
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Jeez Chiara…how could the California story be new to you? Karen Wolfe, Educator (a retired LAUSD teacher), Robert Skeels, Cynthia Liu, and others including myself have been writing here about LAUSD and Eli Broad et al, for at least four years. Are we who are the ‘boots on the ground’ just spitting in the wind?
California has the MOST charter schools in the nation, and LA has the most of any city in the nation. Hundreds in LA, and thousands of charters in our state. And we have Michelle Rhee and many of the worst of the billionaires like Welch, Milken, Broad, etc. Vergara lawsuits started in California. Kathleen Brown who is the sister of our Governor is a partner at Manatt, one of the most powerful law firms in LA and in the country, which has for clients most of the privatizers.
Wake up America!
The California Charter Schools Association, CCSA, is one of the most well funded and powerful lobbying group in our state, and they have gotten to most of our state legislators. From the Speaker of the Assembly to the leader of the Senate, they almost ALL have come out in favor of charter schools.
Carol Burris focuses this second of her articles mainly on San Diego, and bit about Anaheim where Parent Revolution has infiltrated, but hopefully her next article will focus on all the egregious circumstances and outcomes at LAUSD.
And Valerie Strauss got it ALMOST right, but not quite. Eli Broad and his group are now using ‘Great Public Schools Now’ to take over ANOTHER 50% of LAUSD. They, and others, already have hundreds of charters in this district. With this thrust they will soon have over 200,000 students of the 648,000 in the district. Then LAUSD and real public schools will become a distant memory.
i am so discouraged that Chiara who is so smart and informed has never heard of the problems in California, nor at LAUSD, that I want to give up. No wonder we are losing the charter battle.
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If the reason to expand charters in Massachusetts is because charters are high quality in Massachusetts, then why do they lobby to expand charters in every state, regardless of quality?
Shouldn’t they be opposing the expansion of charters in OH, MI, PA, FL and CA?
Quality can’t be the reason, or they wouldn’t be lobbying to expand in every state.
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Are you sure you are Chiara??? We have been expanding here for years on the economic aspects of privatizing. It has little to do with improving the quality of education mainly of inner city students. But it has much to do with Free Market principles, and the Ayn Rand/Chicago School theory of having all government agencies run better and cheaper with competition and for PROFIT. Clearly so many of us have written about this for SO VERY LONG.
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I so much want to answer for Chiara, but I am hoping that her skin is thicker than mine, and she will ignore your uncalled for attack.
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When we have been writing here almost every day for so many years, and explaining what the situation is in California, and particularly in LAUSD, it came as a shock that someone I respect so much as Chiara would seem to not have paid attention to all that we have reported.
I apologize for my terse comments, Chiara, but we on the ground are really tired and discouraged that our clear exposition seems to be negated by those who I thought were our allies.
Makes me wonder if I am living in a parallel universe and maybe all the words I have ever written (and all the years of public talks and meetings to explain the charter school wars to skeptics) were only taken as gibberish.
Seeing sentences of disbelief as to the charter world in California blows me away. I have to rethink how I am spending my time and energy.
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Here’s a video to show what’s going on in Los Angeles. I even shortened it to just over 5 minutes. Enjoy!
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