Tracy Novick lives in Worcester, Massachusetts, a small city that was hit hard by de-industrialization.
In this article, she explains that the Wall Street backers of Question 2, which would lift the cap on charters, are pitching their propaganda at affluent white liberals. Their slick ad campaign is aimed at white guilt. They say “vote yes for the sake of poor black and brown children.” They pretend that there is plenty of money for two separate systems of schools. There isn’t.
Voting yes, she writes, will inflict “savage inequalities” (Jonathan Kozol”s book title) on public schools across the state, but not in the affluent suburbs, which are not dependent on state aid. They can assuage white guilt, but everyone else will suffer, not their children, not their schools.
She writes:
“Recently, those pushing for cap lift have been piling on the suburban guilt. It was all over the column I referenced yesterday; it was a big part of the Newton School Committee public testimony last night. Some of this is about wealth, a lot of this is about race, but it is all intended to make those who have a lot feel badly about those who don’t and vote for cap lift to make themselves feel better.
“As a parent in one of those urban communities, I am telling you: spare us.
“I am a parent in a community in which the vast majority of our school funding comes from the state. Worcester is unable to fund its schools on its own. Under McDuffy, Worcester, along with Springfield, Fall River, Lowell, and many of the other urban districts, is majority state funded.
“That isn’t true of most of the places the cap lifters are trying to send on a guilt trip. Most suburbs get a minimum 15% of their foundation budget in state aid. They are majority local funded.
And most fund well over the minimum requirement.
“As I’ve said numerous times, to some extent, this is actually required: the foundation budget hasn’t been reconsidered for twenty years, and the districts that can make up the gaps themselves are doing so.
“Many districts cannot.
“This includes mine.
“Should the ballot cap lift pass, and the state suddenly be faced with funding the reimbursements of up to 12 new schools a year, every year, something is going to have to give. There is no plan in the ballot question for dealing with the funding, and there is nothing in the plan to change reimbursement or any other funding rates.
“It will start, of course, with continuing to not fully fund reimbursements. As the number of schools, and reimbursements, and facilities fees get larger and larger, the state’s going to have to look at state education aid.
“When that happens, it isn’t going to be Newton, funded in FY16 at 165% of foundation, or Cambridge, funded in FY16 at 227% of foundation, or–pick a W: Weston? 208% Wellesley? 165%–that get hit.
Will it hurt them if they lose their state aid? Yes.
Will it devastate their budgets? No.
“Worcester and its peer communities have no such local resources, though. Thus their district public school children–which are the vast majority of schoolchildren in those districts–will be those hurt.
“If you start to feel guilty about other people’s children in “those” districts, think about this:
“Keep in mind where most of them go to school.
Remember how those schools are funded.
Remember who will really be hurt by a cap lift.
And vote no on question two.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Tracy is amazing; she can explain the legislative process, the funding formulas and reimbursements, school building assistance and Chapter 70. She is active with parents and always has been… This past week she spoke to the School Business Officials and I try to read every word she writes because she explains things so well and gives reference for follow up. Thank you Tracy for all you are doing
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hear, hear
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She is indeed! One of the most knowledgeable people I know concerning education funding, school reform, etc.
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I totally agree that Tracy is amazing– thank you for the tremendous work you are doing for our children!
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Thank you both!
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“Should the ballot cap lift pass, and the state suddenly be faced with funding the reimbursements of up to 12 new schools a year, every year, something is going to have to give. There is no plan in the ballot question for dealing with the funding, and there is nothing in the plan to change reimbursement or any other funding rates.”
Something has to give. Obviously.
I object to the idea that we are not allowed to discuss the effect of charter schools on public schools.
Public schools are as important as charter schools. It’s nonsense that this is automatically win/win. Choices involve trade-offs. If they want to sell privatization they have a duty to look honestly at the trade-offs. These are systems. It’s silly to insist one part of a system has no impact on the rest and it’s also silly to insist all public schools are “wealthy suburban schools”. That’s political framing, not reality.
The Obama Administration does this same thing with public school policy. They need to understand that ed reform experiments involve trade-offs. If we put in computer science and we don’t get more funding something has to give- that’s reality. There is downside risk.
It ISN’T “plus/and”. That’s not true.
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The free marketeers maintain that if the public schools can’t compete, they should close. Their thinking has nothing to do with what is best for public schools. They do not care to understand that this is a rigged system designed to destroy public schools. The well being of public schools and neighborhoods to not enter into their thinking. This link is from a college professor friend. It describes how economics is not a real science. The economist looks at the world while wearing blinders. They only look at the world through the lens of monetization. The formulas they generate to justify their view is junk science. This all sounds too familiar. Ironically, this clip is from a documentary on Netflix. https://www.facebook.com/CreativeSystemsThinking/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED&fref=nf
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The state only funds a small portion of the reimbursements, most of which are just subtracted from the district that the students came from.
https://ballotpedia.org/Verbatim_fact_check:Do_Massachusetts_charter_schools%22drain%22_funding_from_traditional_public_schools%3F
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Just subtract the money and have less students! no problem at all.
Says the person who runs schools for the few, with the ability to kick out whoever they want, and if they close down, who gives a darn because someone else always has to pick up the pieces.
The fact that you are willing to take money from the people who have to pick up your pieces is evidence of your faux concern about the kids who need good schools. You would be fighting for better schools for all kids. Not cherry picking and leaving the rest (and the ones you just find too difficult to teach) to a safety net you are more than happy to rob to pay yourselves.
It astonishes me how you can be so deluded into thinking you are doing good. If you have to lie and hurt other children to help a few who just happen to help your own pocket book, you aren’t in it for the kids — you are in it for yourself only.
Surely there must be SOME reformer fighting for ALL students. or maybe not because reform was just a handy word for greed. Or deluding yourself.
It’s like a charity opening up to run a little clinic for strep throat patients saying “we demand lots of resources from the charity hospital educating the children with cancer, and yes, it turns out we pay our CEO quite nicely to run our strep throat clinic but we are really doing it for all those poor kids with strep throat.” They are not. They found a nice little business and any child that cuts into that business being profitable is expendable. Out to the charity hospital with them. Out to the public school with the expensive kids. we need to educate the kids who make us look good. And the rest can rot because we took their money and ran.
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Wall Street is adept at selling the products that benefit them, like leveraged buyouts. There’s no propaganda too low. Charter school debt returns 10-18% to Wall Street. A Gates-funded organization ($22 mil.) described its “marching orders” in Philanthropy Roundtable (Kim Smith interview), “to develop diverse charter school organizations that produce different brands on a large scale.” The Walton’s, who are spending $1 bil. for privatized public education, have a track record of looking out for their own bottom line, at the expense of communities.
Voters in Mass. should read Harvard Prof. Roland Fryer’s prescription for “two tier” education, at the Deutsch 29 blog and, review his c.v., for Gates Foundation largesse, to see who is really served by the tech and financial sectors’ plotting.
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It is my understanding that the wealthy communities are at great risk too. Senator Will Brownsberger (D) of Belmont Ma. represents the Second Suffix and Middlesex district which includes a large section of Boston as well as relatively wealthy Belmont and Watertown. Will is a supporter of charter schools but opposes Ballot Question 2. I find his description of the problem with this proposal to be one of the most coherent I have read. I do not always agree with Will but have great respect for his thorough consideration of issues. I have quoted from his blog in which he explains the threat to relatively wealthy suburban towns – http://willbrownsberger.com/more-on-question-two/
“ln my piece last week, I expressed two concerns about this could work out. The first concern was that in communities where schools are working relatively well, charters could deplete hard-won school resources. In many relatively affluent communities, the state provides little aid and local parents fight hard for the school budget, often passing overrides and raising money privately. Charters could draw these funds away, decrease accountability of the schools to local taxpayers and undermine local will to fund schools.
This concern is not theoretical. There are 14 charters in suburban locations and 30 that draw students regionally. The risk of suburban growth exists even without Question Two. The statewide cap on the total number of Commonwealth charter schools (72) has not been reached — 16 charters remain available. Further, most suburban communities are nowhere near the 9% cap on student enrollment — for example, 291 more Belmont students would have to enroll in charter schools for Belmont to reach 9%. For Watertown, the number is 217.
Question Two does nothing to diminish this risk and, in fact, increases it in several ways: First by creating a permanent expansion mechanism for charter schools (12 new charters per year statewide), it increases the chances that charter operators will seek to provide educational products targeted at higher performing districts. Second it eliminates, as to the 12 new charters annually, the prohibition on non-regional charters in communities with populations under 30,000. Third, it eliminates, as to the 12 new charters annually, the limitation that no more than one charter per year shall be created in high performing communities.”
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Yes, I’ve been proud at the way that Senator Brownsberger has tackled that. The question doesn’t limit growth only to the lowest performing districts unless there are 12 applications in a year (which barely ever happens). The districts that fund well over foundation will look like great places to open a school if this passes.
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I feel as if ed reform really has to reconcile two basic ideas- they insist they support public systems, but they only pull that “commons” idea out when it serves the agenda- testing, for example. We all have a duty to test because that’s for the good of the whole. Okay. I buy that. I’ll go along. Why the complete and total disregard for the existing public system then?
They have to decide. They can’t continue to ask public schools to pull for the team while never even considering the effect of all their various experiments on the team.
It’s worse than “disregard”. It’s this sneering dismissal of anyone who advocates for a school system and an insistence that all public schools are full of wealthy people with funding to burn. That’s not true.
Do they value existing public schools at all or does this thing start with a belief that no existing public school has anything of value and all concerns must be jettisoned as if there is nothing that anyone has to lose? That’s pretty arrogant for people who are launching experiments every 15 minutes.
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“New technology is also pricey. When Ohio switched from paper-pencil to online testing, CPS had to buy 17,000 new computers, build a new wireless infrastructure and hire people to manage it. In 2014-15, CPS spent a combined $4.1 million on testing computers and expenses related to My Tomorrow, a district initiative centered heavily on technology. In 2014-15, that expense was $7.6 million. And of the levy’s $33 million a year, $8.8 million is carved out for expanded/improved technology.”
That is a trade off. That’s how this works. Not “plus/and”. Either/or. In fact, if they don’t get additional funding by passing a LOCAL levy it will be brutal, the choices that have to be made.
It will be difficult to pass any levy because there is a cottage industry of lobbyists and lawmakers who spend most of their time bashing public schools because they have a Grand Plan to privatize a system THEY have decided has no value. That’s reality too.
http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/2016/10/11/schools-voters-we-need-help/91270918/
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Thanks for sharing, Diane! I’ve been troubled by this attempt to make our kids look like the winners if this goes through. It’s our kids that will lose.
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“Authorizers” or “sponsors” should be covered under disclosure laws.
Ohio is (finally) lifting the veil on “sponsors” including how much they’re paid.
This is all public funds. Why wasn’t this information revealed?
“Peggy Young isn’t officially a “superintendent,” but she may as well be.
She’s paid like one – nearly $220,000 a year – to oversee 45 charter schools for the Buckeye Community Hope Foundation. That Columbus-area non-profit collects more than $3 million a year in fees from its schools to oversee the education of 13,000 students – more than any district in Cuyahoga County other than Cleveland.”
The sponsors should have to have websites where records and employee names are posted, just like public schools.
No one has any idea what the Buckeye Community Hope Foundation consists of or what service they perform to merit 3 million a year in fees.
Who hired these people who are paid 220k a year in public funds? A private board?
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2016/10/ohios_charter_school_superintendents_dreading_their_poor_ratings_coming_this_week.html
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SPREAD THE WORD because state lawmakers and voters everywhere need to know right now that the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Education has issued a warning that charter schools posed a risk to the Department of Education’s own goals. The report says: “Charter schools and their management organizations pose a potential risk to federal funds even as they threaten to fall short of meeting the goals.”
The report documents multiple cases of financial risk, waste, fraud, abuse, lack of accountability of federal funds, and lack of proof that the schools were implementing federal programs in accordance with federal requirements.
Throughout our nation, private charter schools backed by billionaire hedge funds are being allowed to divert hundreds of millions of public school tax dollars away from educating America’s children and into private corporate pockets. Any thoughtful person should pause a moment and ask: “Why are hedge funds the biggest promoters of charter schools?” Hedge funds aren’t altruistic — there’s got to be big profit in “non-profit” charter schools in order for hedge fund managers to be involved in backing them.
And even the staunchly pro-charter school Los Angeles Times (which acknowledges that its “reporting” on charter schools is paid for by a billionaire charter school advocate) complained in an editorial that “the only serious scrutiny that charter operators typically get is when they are issued their right to operate, and then five years later when they apply for renewal.” Without needed oversight of what charter schools are actually doing with the public’s tax dollars, hundreds of millions of tax money that is supposed to be spent on educating the public’s children is being siphoned away into private pockets.
One typical practice of charter schools is to pay exorbitant rates to rent buildings that are owned by the charter school board members or by their proxy companies which then pocket the public’s tax money as profit. Another profitable practice is that although charter schools use public tax money to purchase millions of dollars of such things as computers, the things they buy with public tax money become their private property and can be sold by them for profit…and then use public tax money to buy more, and sell again, and again, and again, pocketing profit after profit.
The Washington State and New York State supreme courts and the National Labor Relations Board have ruled that charter schools are not public schools because they aren’t accountable to the public since they aren’t governed by publicly-elected boards and aren’t subdivisions of public government entities, in spite of the fact that some state laws enabling charter schools say they are government subdivisions.
Charter schools are clearly private schools, owned and operated by private entities. Nevertheless, they get public tax money. Moreover, as the NAACP and ACLU have reported, charter schools are often engaged in racial and economic-class discrimination.
Charter schools should (1) be required by law to be governed by school boards elected by the voters so that they are accountable to the public; (2) a charter school entity must legally be a subdivision of a publicly-elected governmental body; (3) charter schools should be required to file the same detailed public-domain audited annual financial reports under penalty of perjury that genuine public schools file; and, (4) anything a charter school buys with the public’s money should be the public’s property.
NO FEDERAL MONEY SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO GO TO CHARTER SCHOOLS THAT FAIL TO MEET THESE MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS OF ACCOUNTABILITY TO THE PUBLIC. Hillary Clinton could, if elected President, on day one in office issue an Executive Order to the Department of Education to do just that. Tell her today to do that! Send her the above information to make certain she knows about the Inspector General’s findings and about the abuses being committed by charter schools.
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Tracy says the following:
““Recently, those pushing for cap lift have been piling on the suburban guilt. It was all over the column I referenced yesterday; it was a big part of the Newton School Committee public testimony last night. Some of this is about wealth, a lot of this is about race, but it is all intended to make those who have a lot feel badly about those who don’t and vote for cap lift to make themselves feel better.”
Bingo!
Playing the race card or the white guilt card (or wealthy guilt car) is a pretty lame and divisive tactic on the part of Marc Kenan — the Executive Director and Foiunder of the Massachusetts Charter School Association, and who helped draft Question 2 — and all the folks allied with Marc to pass Question 2.
Go here:
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( 35:02 – )
( 35:02 – )
MARC KENAN: “We have our strongest opposition from the teachers unions across the state, whose leadership is primarily white… (So-effing-what, Marc?! JACK) … 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.”
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With tens of millions of dollars going to political campaign operatives, I’m guessing this specious race-baiting was dreamed up by those guys, and then tested on focus groups where those experts found out that these messages worked in getting folks to vote YES on 2.
This scuzzy and divisive tactic works two ways:
ON WHITES: it’s a way to use white guilt to pressure white voters into voting Question 2.
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MESSAGE to Whites:
“You don’t want to be one of those racists who keep blacks from getting a good education, now, do you? Vote ‘YES’ on Question 2, and earn your ‘I’m-No-Racist!’ merit badge.”
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For whites, it’s an easy way to prove you’re not a racist, and make yourself feel good in the voting booth… regardless of how off-base that thinking actually is.
ON BLACKS: it’s a way to use historical black anger against white oppression and mistreatment to vote “YES” on 2.
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MESSAGE to African-Americans:
“White folks in upscale Massachusetts cities and neighborhoods are stealing black kids’ promise of a great education and keeping black kids from having good schools, just the way they’ve been doing this forever. Stick it to those racist whiteys and vote ‘YES’ on Question 2.”
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As a Los Angeleno, this demagogic re-framing of the issues reminds me the way attorney Johnny Cochran, in the O.J. Simpson trial, successfully manipulated the black jurors and black population into abandoning their common sense and critical thinking to render their verdict, and act the way they did. He brought in an irrelevant and inflammatory context of historical racism, and attached it to the way a true black person should think and act regarding O.J.’s guilt or innocence.
“Here’s your chance to even the score with The Man. Vote to acquit!”
or
“If you’re in the black community, back your brother O.J. in his time of need, and stick it to the racist power structure.”
That’s how and why you got this abomination. (Note the different reactions of blacks and whites to the live announcement of O.J.’s acquittal):
( 1:01 – )
( 1:01 – )
For Marc Kenan and his Massachusetts Public Charter School Association (which Marc founded) to stoop to this level of pernicious exploitation of historical racism is pretty scuzzy and skeevy. However, I imagine this is what the high-priced political campaign experts whom the “YES” on Question 2″ folks hired told him to say at the debate and elsewhere. … and Marc figures,
“Oh what the heck. As scuzzy and skeevy as this tactic is, all’s fair in politics, and you do whatever you have to in order to win. The ends justify the means, blah-blah-blah … ”
In all my campaigns for which I’ve volunteered — for school board members, politicians, initiatives, etc. — I’ve never had to be associated with such sleazy campaign tactics or messages that violated my own moral code, and I never will be, as I will drop out if engaging in this kind of stuff is what you have to do in order to win.
Indeed, on her pro-charter blog, Erika Sanzi engages in this as well in her response to ultra-progressive Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren’s endorsement of the “NO” on 2 campaign. Sanzi makes Warren out to be the Second Coming of George Wallace, standing in front of the University of Alabama door and barring black students from entering:
http://goodschoolhunting.org/2016/09/elizabeth-warren-baby-got-wrong-back.html
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ERIKA SANZI: “Perhaps those zip codes that act as barbed wire fences for poor kids have simply fallen through the cracks of her broken foundation where principles have given way to power and money and special interest. Adult interest in this case.
“It’s actually hard to imagine the disgust that low income parents, especially black and brown ones, must feel that their world famous Senator, their fighter for the ‘little guy,’ has now lost interest in that proverbial ‘little guy’. ”
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Oy vey!
Here’s another piece, this one from Campbell Brown’s “The74” blog that goes all in this specious race-baiting. Michelle Rhee hagiographer Richard Whitmire calls out those rich white Massachusetts folks who back “NO on Question 2.”
http://the74million.org/article/its-heartbreaking-boston-parents-ask-why-their-wealthy-neighbors-are-fighting-charter-schools
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‘It’s Heartbreaking’: Boston Parents Ask Why Their Wealthy Neighbors Are Fighting Charter Schools”
RICHARD WHITMIRE:
“However, recent polls, along with unexpectedly intense anti-charter activity in places like Newton, suggest that support may be soft. Just before school opened in Newton this year, the union staffed a table outside its ($200 million) high school to encourage teachers to oppose the cap lift. Recently, Tillman attended a meeting in Newton where she said she heard plenty of talk against lifting the cap.
“All of which makes her ask: Why would Newton teachers and parents, who are unaffected by charters, vote to deny better schools for the low-income neighborhoods of Boston?
“ ‘It’s heartbreaking,’ said Tillman (an African-American in favor of Question 2 and expanding charter schools). ‘This does not affect their budget. Why don’t they want to help their brethren in our ZIP code?”
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Because they’re evil racists, Ms. Tillman. Shame on them.
What nonsense.
How do the pro-charter, pro-Question 2 folks reconcile this line of argument with both the NAACP and the Black Lives Matters leaders coming out strongly against Question 2, and the expansion of privately-run charter schools in general? Are those black leaders all stupid, or dupes of the white racists?
Whatever.
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