In this post, Jeff Bryant reviews the current backlash that is blocking the path of the charter industry.
For most of the past 20 years, we have been fed a steady diet of propaganda about charter schools and their magical power to “save poor kids from failing public schools.” The original founders of the charter movement wanted charter schools to collaborate with public schools, to help solve problems that public schools couldn’t solve, and to be partners. They are no longer collaborators or partners; instead they see themselves as competitors, trying to seize “market share” and drive public schools out of business. The founders did not dream that their idea would give birth to an avaricious industry that would generate for-profit schools, schools with draconian discipline, and schools that fought against any accountability.
One thing is now clear: charter schools do not have a secret formula to “save poor kids from failing public schools.” When they accept the same students, they do no better and often do much worse (on standardized tests) as compared to their “failing schools.” Many circumvent this problem by choosing the students they want and excluding those they don’t want. In some states and cities, the charters are failing far worse than the public schools they replaced. Hardly a day goes by without another story of a scandal, financial or academic, in the charter industry. This is not surprising when there is so little oversight, accountability or transparency associated with the charter schools. You need not look far to find examples of nepotism, conflicts of interest, graft, fraud, misappropriation of funds, and self-dealing.
For years, the public has been unaware of what the charter industry was up to. But as the industry became more ambitious, more aggressive, and more avaricious, the public is catching on. That is why Question 2 in Massachusetts, funded by out-of-state billionaires, is in trouble; that is why Amendment 1 in Georgia, which would allow the state to take control of struggling public schools, is in trouble. The billionaires are pumping in more money to deceive the public, but school boards, PTAs, school committees, teachers’ groups, and parents are spreading the word, door to door, without the billionaires’ help.
The loss of taxpayer money on schools of unknown quality is bad enough. What is far worse is allowing the profiteers and free-market ideologues to privatize an essential democratic institution.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“In another sign of weakening support for Question 2 among Democrats, a different poll taken in April found 45 percent of the Democrats supporting charter expansion and 34 percent against. When the poll was conducted again in September, just 29 percent of Democrats were in support and 54 percent opposed.”
The tide is turning, and the DNC and Hillary would be wise to see the handwriting on the wall. It is time to consider what is best for our nation’s youth, not Wall St. They have done enough damage. No country has been successful in privatizing its schools. We need to concentrate our efforts on our democratic public schools that serve most of the nation’s students. We need an informed electorate and responsible citizens, and we are not going to get them from corporate schools.
The Big Chart. When there is money involved, little regulation, the grift runs deep.
This looks like tons of fun, a party in MA with Arne in honor of a charter founder, Congressman Stephen Lynch http://www.theeducationparty.org
Thanks Diane!
We should not forget to mention the cruel treatment of children in charter networks. The “no excuses” model is just flat-out disgusting. It should embarrass anyone who holds progressive values and believes in equal treatment of the poor. And it should embarrass anyone—on either side of the political spectrum—who embraces the American values of individualism, creativity, and free thought.
It’s interesting to me that charter school methods have finally been put under a spotlight during the Donald Trump era. The instruction which prevails in so many charters is eerily reminiscent of Trump-like put-downs toward women, minorities, immigrants, and the poor. It’s like all pretense of “political correctness” or progressive values has been tossed out and it’s okay for schools to treat inner city youth like prison inmates.
Can it be that charter school founders think just like Donald Trump? Remember, the inner cities of our country “are a disaster education-wise, job-wise, safety-wise, in every way possible,” says the Donald. “I’m going to help the African-Americans. I’m going to help the Latinos, Hispanics. I am going to help the inner cities.”
Yeah, right.
What’s being offered is not “help”. Success Academy’s belittlement of a little girl, caught on tape, and brownshirt-like mantras in a Nashville charter (Gulen-backed!) reflect a shift toward toward separate and unequal. They’re devised by a small, exceptionally wealthy group of individuals who don’t want to pay for public schools, or don’t believe the poor deserve a first-class education, similar to what their own kids get.
Charter schools have been running wild on a pitch that could come straight from Donald Trump: “Let’s make education great again. Believe me, it will be great!” But the facade is gone. What a sad commentary are charter schools on our democracy. Let’s hope that Hillary gets it, that Georgians get it, Bay Staters get it, Los Angelenos get it, and so on. The privatization trend must be reversed and “public” must be put back in public education.
I agree. The pro-charter folks appeal to the same things that Trump does. Pitting the have nots against one another so that (in the case of Trump) uneducated white people can blame minorities and immigrants for problems instead of the truth – that there has been little investment in this country while the rich have accumulated a shocking amount of the wealth. In the case of charter schools, the low income parents of children who are strivers believe that there is no other way for their schools to be better unless they allow private charters who will keep out the riff raff. If you blame the children who don’t “deserve” good schools for their own failures, there is no need to spend any money on them. And once you have essentially written them off, there is a little more to help the low income kids who don’t cost much money, and a lot more to reward the schools most adept at identifying them and “encouraging” the non-strivers to leave. If Trump wins, and his supporters get some bones thrown at them while funding for the things that help poor and immigrants are cut, the rich can continue to accumulate wealth while paying low taxes.
Unfortunately, eventually that kind of thinking leads to instability and civilian unrest. There is only so long that you can fool the public into blaming the “other” instead of looking to how the lack of any investment in this country as a tiny amount of obscenely rich Americans accumulated more wealth than in modern history and demanding to keep it all has undermined democracy. In the long run, nobody wins.
“It’s interesting to me that charter school methods have finally been put under a spotlight during the Donald Trump era.”
The two, spotlight and Trump era have nothing to do with each other, other than being a coincidence. You’re seeing a connection that isn’t there.
Duane, man, you’re harshing my mellow!
I wrote that just for dramatic effect, to illustrate how Trump’s views are not dissimilar from other wealthy backers of charter schools, who accept an cruel method of teaching for “those people”.
If you want to win the day when it comes to charters, I think you should latch on to every potent argument you can.
“harshing my mellow”
Hadn’t heard that one before. Thanks for using it. I like turns of phrases, they add to the richness of the language!
I still stand by my statement, though! Hope it doesn’t kill the buzz (as us old farts used to say).
This campaign to uproot public education and deprofessionalize teaching is no longer just about charter schools. It is also about the “Digital Promise” investments. Educators are being enlisted to make “pledges” on behalf of “digital learning” (personalized, screen-based, blended, etc) much like we saw in the Gates “collaborative contract” schemes that made elected school boards responsible for many expenses that properly should be charged to charter schools.
Digital Promise.org has one aim: Making tech the center of education, marketing that concept to unelected tech-friendly “intermediaries” in cities and large metro areas dubbed “Education Innovation Clusters.”The pushers of this initiative want to use the federal money for education as venture capital for new “digital” products and services and create “new governance” schemes for education, with public education raided and made an instrument of “innovation” (as if that is invariably desirable for everything). Students and teachers and other educators are convenient accomplices, enlisted to field-test and buy the innovative digital products and services. The sense of entitlement to treat schools as more or less useful to business has been moving along at a faster pace than the expansion of charter schools, all aided by tons of money.
The public needs to be aware and not be blinded by the glossy appeal of technology. Lots of technology represents little more than electronic worksheets. This is nothing new as the tech companies would have us believe. The tech companies are no different from charters in that they crave access to public funds for their non-evidence based experiments using students that deserve a quality education, but who instead serve as guinea pigs. Our policymakers are being enticed to adopt more tech gadgets without any consideration to the genuine merit of the product. School districts are playing a fool’s game if they buy into CBE, which supplants role of a trained human and turns this role over to a machine.
I so agree about technology – I would say that a few years back, some charters were ahead with technology…but at present your local public school has everything that anyone else has concerning technology. Technology is an adjunct – it is not the main meal. It is helpful but does not replace the dedicated teacher….and more importantly – technology is not the secret sauce. The secret sauce is not really that secret – it is hard work, professionalism, and compassion. ( and a strong union…)
Blended learning
Personalized learning
Competency based education
Techno-jargon for
“Data-R-Us”
Laura
Pay close attention to the infusion of an “engineering” component into the NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards).
I have spent a great deal of time wondering where the teacher training and resources will come from.
Look no further than the ‘silicon snake-oil” solution.
Laura,
Read what I wrote about Jeb Bush and Bob Wise’s “Digital Learning NOW!” in “Reign of Error.” They were funded by tech companies, recommended that tech should be used all the time, promoted virtual charters, no limits on tech, and claimed it would close the achievement gap. Without a shred of evidence.
As the headmaster of a charter school. I invite anyone to come see how we operate. The whole “charters are the boogeyman” routine is beyond stale. Sure there are some bad apples, just as there are in traditional schools – but don’t let the rational get in the way of the hysterics.
Thanks, Bob. There are some good charter schools. But the industry drains funding from public schools. It creates a dual school system.
Where is your school? What is it named?
“Without a shred of evidence.”
Indeed!
Kind of ironic that this comes from an ed-reform movement that has mad “supporting evidence” its center-piece.
Bob Brown
Not the “bogey-man” – just modern day “carpetbaggers”.
Bob Brown, charters are not public schools, and every penny they receive in public dollars is a dollar taken from the public education budget.
Even if your school is as good as you say it is – and let’s assume that’s the case – it is still siphoning money from the local public schools. That is basic arithmetic, and is not going away, whatever your doomed hopes to paint opposition to charters as “stale.” In fact, the contrary is true: people are starting to finally wake up to the charter school hoax.
There is a structural, institutional problem with charter schools, which applies even to the small minority of them that don’t cream or counsel out students, and which are superior to local public schools.
Let’s try a thought experiment: assuming the teachers in the local public school district in which you are located are unionized, what would be the response of your school’s Board and private funders if the school were incorporated back into the district, while retaining the independence and autonomy you currently have? Would they support that?
If not, why not?
PS: it’s interesting that you identify yourself as a “Headmaster” of a charter school, with its strong connotation of elite private schools. I guess it’s better than calling yourself “CEO,” but it’s still quite revealing. What’s wrong, doesn’t “Principal” carry enough status?
Michael Fiorillo, I too am the director of a charter school, Northwest Passage High School in Minnesota, nwphs.org. The concern that you have about charter schools siphoning off money from the local school makes the assumption that simply because a family lives within a geographic area that they are locked into attending that school regardless of whether or not that school is a good fit for the student. There are many reasons why a family might not want to choose a particular school – it might be too large, the school may not meet the students needs, or many, many other reasons I have heard from parents and students. Parents and students make decisions about their schooling all the time – in Minnesota they have the option of open enrollment and can without reason move from one traditional public school to another, or to a public charter school, or to home school, or online, or private – it’s their choice.
Schools and school districts in this era need to be flexible, the idea that a school budget is fixed and that you are locked into a specific number of students every year is a misunderstanding of school financing. Districts whether large or small need to adjust to the actual number of students that they have each year. The problem in most large districts is that cuts take place in inappropriate place, not in administrative costs, but in areas that directly affect students and teachers.
My answer to your thought experiment: as a teacher led staff with a teacher majority on the board we have never felt the need to unionize. However, if we could maintain our independence and autonomy (which we all know would never happen) their might be some potential benefits to incorporating into a district such as access to levy dollars for building improvements, etc.
Finally, while I have lots of issues with corporate charter schools and charter management companies, in Minnesota charter schools are public, we receive the same per pupil dollars as all other schools (minus the ability to levy), we take in all students and we are accountable to the same requirements as all other public schools in Minnesota.
Peter Wieczorek,
If your charter school has a majority of teachers on the Board, then it’s clearly an outlier, since that puts you among a tiny minority of charter schools nationally.
If you don’t cream students on the front end, and/or counsel them out on the back end, without replacing those students who leave, that also makes you an outlier in the charter world, an exception that demonstrates the general rule.
Minnesota has a long tradition of good government, nevertheless, that doesn’t make charters public schools, no matter the intensity of the PR that claims they are.
As for the “flexibilty” you claim to want, that word immediately registers with me as a euphemism for “anti-union” and “segregation.”
I just came back from a conference where I met a rep for a computer based STEM program that is FREE to schools and being underwritten by the NFL. I kid you not.
There is no secret sauce. The reform crowd have been touting for years that they have the secret sauce and many have believed them. What they do have is a rigged system – I’ll use that word rigged since it is so popular now. If you are a regular reader of this blog I do not need to explain to you how their system is rigged.
A Microsoft Canada self-appointed “education partner” told Entrepreneur magazine that “teachers have to shift or get off the pot”, which translates into (1) Taxpayers forced to absorb costs for a tech. environment that they don’t want for students. (2) Taxpayers forced to enrich west coast oligarchs. (3) Democracy eliminated. (4) Tech industry domination in government policy decisions. (5) Student learning and future American prosperity, which relies on those students’ skills and their participation in functioning civil society, sacrificed to the self-interest of Silicon Valley firms and firms,northward where men like Gates, pay no state income tax.
Whoa! Not all classroom technology is the same. Please be careful about what you fight against.
Machine-based, “personalized learning” is an awful idea. There’s no better evidence than the fact that top private and public schools don’t do it. Their personalizing comes from experienced teachers who are also coaches, mentors, tutors and, for some students, saviors. They know how to prod, praise, encourage, inspire, even manipulate a situation to make it a teachable moment—human stuff which is essential to education.
So it’s the machine-based learning and constant push for data that should be resisted. The data because (1) it’s mostly useless; (2) it backfires by causing too much “teaching to test”; and (3) it invades student privacy.
There is some very good technology in schools which helps teachers do their jobs and which helps students learn. The general position I’d take is, if it’s not machine-based, if it’s not meant to replace teachers, and if it’s not just more data collection, then you have to let newer technologies make their way into schools.
One other point: I think we should be very careful not to be hypocritical and start telling teachers how to do their jobs, i.e., telling them what classroom technology is okay. They are professionals, or so we say constantly on these pages. As long as student safety and privacy is protected (assiduously!), let’s allow them to decide what tools they feel are helpful.
http://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2016/10/new-public-schools.html
What’s fair about denying future generations the experience that comes with creating a new school from scratch? Another public one, like the others. Why should that right be denied?
Is creating new public schools that are not charter schools ever done any more? Or are all the non-charter public schools that we’ll ever have, right now with us today?
For the record, I speak in favor of Alaskan charter schools!
Charter Schools in Alaska are not organized in such a way as to be classified as part of this so-called bad “charter school industry” – that is only an uninformed generalization about charter schools. Businesses do not operate Alaskan charter schools; it is the families, teachers and staff with oversight from each one’s Academic Policy Committee under contract with their local districts and the State of Alaska. What is great about charter schools in Alaska, is that each one is unique – offering school choice for parents. This negative generalization about charter schools comes from lack of information. Our charter schools are awesome and not run by businesses.
Here is a snip from Anchorage Daily News by author, Suzanna Caldwell; she gives a peak into one of them which was recently honored and named a Blue Ribbon School by the US Department of Education as an “Exemplary High Performing School:”
(snip)
Downstairs, 11 first graders are standing in line. When their teacher tells them to go, they jump out of line, one in front of the other, each yelling out a multiple of nine, in order, as quickly as they can, playfully trying to memorize them.
Upstairs, sixth graders are in a heated — but respectful — debate about geometry, arguing about how close a decimal can get to one before it actually gets there.
“OK, time to have a math throw-down,” teacher Mary Melodie Wright tells them.
Across the hall, 15 eighth graders have their laptops out, taking instructions from their teacher on how to fill in a pie chart. They are instructed to open their computers to work on the problem and to close them to signal they are done.
This school’s website http://www.matsuk12.us/acc
More information about Alaska Charter Schools
https://education.alaska.gov/FAQ/CharterSchools/All#q41
My background in Alaskan charter schools’ Academic Policy Committees dates back to 2005 and I am currently a charter school teacher in Anchorage, Alaska.
Thank you for considering the information I have shared.
Alaska has a huge landmass with many isolated small communities. Exactly why does Alaska need charter schools? Are the Alaska public schools terrible? Wouldn’t it make sense to improve the public schools than to create a separate sector? Can Alaska afford a dual school system?