More on Nevada.
The list of high school graduation rates was posted yesterday. Charter schools had the lowest rates in the state.
The legislature and governor bestow billions on billionaires for stadiums and tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. But public schools go without basic supplies.
To avoid paying for public schools, the legislature opens charter schools and offers vouchers.
But the vouchers explicitly violate the state constitution (which doesn’t necessarily mean the state courts will rule them unconstitutional since conservatives interpret state constitutions very loosely when vouchers are at issue).
And the charters include many of the lowest performing schools in the state (including the amply funded but highly disorganized Andre Agassi charter school) and have the lowest graduation rates.
Read this: http://m.lasvegassun.com/news/2016/oct/13/nevada-high-school-graduation-rates-continue-to-cl/
The school with the lowest graduation rate in the state is Silver State Charter School, where only 18% graduated. That’s even worse than ECOT (Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow) in Ohio, where the graduation rate is 20%.
Not to worry, reformers! There will be no accountability for charter schools! In fact, the state has hired a receiver to fix Silver State charter school at $25,000 a month…do what? Who knows? It’s Nevada, where kids don’t count, especially if they are poor and Hispanic.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
Wow!!
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On a side note, Nevada is a right to work (for less) state. The assault on workers’ rights never ends in this country which just loves to privatize everything and still does not have true universal health care.
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Diane: Here’s a link to a new book reviewed on the Teachers College Record newsletter that, to me (after reading only the review) seems like a good and critical/dialectical (rather than polemical) reference for the arguments presented on this site. It seems the author has found the crucial difference in the ancient argument about means and ends in comparing business with education and the models that emerge from both, and on which policy, or the notable lack of it, is often based.
The recent arrival of the “commercial mindset” to Nevada schools is a case in point–as if there were no other way of thinking. It’s positively positivism in act, encapsulated in a silo with no windows, namely: silo-thinking. I have copied a couple of blurbs from the review below:
http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=21683
Education and the Commercial Mindset
by Samuel E. Abrams
reviewed by Megan Tompkins-Stange
Publisher: Harvard University Press, Cambridge
ISBN: 0674049179, Pages: 432, Year: 2016
Search for book at Amazon.com
All below from the review (my emphases): “Abrams argues that “[m]uch of our mistaken thinking about education policy derives from our commercial mindset” (p. 303), a statement that might suggest he rejects the use of business goals in education. On the contrary and unusually, his arguments are exceptionally balanced, meticulously researched, and rooted in a deep understanding of the historical, cultural, and social antecedents of the widespread use of business practices and norms in education. . . . . As a central thread in the narrative, Abrams frames the differences in production functions between industry and education. . . .”
“The author also critiques teacher treatment by management and accountability systems reflecting the hallmarks of a low-wage, low-skilled assembly line focusing on inspection and quality control as opposed to professional judgment. Historically, and particularly since the advent of high stakes accountability metrics in No Child Left Behind, teachers have been denied the creativity and discretion to experiment and innovate pedagogically in their classrooms. Abrams (argues) that making teaching a more appealing and respected profession is one of the most important levers that can be utilized in educational reform. . . . ”
“Invoking Henry Ford’s practices of reducing the workday and workweek, increasing the minimum wage and quality of work, and lowering turnover, Abrams argues that paying and treating teachers well should be primary priorities of school reform. In a striking parallel, he recalls Ford’s practice of grooming from within, in the words of Chandler. The author contrasts it with reform efforts over the past two decades, which until recently have not included career educators to the same degree as managerial professionals who have been imported into education despite a lack of expertise. Abrams echoes Linda Darling-Hammond’s classic and now prescient advice: change management is most effective when it evolves from within an organization, rather than being imposed from an external source. . . . Through a series of thoughtful analyses, Abrams illuminates and distinguishes between concepts that are often murkily conflated in critiques of corporate education reform or market-based reform. These include public and nonprofit educational initiatives that are influenced by managerial norms and for-profit management of schools. . . . “
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Great book. I have read it and will have a review out soon in another place.
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Do let us know when and if there is a link to your review. And I’m so glad to hear about Mrs.Kaine’s long-term advocacy for public schools (from another thread).
Today, at this time just before the election, I’m reminded: You can fool some of the people some of the time . . . .
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The commercial mindset for judging the value of education is well-entrenched. “Innovation” is the new way to speak of reform.
Here is the sort-of-new argument: “Governance of education by citizens and elected school boards is monopolistic. It creates burdensome regulations and denies equal access to students and other resources for innovators and entrepreneurs.”
The source of that quote is lost in my notes, but the underlying theory owes much to economist Clayton Christensen: Disruptive innovation is the engine of the economy and source of all things wonderful–out with the old, in with the new, otherwise you are dead in the water.
The disrupters of public education invariably reinforce a narrative (and a stereotype of schools as dropout factories, too tolerant of low achievement. In the familiar rescue scenario, the innovators come in to disrupt that awful status quo in order to “save” children–especially poor children and children of color–from those incompetent, lazy teachers and failed schools.
The narrative is sustained by reducing the whole concept of individual and collective achievement to scores on standardized tests and a studied disregard for the fact that tests are designed to make most students look no better than average and some much worse, with a few nearer to acing the tests. Poor test scores are treated as if a necessary and sufficient condition for closing schools, firing teachers and “unleashing” the power of innovation.
The innovators/entrepreneurs act as if they are “entitled” to educate students with minimal or no oversight. They want to set up their own schemes for school governance, unshackled by such barriers as thinking about the public purposes of education, solicited ideas from citizens, delegating authority to elected school boards, public meetings and records of decisions. The innovators/entrepreneurs (once known as reformers) draw strength from economist Milton Friedman’s view of “choice” as roughly equivalent to “voice” and “vote” in a democratic society.
These economic assumptions can have more than political appeal. The money available for public education implicates profit-seeking in a literal (financial) sense and in a moral sense. School choice is an opportunity for parents to invest in their children. In brief, the marketers say that when parents pay the full cost of education, there is usually greater oversight of the value they receive. Some parents may need to rearrange their priorities in order to pay for education. This encourages and strengthens virtues such as responsible parenting, fiscal self-discipline, and with some likelihood that children will be diligent learners.
Free-market thinking is both and expression of democracy at work and also an opportunity to promote moral virtues. Myron Lieberman, for example, uses that very argument to advocate for a total replacement of public schools with profit-centered schools. ” Private schools of the future may foster some of the moral values associated with a religious point of view. This would seem especially likely if government schools are replaced by schools for profit” (Lieberman, 1994, xix).
Free-marking thinking makes for curious political alliances. For example,some in the intellectual/professional class have complained about: a) elitism in the control of knowledge by experts, and b) the power of the “democratic” state to limit the voice and agency of the very people it is supposed to empower.
Those views may resonate with religious conservatives who oppose what they regard as liberal values promoted in public schools. Fiscal conservatives want less government, lower taxes, and think schools are mismanaged. For different, but sometimes overlapping reasons, both ends of the political spectrum may endorse consumer choice and deregulation, a tendency Thomas Frank has called as “market populism” and favoring private enterprise.
Restoring a sense for the common good and articulating the role of public education in securing that requires more work and attention than many are willing and able to give to it.
A lot of us are grateful that Diane Ravitch makes that case with uncommon clarity and amazing energy.
Frank, T. (2000). One market under god: Extreme capitalism, market populism, and the end of democracy. New York: Anchor Books.
Lieberman, M. (1994). Introduction. In E.G. West, Education and the state: A study in political economy, Third edition. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
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In an excellent note, Laura Chapman gives an account of the “new” innovator/entrepreneur argument (formerly: reformer): ““Governance of education by citizens and elected school boards is monopolistic. It creates burdensome regulations and denies equal access to students and other resources for innovators and entrepreneurs.”
That argument pits public against private schools as if they were competing on the same field in the same way and for the same purposes–another false equivalence. First, public schools emerge from the “idea” of democracy; whereas private schools, though they can exist in a democracy (as they do and have), are beholden also to private concerns, most notably, to short-sighted capitalistic interests.
Second,privatization is basically a monopolistic movement itself as its purveyors are set to eliminate its “competitor,” as they see it: public schools.
Third, those who advocate for private institutions see public schooling as anathema to their institutional existence because “public” schools are controlled by democratic forces and serve ALL, namely, the community that “owns” them and that is being educated (from below upward); instead of by manipulative and profiteering ideologies (from above downward) that are commonly associated with private institutions, especially those with predatory strains. And private institutions/corporations DO compete with other private institutions who share the same top-down structure and who, unlike public schools, are de-linked from SERVICE TO ALL in the communities that they exist in, AKA “equal access to all.”
Fourth, the charge of “burdensome regulations” is code for “they won’t let us do whatever we want without accountability.” For them, regulations are oppressive instead of about curbing degenerate, anti-public, or ignorant forces in any institution that emerges from the idea of “commonwealth” and is about serving the public good.
Capitalistic values don’t exist in the air but are a product of human thinking. As such, they need not be anti-public, though at present it seems that the thinking of many have defined them that way. And if we listen to those Trump-mentalities that are out there, the open conflict between capitalism and democracy is written in stone and has nothing to do with their own short-sighted, self-absorbed, disingenuous views.
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“Governance of education by citizens and elected school boards is monopolistic. It creates burdensome regulations and denies equal access to students and other resources for innovators and entrepreneurs.”
The source of that quote is lost in my notes, but the underlying theory owes much to economist Clayton Christensen
The quote came from a document from Bellwether called the “The U.S. Education Innovation Index: Prototype and Report” (September 21, 2016). I have discovered that those two sentences have been deleted from the final pdf but the sentiment is there. There are some other mind-boggling features in this report beyond the “entitlement” claims on behalf of innovators and entrepreneurs and “new governance” schemes for education.
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Laura–thank you for the clarification. As an aside, and by way of harboring hope: It’s amazing what didn’t get done in the early schooling of some of us–myself included. Remember “consciousness raising”? The general idea of “breakthrough” comes forward in realizing, into our cells and bones (at least later for me), that we have been in a mindset that has hidden other ways of thinking–thinking that I MAY prefer, were I aware–and that, now, has turned into a horrifying way of life, or even a set of policies, that I have been promoting and investing in for years. Such investments tend to run interference for themselves in the shadowy places of consciousness; but ‘getting it” is always a possibility. I think that’s why pounding on the door, again an again, as Diane does so well, is so important to initiating qualified change. Thanks again.
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Laura,
The quote (from Christensen?) has it backwards. The Constitutional principle is equality of opportunity for STUDENTS, not entrepreneurs and corporations.
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IT’S UP TO EACH OF US NOW AS INDIVIDUAL CITIZENS TO SPREAD THE WORD to our state and local lawmakers and social media friends everywhere because they 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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