EduShyster knows the answer: A popular suburban charter school in Massachusetts called the Mystic Valley Regional Charter School. This is a school that was created by a group of friends and families that wanted the equivalent of a private school at public school prices. It makes up its own rules. It has very high test scores. And the state has received scores of complaints about the school.
She writes:
So what were parents complaining about?
Special education services, denial of;
English Language Learners, complete lack of;
Teachers, high turnover of;
Property all over Malden, snapping up of (in cash, which seems, um, kind of strange);
Open meeting laws, ignoring of;
Friends and family of founders, hiring of/preferential treatment of;
Admissions lottery, odds-defying nature of, especially when concerning founders, friends and family of;
Communication with board, difficulty of;
Spending priorities, nature of (see $12 million athletic facility, building of)
Student club and athletic team fees, high cost of;
Day-to-day management of the school, interference in
Parents and students who complained, repercussions against, nudging towards door of
In which we pause briefly to consider one downside of the charter model
Let’s pause here briefly to consider why these parents have been deluging state officials with their complaints. You see, because charter schools are autonomous, overseen by their hand-picked boards, parents who have issues with the school and its management have no choice but to bring their complaints to the friends-and-family-esque Board of Directors. Which can be *awkward,* not to mention difficult, because of the board’s penchant for conducting much of its business out of view of the public. The state, meanwhile, doesn’t have much leverage either. While it can step in when the law is being broken or non-complied with, there is no statutory penalty for what might best be described as *dick-ish-ness.* Add in the fact that Mystic Valley is awash in the very treasure that the state most treasures these days—high MCAS scores and a long wait list—and, well, you see where this is not going. As for those unhappy parents, they have a choice: suck it up or *vote with their feet.*
The founders treat the school as their private school, funded by taxpayers. No one cares about the complaints of parents or teachers. The state provides no supervision. What will happen if the charter cap is lifted and more such publically funded, unaccountable, elite charters pop up?
Hopefully the charter cap will not be lifted. In the current situation at Mystic Valley Regional Charter School, dissatisfied parents can vote with their feet and enroll their children in the local public schools, which are required to be transparent and accountable.
Anyone reading the Boston Globe recently had the opportunity to read about this horrific school via a concerned parent who took her child out of that school… read on:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/10/28/finding-school-that-gave-her-son-room-run/ip6WcrlFYZvhCKk8DUqhPK/story.html
“What will happen if the charter cap is lifted and more such publicly funded, unaccountable, elite charters pop up?”
What’s happening to the public schools is only one element of what is happening to the country.
Privatized prisons
Private sector military contractors fighting our wars
Privatized education
Privatized state and national parks
Corporate police forces that already outnumber the public police. I see more and more private-sector police on the roads in police style squad cars.
Etc.
All publicly funded without any transparency and no democratic or Constitutional legal process at any level.
We will get exactly what the oligarchs and far-right, racist, freaks want, a country divided up into fiefdoms that the billionaires control like the kings and royalty of old. There will be no public voice, and no participatory democracy.
If Donald Trump is elected, we will not get a president, we will end up with an evil emperor willing the play with his little fiddle while the Republic burns and he gets even with all the oligarchs that didn’t support him.
We are alive in dangerous times for our Republic.
All of those public school communities across the country, that gather at the local ball games or other school activities, interacting with a diverse group of neighbors, learning the value of cooperation and democracy… sacrificed at the altar of greed and ideology because Gates, Waltons, DFER, etc. buy political influence. Tragic for America.
Isn’t this supposed to be one of Massachusetts’ stellar, flagship charter schools? One of the ones proponents of lifting the charter school cap are touting and pointing to in order to push “YES on Question 2”?
So this is the best the Massachusetts charter school industry has to offer?
The other thing: aren’t charters supposed to experiment, innovate, and then share the results and successful practices with the pre-existing traditional public schools? Wasn’t that the main purpose and state goal when charters were started twenty years ago?
According to this article, the teachers at this charter school sign a non-compete, non-disclosure agreement that bars them from doing just that.
I guess that “incubators-of-innovations-to-be-shared” stuff is now all gone.
That’s how a competitive business operates, not a public school that they claim is to benefit all students through the sharing of best practices..
Finally, BELOW is another article about a different flagship charter school chain in neighboring Rhode Island — the Blackstone Valley Prep chain of charter schools. It’s another one of those flagship charter schools that is used to argue in favor of passing Question 2, and lifting the charter school cap. In fact, Erika Sanzi , a major corporate reform ed. writer (at Peter Cunningham’s EDUCATION POST … does she get paid?), is a Blackstone Valley Prep staff member.
Erika Sanzi has been pushing Question 2 hard everyone she can — EDUCATION POST, newspaper op-eds, Twitter, and in her own blog — supposedly, she claims, because she just loves charters so much. Another factor may be because if Question 2 passes and the cap is lifted, the Blackstone Valley Prep chain can then (and only then) expand its operations into Massachusetts.
Here’s that black eye that Blackstone Valley Prep got list spring (written about here and elsewhere), regarding some unsavory behavior on the part of its uncredentialed TFA Corps Member teachers:
Here’s the article about how former Mystic Valley charter teachers are forbidden from “sharing best practices”, again one of the primary purposes charter schools were created in the first place.
Here’s the very contract that Mystic Valley uses: (go the Item “9” at the very top of page 2)
Click to access rising_tide_contract_redacted.pdf
In item “9”, the contract contains a confidentiality provision that prohibits employees from sharing information that …
“ … includes but is not limited to matters of a technical nature such as methods of instruction, curriculum development, proposed changes to curriculum, and similar items…”
From the article here:
http://massteacher.org/news/archive/2016/dese_fails_to_collect_charter_personnel_contracts.aspx
“Why isn’t DESE ensuring that charter school curricula and instructional practices, all paid for with public dollars, are not treated as proprietary and shrouded in secrecy?” asked Sean Costello, a member of the Marshfield School Committee. “There should be no ‘trade secrets’ in charter schools. But clearly, Rising Tide sees itself as competing with the public schools, not sharing its so-called best practices with them.”
These concerns are not new. In a 2014 report, State Auditor Suzanne Bump concluded, “DESE is responsible for ensuring that these [innovative] practices are developed and shared but has never defined what constitutes an innovative practice or created an environment for the dissemination of new practices in administration or teaching.”
(AND HERE’S THE “money quote”, as it pertains to Question 2 … CAPITALS for emphasis are mine, JACK)
“With DESE ignoring the contents of these charter school personnel contracts, we are all left in the dark,” said Guisbond. “TO THINK THAT DESE WOULD BE ABLE TO PROPERLY OVER SEE 12 NEW CHARTERS-A-YEAR IF THE BALLOT INITIATIVE IS PASSED IS RIDICULOUS. THE DEPARTMENT ALREADY HAS SHOWN THAT IT IS UNABLE OR UNWILLING TO EFFECTIVELY OVERSEE THE CHARTER SCHOOLS THAT ALREADY EXIST. ”
Yet more reason to .. VOTE “NO” on Question 2″
Fining teachers for “liquidated damages” seems to be happening more often as unions are dismantled and teachers are subjugated more and more to a ruling class. It’s common, for example, in Arizona, where teachers are stuck having to sign a contract sometimes within 15 days of receiving them. If they get a better offer after the due date, they are fined. Just another disrespectful poke at an already pitiful profession. Why would anybody want to teach in Arizona? Why would anybody want to teach at all? Oh right because all the other jobs suck too as they are shamelessly controlled by the wealthy. I hope Trump wins so we can finish off this farce of a democracy and corrupted capitalist economy, that is ostensibly in its death throes. We need to put the subjugated under the oligarchy out of their misery and hit the reset button. Private prisons, private education, private healthcare; who says Hillary is the better option; she’s right in there cashing in as fast as possible off of our backs. Think about it; she’s amassed a personal fortune of 50 million while “serving” the rest of us. Really? Doesn’t anybody else see the problem with this!? That’s 1000 times the average teacher’s salary? Really? That’s her savings. How much have you saved in the last 10 years?
Just so people don’t misunderstand my wish for a Trump presidency; I was the first to say he’s as dangerous as a Hitler. I said I hope he wins because we are certain to be destroyed. Germany did well after WWII. Maybe we need a lot more homeless before people will get themselves educated and push back. Trump will certainly ensure that many more people are pushed to the brink of disaster and so something will have to give. Hillary will certainly prolong the death of our sick economic system. I don’t believe she will make the necessary changes because the changes we need are too extreme for her. We have a better shot at real change if the system is flattened first.
Janet, I don’t think you understand what you are saying with “We have a better shot at real change if the system is flattened first.”
What you clearly advocate is change brought about by a Pyrrhic victory.
A Pyrrhic victory is a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. Someone who wins a Pyrrhic victory has been victorious in some way. However, the heavy toll negates any sense or achievement or profit.
I’m sure that with Donald Trump as president, you will get your “flattened system” but no one will have control over what comes next, and it could be much worse than what we have now.
For instance, the end of civilization in the West and a new dark agesof tyranny and suffering with another plague of some kind that would kill off billions of people and that’s not even counting the damage brought on by a Trump presidency that ignores climate change and plows on to cause even more havoc and destruction when the oceans rise and floods our coasts.
Global warming is real!
Carbon emissions do more than allegedly contributing to climate change. Carbon emissions pollute our water, our air and our soil lowering the average life span and increase disease and suffering!
The CDC doesn’t say if, but when we will have another global pandemic that will threaten the lives of billions!
“Latest Trump tax plan adds trillions to the national debt, Clinton plan trims deficits by taxing the wealthy”
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/latest-trump-tax-plan-adds-trillions-national-debt-clinton-plan-trims-deficits-taxing-wealthy
The republic barely survived the Civil War and Great Depression. Don’t overestimate the resilience and certainty of our fragile democracy. Scorch Earth solutions have been tried and the results are not always good, but often violent and bloody.
I’d encourage you to google Keith Olbermann’s recent essay “Would a Trump Win or a Foreign Invasion be Worse?”. It strips away false equivalency and puts the election choices in perspective.
Janet,
That is nihilism, and it invites a Hitler to set things right.
I wonder if Janet Goldsbury is even from the United States. Diane, because she left the comment on your Blog, you have access to her IP address and you can ping it to see the area where Janet lives.
Maybe she works out of Russia for Putin.
Pinging and IP address is not spying, stalking or an invasion of privacy. All pinging and IP address does is give you an 80 percent chance of getting within about 25 miles of the computer/location the comment was sent from.
By pinging the IP address, you will discover if the comment came from another country like Arizona, Texas, Alabama or Russia. And you don’t have to share what you learn with anyone if you decide to do that.
http://whatismyipaddress.com/ip-lookup
Lloyd, Every Saturday I bike 23 miles to Venice Beach, CA, at the break of dawn. The early hours means that I see A LOT of homeless people sleeping under the overpasses and on bus stop benches and sidewalks. There’s one place where there must be 50 homeless people who set up camp together. The camp they set up connects tarps to one another in an elaborate way. Some have tents, some sleep in the open and others hide themselves with whatever. I’ve never seen so many homeless people. Not even when I lived in NY in the late ’80’s when I thought there were quite a few. I’m telling you about seeing them “at dawn” because apparently many homeless people set up their sleeping accommodations at dusk and break them down at dawn. This makes them less visible. Some of them are mentally ill but not all. I see women too. My point is that these people are already living in what you describe, and I agree, a world that would be the result of, God forbid, a Trump presidency. My, possibly extreme comments, are the result of exasperation with a system that is letting down so many fellow human beings. I’m not sure why you want to track me the way you describe to Diane. You need to understand that sarcasm is extremely difficult to use on line. I understand your frustration with people from Texas, Arizona, Alabama, and Russia. But you are showing disdain for approximately 180 million people. I don’t think things are going to change for the homeless in LA when Hillary takes the reins. I think she should take most of the money she’s accumulated while in Washington (about 45 million) and give it back to the people. I don’t want the results of a Trump presidency. I do think he is capable of turning the US into North Korea. But Hillary perpetuates an oligarchy. When Hillary gets elected, I will continue to struggle under a growing debt, trying to get my daughters through school, the insane cost of health care, and I worry as I see the destruction of public education in the misguided attempt to priv
atize and I worry that there are fewer and fewer decent jobs for my daughters once they finish school. You seem to be more confident of Hillary than I am.
Who started it all, the homeless population in the U.S.?
Reagan’s Legacy: Homelessness in America
http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/135/reagan.html
Who is responsible for the growth of the Federal National Debt?
When President Carter left office, the debt was $168.8 billion.
When President Reagan left office, the debt was $2.878 Trillion and the interest on that debt was $1.364 trillion.
This is what the next president inherited.
When President G. H. W. Bush left office, the debt was at $4.351 Trillion and $2.111 Trillion of that was added from the interest on the debt.
This is what the next president inherited.
When President Bill Clinton left office, he only added $75.1 billion to the debt from new spending, but the debt had reached $5.7699 Trillion because the interest paid on the debt he inherited was $3.7205 Trillion. 64.5 percent of the added debt came from the interest.
This is what the next president inherited
When President G. W. Bush left office, the debt was almost $12 Trillion, and $5.3114 Trillion was from the interest only. In addition. G. W. Bush also left us three wars (the war on global terror, the war in Iraq, and the war in Afghanistan) and 9 million lost jobs and 5 million lost homes thanks to the 2007-08 Global Financial Crises. 44.26 percent of the growth of the national debt was from the interest.
That is what President Obama inherited.
By the time Obama finished his first term in office in 2012, $6.145 Trillion was added to the debt just from the interest on the total debt that he inherited.
Now, lets go back to the first entry in this comment. Who started it all with his trickle down economics policy and deficit spending?
Next, what will President Donald Trump do to the national debt?
The Fiscal Times reports,”Trump Fumes over $19 Trillion National Debt, but His Plan Would Double it”
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2016/07/28/Trump-Fumes-Over-19-Trillion-National-Debt-His-Plan-Would-Double-It
Trump has made a lot of boastful promises he can’t deliver unless he is a dictator with total control of the military and police with no Congress or U.S. Supreme Court to get in his way.
What has Trump always thought about the homeless?
“Trump spend decades complaining that homeless veterans were running his property values”
http://winningdemocrats.com/trump-spent-decades-complaining-that-homeless-veterans-were-ruining-his-property-values/
“If Donald Trump Becomes President, how Will he Address Homelessness?
http://winningdemocrats.com/trump-spent-decades-complaining-that-homeless-veterans-were-ruining-his-property-values/
Trump has a solution for the homeless population. I believe he calls it “The Final Solution”. He will kill the homeless people with his hateful policies. Maybe he’ll put them on a boat and send them out to sea with no rations or water or maybe he’ll have them build the wall between the US and Mexico without drinking water or toilets. The homeless will disappear and his property values will soar. Then he’ll raise the rents while lowering the wages. This is genius because then there will be more homeless people available to work on the wall construction. As he already said he would do, he will buy up properties that fall into bankruptcy and turn them around for a profit. Poor people are disposable and he will ensure a steady supply by taking away birth control and privatizing education so that school managers can make exorbitant salaries while keeping the poor population under control by keeping them as poorly educated as possible and encouraging blind obedience. The children of rich people will not go to the schools where the blacks are being corralled (charter schools). They will send their children to expensive private European boarding schools where they will study art history with class trips to Paris. They will learn how to ski in Italy. They will learn to play piano or classical guitar. In short Trump will ensure a wider gap between the “haves” and the “have nots”. It seems to me that cycles of economic and social booms followed by busts are unavoidable/ inevitable. I don’t believe Hillary will solve the problem in America, specifically, the inequitable distribution of wealth. I think she will only prolong the agony of a dysfunctional, under-regulated greedy capitalist economy. The only trickle down you or I will experience will be standing under a cliff while a rich person urinates. The reason I can not vote for Hillary is because I believe that Hillary with her fortune accumulated while in Washington, somewhere around 40 or 50 million, is actually stolen from the labor of the rest of us. She did not actually produce anything or provide such an enormous amount and/or quality of service that she honestly earned that money. Meanwhile while I have been working as a teacher for 1/1000 of that sum. I have not saved any money. In fact, I have been subsidizing my income with an inheritance from the previous generation who were able to keep families together with one salary, send their kids to college for a FRACTION of today’s costs, and did not lose their houses because of the costs of health care. Ignorance and greed is destroying this country. Neither Hillary nor Trump will pull us out of this mess. I believe things need to get worse so that we reach the tipping point where enough people will finally stand up and push back. The fact that the election is as close as it is, is proof that we have a seriously dangerous number of truly ignorant people who believe that Trump is a viable candidate for the presidency. It’s truly scary.
Janet G,
Only a fool would wish for Trump’s Armageddon.
If a dog is writhing in pain on the side of the road, hopelessly facing death, no chance of survival, do you take a pistol and put it out of its misery or do you prop it up on all fours and push it along to take a few more steps. Trump is the pistol method while a vote for Hillary is a vote to lift the dying dog in its suffering and nudge it to walk again. Its hopeless. The dog’s fate is death. And don’t call me a fool, it’s not nice! I have two masters degrees; I’m well travelled; I speak two languages. I give you full respect for your opinions. If not for the wealth of my parents, I would be f***ed. You don’t seem to understand that what I am saying is that neither candidate is any damn good. I’m not wishing for a Trump Armageddon but at what point are we morally obligated to say enough is enough and then stand up and face the consequences of the struggle. People fought and died for the freedoms we have in this country and in the most horrific disrespect for the sacrifices, we roll over and allow the rich to subjugate us and oppress us. Lloyd, if you vote for Hillary, who is the fool?
Janet,
I wish you had heard Michael Moore interviewed today by Jake Tapper on CNN. He was a big supporter of Bernie. Now he is a big supporter of Hillary. He thinks she will be a wonderful president.
No, Janet G, Trump would shoot the dog, take any witnesses to court for invading his privacy, bill the owners and/or the city where he shot the dog for his labor and make sure to inflate the price, and then go around shooting everyone else in sight before he took them to court for the effort it took him to shoot them. After he shot them all, he’d rob their houses, their bank accounts, etc.
Clawbacks are all the rage. They undermine our commerce system with uncertainty.
VM,
What is a clawback?
TIA,
Duane
When they take back a promised or paid benefit.
A friend inbested in the zmadoff fund. She withdrew her contribution early and made money. When the fund collapsed, the overseer clawed back what she had received.
Thanks for the explanation. I hadn’t heard that term.
I like the general thrust of the article. I simply do not know what is meant by 6087 dollars of liquidated damages. I wonder if I am the only one who did not understand.
When you break your contract with a school district, you liquidate the contract. Some districts are fining teachers for breaking their contracts. I know you have to give two weeks or 30 days notice but beyond that I had no idea that such a thing was possible. Unions are very important for this reason because individuals can not stand up to corporations or school districts to argue for fair wages and working conditions. There must be collective bargaining.