Wendy Lecker, veteran civil rights attorney, interviews Robert Cotto, member of the Hartford, Connecticut, board of education, about charter schools. Hedge fund managers and billionaires in Connecticut have poured large sums into the coffers of charter schools and of Governor Dannell Malloy to ensure his enthusiastic support for charter schools. They like to claim that charter schools are better than public schools. The interview below says they are wrong. They support privatization, not better schools, just like Betsy DeVos. Governor Malloy’s first state commissioner of education was a charter school founder (who now works for Governor Raimondo in Rhode Island as director of economic development.)
The interview begins like this:
Lecker: Do Connecticut charter schools outperform district schools?
Cotto: Connecticut charter schools were supposed to raise achievement, innovate, and reduce racial isolation. In terms of achievement, charter schools do not serve similar proportions of students living in poverty, bilingual children, and children with disabilities when compared to the local districts where they are located. Charter schools serve a more advantaged group of Black and Latino students in our cities. Therefore, simple comparisons of test results are like comparing “apples to oranges” and do not really tell us much about academic improvement. The state has never evaluated charter innovation. While some charters may innovate, the majority of charters operate like traditional schools. Most Connecticut charter schools are highly segregated by race (mostly Black students).
Lecker: A writer claimed that if Connecticut charters fail to perform, they are shut down, but that you cannot do that to a district school. True?
Cotto: The state almost never closes charter schools because of poor academic performance or financial mismanagement. According to State Department of Education reports, only five charter schools closed their doors since 1999. Three closed because of insufficient funds, one charter school was closed for health/safety violations, and one charter school closed because of lack of academic progress.
Between 2010-2013, all 17 charter schools in the state were renewed by the state, despite very low overall test results for some, including Stamford Academy and Trailblazers Academy. Additionally, the state did not shut down Jumoke/FUSE Academy charter school despite a massive corruption scandal that invited an FBI investigation.
On the other hand, many public schools in Connecticut have closed and been reconstituted for not meeting test score targets. At least a dozen schools in Hartford have been closed and reconstituted in the last decade.
Lecker: Can you describe what happened to Milner school in Hartford?
Cotto: In 2008, Milner school was “reconstituted” under the No Child Left Behind law for not meeting test score targets. The non-magnet/non-charter school was in one of the most economically disadvantaged neighborhoods in Hartford’s North End. In 2012, Milner school was selected by the Commissioner of Education for a second “turnaround” under the management of a private charter company, Jumoke/FUSE, which would be paid a management fee of around $350,000 a year. The idea was that this private charter company could do a better job operating a public school. Jumoke/FUSE hired convicted felons and engaged in financial improprieties. Academic performance of students at the school did not improve under Jumoke/FUSE. In 2014, Jumoke/FUSE ceased running Milner school and Hartford Public Schools regained control.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“While some charters may innovate, the majority of charters operate like traditional schools.”
The groupthink in the education world is striking. The only thing that distinguishes most charters is that they skim and that their teachers have no job security. The no-excuses schools do employ one genuine innovation –strict discipline — that responds to a real short-coming of public schools. But in terms of curriculum and methodology, it seems, few charters deviate from the schizophrenic progressivist/test prep orthodoxy that prevails in most public schools. They’re just regular public schools with more docile students and more exploited teachers.
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“. . . that responds to a real short-coming of public schools.”
Generalizations of all public schools having a “shortcoming” (whichever du jour one it is) is exactly what the edudeformers and privateers of public education proclaim. Proclaim falsely that is.
In 21 years of public school teaching and in sending my children through the public schools, none, not one, zip, zero, zilch of them had any “discipline problems” that lead to school wide or even classroom, hallway or parking lot mayhem.
Do a very small minority of public schools experience that level of discipline problems? Yes, but there are ways to handle those situations without resorting to private schools who will send the trouble students back to the public schools in a blink of an eye.
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“The state almost never closes charter schools because of poor academic performance or financial mismanagement.”
What does this say about policymakers that are responsible to citizens? They demonstrate a clear partiality towards charters. They are not good stewards of tax dollars, and they are not looking out for the best interests of the students that attend these poor performing charters. What is happening in Connecticut is happening everywhere. The charter industry uses its wealth to entice policymakers support for their social experiments on poor students. The flow of cash is an impediment to accountability. This is an egregious pay for play system that permeates the charter industry.
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