Carol Burris writes here about the struggle between the parents of the John Wister Elementary School in Philadelphia and the rich, powerful Mastery Charter Chain, which longed to take control of Wister.
Philadelphia has been under the control of a “School Reform Commission” since 2001; three of its five members are controlled by the governor. Its superintendent is a graduate of the unaccredited Eli Broad academy. It is worth your time to read the timeline of the state takeover of Philadelphia. The state took over because the district’s finances were in poor shape and its test scores are low. Guess what: 16 years laters, its finances are in poor shape (due to state underfunding) and its test scores are low.
In years past, parents had the right to vote on whether to go charter. But that right was taken away because parents didn’t always vote yes.
The parents organized to fight off Mastery, which is run by a non-educator and which practices stern discipline, the “no-excuses” philosophy.
The Mastery Charter School chain, known for its tough discipline and “no-excuses” philosophy, was already running more than 10 schools in the city. CEO Scott Gordon’s background was in business. He founded a home health-care company and marketed cereal before starting Mastery. Just the kind of guy who should be running schools, right?
The parents resisted. For a brief moment, they got a reprieve.
Then the big money kicked in along with the political connections, and Wister was handed over to Mastery.
Charter schools are not public schools. The charter industry is rapacious and greedy. It is never satisfied. It wants more. Arne Duncan was on its side; John King, who founded his own no-excuses charter school, was on its side. Betsy DeVos is its champion.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Crossposted the original article at Oped. News https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/A-cautionary-tale-about-th-in-General_News-Burris_Carol-Burris_Charter-School-Failure_Charter-Schools-170226-967.html#comment647373
with this comment:
Diane Ravitch , who YOU SHOULD FOLLOW IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT IS REALLY HAPPENING OT OUR SCHOOLS. — REPORTS that Zephyr Teachout, the Fordham University law professor who ran against Governor Andrew Cuomo in the recent gubernatorial election, released a powerful and shocking–but well documented–report on the powerful hedge funds that seek to gain control of education in New York state. https://dianeravitch.net/2014/12/03/zephyr-teachout-hedge-funders-and-their-corrupt-effort-to-take-over-public-education-in-new-york/
They are very, very rich. They have no particular expertise in education, nor are they accountable to anyone. Yet they are attempting to privatize one of the most important public institutions of our society.
I personally know Diane Ravitch for over a decade. ; DIANE RAVITCH, was former Asst-Secretary of State, and is the author of How Not to Fix Our Public Schools and Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools.
She and top educators began the NPE to give YOU –the people– an organization to FIGHT THE BIG MONEY PACS.
Learn About The Network for Public Education – Network For Public Education and get their newsletters and see my series on privatization here, with links to Diane’s site.
https://www.opednews.com/Series/PRIVITIZATION-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-150925-546.html?f=PRIVITIZATION-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-150925-546.html
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SLS, need to fix post. Dr Ravitch was not Asst Secretary of State. Easy to understand–we’re disillusioned about many cabinet appointments these days.
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The state of the educational system, as a whole is in great need of reform. But instead of attempting to fix the broken bureaucracy that surrounds the state of education, the government is consumed with covering it up. Thus, if Michigan is any indication of the effectiveness that charter schools yield, why make yet another example of failure? Privatizing education will only allow for further intellectual segregation.
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intellectual segregation and, in a growing number of venues, religious views indoctrination
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“The state of the educational system, as a whole is in great need of reform.”
Please explain to us what makes up that “educational system”. TIA, Duane
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f,
The educational system in, say, Mendham Twp, NJ (Chris Christie’s residence w/ property tax ~$40,000) probably doesn’t need much reform. Maybe we need more children with rich parents?
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Good advice for children: be sure to have rich parents.
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It’s not just money and clout. We focus on those things to our detriment. The center of charter victory is the reform/privatizer absolute domination of the national education narrative, whereby they have capture both the right and left of our political spectrum. By failing to place that at the center of every “how did it happen” narrative and conversation, we are absolving our side of many likely fatal mistakes.
I have always argued as will continue to do so that the reform/privatizer’s victories were less their victories than our losses. Since before common core the goals and intentions of the reform movement have been visible, legible, and clear for all to see. Yet, the leaders and decision makers on our side, notably people like Weingarten etc., chose an accommodationist path, refusing to acknowledge the existential crisis that was developing. It was as if the attending physician in the emergency room, when confronted with a patent in cardiac arrest, insisted that the problem was indigestion.
Being frank about this is deeply important.
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Thank you for identifying that our side allowed the bleeding to continue when bandaids were required. Now that Stitches can’t fix this dilemma, you’ll see the slick, streetwise narrative around funding being the biggest issue. That’s easier for our Elected Officials to latch onto because it won’t impede the donations from lobbyists that require them to sit down on our fights to save public from charter. We have plenty to clean out from our very own backyards!
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thank you nysteacher. It is so much easier to put up a facade of let’s all co-operate, than it is to try and explain the complicated realities.
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