The Trump-DeVos privatization agenda is moving fast in the Deep South, where some people long for the good old days of segregated schools.
In Arkansas, charter advocates said there would be no action on a bill to turn public facilities over to charters, then introduced the bill with no opponents present, and passed it without debate. Word is that the same legislation was introduced in Missouri, though I don’t yet official confirmation of that.
This bill requires local school districts to hand any underutilized buildings over to charter operators.
The charter operators get free public space that was paid for by local taxpayers.
This sounds ominously like ALEC at work. ALEC is a fringe-right organization that writes model legislation and gives it to its members (state legislators), who fill in the name of their state, and lobby for privatization and deregulation. The beneficiaries of ALEC legislation are corporations and alt-right folk.
ALEC opposes local control. It supports vouchers, charters, state takeovers of school districts, high-stakes testing, and opposes unions, tenure, and any rights for teachers.
No doubt the Walton family helped this legislation along, perhaps with the help of their paid-for academics at the University of Arkansas, endowed by the billionaire Waltons.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
We witnessed the irony of a black President promoting the new segregation and now we see the rabid, religious, rightwing racists finishing the job.
Jon,
You are right. I don’t understand the DFERs. Oh, forgot, the DEMs went NEO-LIBERAL.
Yvonne,
The Supreme Court decision called Citizens United gutted campaign finance reform. That unleashed the power of big money in politics. It made the DFERs important. That is why money is now the lifeblood of politics. Bernie bypassed Wall Street with his campaign, but not many candidates can do that.
As always, the Unholy Alliance between moneytheism and capitalism was explained by Max Weber many years ago.
We have this in Ohio.
In Ohio some of the charter laws seem to have been designed as away to get around state law. To levy taxes to build a school one must be a “taxing entity” and taxing entities are required to have local, elected boards. Also- a school levy is (of course) an election.
It’s difficult to build a new school in Ohio. You must have a majority of the voters in a district or you can’t do it. Our last building project was rejected by voters 3 times. Changes were made to voter’s specifications and it passed. It’s a negotiation.
They want facilities but they don’t want the people paying for them to have any control.
This is also reneging on the original promises charter promoters made. When charters started in my state the understanding was they would not have local governance but in return for that they wouldn’t get local funding. They would be STATE schools, created by the STATE legislature so state funded. They are changing the terms of the original deal they made with the public. They didn’t get local funding because we have a concept of no taxation without representation.
They wanted state oversight because they wanted NO oversight. They want this both ways.
People were surprised when they found out about this law when we “retired” a school. The plan was to demolish the school and out a park in there because people had always used the school playground as a park after hours. When they found out there was a state law that said they may not be able to do that they were unpleasantly surprised.
The building was unsafe so no one wanted it, but it really is a shocker for people to find out anyone can plunk any school they want, anywhere.
They should pay more attention to state law. That’s where most of the shady deals happen.
Delaware General Assembly
“In the House, the Education Committee will meet at 2:30pm March 8th to discuss State Rep. Hudson’s school voucher bill. House Bill 161, introduced a year ago, would take the state funding allocated to a particular student and put it in a “Parent Empowerment Education Savings Account”. “
Here’s the NC voucher “results”
Click to access School_Vouchers_NC.pdf
Boy, that law is a real piece of work. They should get an award for “worst voucher law” and there’s a lot of competition. They set this up so it’s impossible to evaluate the effects of this program. It is, however, EXTREMELY possible to evaluate public schools since they’re measured constantly.
Level playing field! This is a JOKE.
“It is, however, EXTREMELY possible to evaluate public schools since they’re measured constantly.”
NO, They are not being “measured (sic) constantly”. They are being evaluated, judged and assessed via invalid made up metrics but in no way shape or form being “measured”.
To be measured there has to be a standard unit of measurement agreed upon by all those who are measuring whatever it is that is being evaluated. Please tell me what the standard unit of measure for the teaching and learning process is.
What? There is no standard unit? Yes, there is no standard unit of measurement. Not only that but what is being supposedly measured is. . . . NOTHING. Yes, nothing, or as R. Phelps, a staunch supporter and rationalizer of eudcational standards and testing, puts it “the ‘nonobservable'”, i.e., supposedly latent traits in the brain/body/mind of the learner.
Not only do we not have any standard unit of measurement we also don’t have anything observable (unobservable) to supposedly measure.
Someone please tell me how that can happen!!
And while we try to stay on top of the 2017 school voucher wildfire, Trump brands spreads across China with same rapidity and an Escort Service to boot!
“China has rapidly approved nearly 40 new trademarks for President Trump and his family in the past few weeks — just the latest Trump business deals that ethics experts see as a possible Constitutional violation.
China’s Trademark Office published the 38 preliminary approvals on Feb. 27 and on Monday, after already registering one Trump construction trademark earlier in February. The office approved applications for hotels, golf clubs, shops, real estate companies, restaurants and even bodyguard and Escort Services, according to public records.
They will be formally approved after 90 days unless there are official objections.”
New York Daily News
The presidency is a huge business deal for the Trump brand. He can play saint by foregoing his salary, while the Trump organization makes billions around the world. The Tepublicans don’t care that the president is violating the Constitution and using his office to enrich himself.
Hey, at least the Salmon Swamp Monster was up front and honest (shocking, eh) about his overall goal: To make a lot of money off of his presidential bid!
ALEC’s role in determining state charter school laws is obvious. Here are some key points about the latest version of model legislation.
On September 12, 2016, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) provided states with ready-to use “model legislation” called the Next Generation Charter Schools Act.
This legislation sets up a state-level education commission entirely separate from any set up for authentic public schools. The primary function of the state charter school commission is that of a clearing house to make sure federal and state funds for education get to charter schools and that state-level schemes for financing charter school facilities are enacted.
ALEC’s desire to assert that all charter operations be “autonomous” is complicated by the need to comply with the federal IDEA law for special education and federal non-discrimination laws. How long these laws will remain in place is an open question. State laws can also interfere with the full autonomy and “money follows the student” policies that ALEC prefers. For this reason, some features of the Next Generation Charter School Act suggest options A, B, or C.
Another striking feature of this Next Gen model legislation is this: It “removes a reference to ‘best practices’ of authorizing as determined by the National Association of Charter School Authorizers.” That is a thumb in the eye to the only national organization pretending to care about who gets to charter schools and on what terms. ALEC does not want any one presuming to offer quality control of charters.
This model legislation also “eliminates special distinctions between virtual and non-virtual charter schools.” This inclusiveness is not surprising, given that the charter industry makes huge profits from virtual schools.
Here are some other sections of the model legislation that caught my eye.
“Except as provided in this Act, a public charter school shall not be subject to the state’s education statutes or any state or local rule, regulation, policy, or procedure relating to non-charter public schools within an applicable local school district regardless of whether such rule, regulation, policy, or procedure is established by the local school Board or Commission, the state Board or Commission of education, or the state department of education.” This means that elected school boards at the local and state level have no power to exercise oversight of charter schools. They operate by their own rules. They are not “public.”
“If a public charter school governing board chooses to employ staff, the public charter school … shall comply with applicable federal laws, rules, and regulations regarding the qualification of teachers and other instructional staff. In accordance with Section 2, (G), (4), teachers in public charter schools shall be exempt from state teacher certification requirements.
In other words, federal laws, rules, and regulations must be followed, but state level laws, rules, and regulations need not be followed. So, if the US Department of Education is “vanished” except as a hold-over conduit for money, ALEC’s model legislation authorizes totally separate school systems at the state level, one for authentic public schools and one for charter schools. Charter schools do NOT need to hire certified teachers.
Here are a few key points about facilities.
“(H) Access to District Facilities and Land. (1) A public charter school shall have a right of first refusal to purchase or lease at or below fair market value a closed public school facility or property or unused portions of a public school facility or property located in a school district from which it draws its students if the school district decides to sell or lease the public school facility or property.”
“(I) Contracting for Use of Facilities. (1) A public charter school may negotiate and contract at or below fair market value with a school district, the governing body of a state college or university or public community college, or any other public or for-profit or nonprofit private entity for the use of facility for a school building.”
“(J) Use of Other Facilities under Preexisting Zoning and Land Use. Designations. (1) Library, community service, museum, performing arts, theatre, cinema, church, community college, college, and university facilities may provide space to public charter schools within their facilities under their preexisting zoning and land use designations. ”
(K) “Exemptions from Ad Valorem Taxes and Certain Fees. (1) Any facility, or portion thereof, used to house a public charter school shall be exempt from ad valorem taxes. (2) Public charter school facilities are exempt from assessments of fees for building permits, fees for building and occupational licenses, impact fees, service availability fees, and assessments for special benefits.”
There are other sections on facility financing, bonding authority, loans and the like. There also several sections of devoted to “special education,” including outsourcing to special schools, compacts with public schools and the like.
ALEC is the corporate-financed go-to organization for ready-to-use legislation designed to undermine public education. It is really fond of tax-subsidized “free-market” solutions to nearly everything.
https://www.alec.org/model-policy/amendments-and-addendum-the-next-generation-charter-schools-act/
They do this in Ohio
Cross-Posted at Oped News
https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Charter-Advocates-Slip-Leg-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Alec_Alec-Legislation_Charter-School-Failure_Charter-Schools-170309-313.html#comment649233
Same brilliant state government (Arkansas) that plans to execute 8 death row inmates w/in 10 days, a move called unprecedented (spelled correctly by me, you’ll note). Why?
Because their supply of the lethal injection drug, Midazolam (the use of which has been questioned in former botched lethal injections)is set to expire soon.