One of the strange ideas in the privatization movement is that only charters are able to provide “high-quality seats.”
There seems to be a magical place where charter operators go to buy chairs that are unavailable to public schools.
Only charter operators can buy those chairs. Those chairs are “high-quality seats.”
The Citybridge Education Foundation in D.C., financed by billionaires Katherine and David Bradley, is putting up the money to add new charter schools and to help revamp some low-performing public schools in the District, in search of those elusive “high-quality seats.”
What is it about those “high-quality seats”? Does that mean the teachers are ill-prepared Teach for America recruits? Does that mean that the school gets to exclude low-performing students or students whose disability status and language needs make them a “bad fit” for “high-quality seats”?
Where is the warehouse where they keep those “seats”?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
Really good question?
Reading between the lines, I suspect these “high seat” charters are probably the result of the city working with developers. We have seen this same scenario play out in many other cities. Developers use the draw of “high seat” charters to attract yuppies to redeveloped areas. The implication is that these white students will not have to attend school with many poor minority students. Also, cheap charters are built on the fringe areas of the city in order to encourage locals to relocate further from the central business district. It is a way to establish separate and unequal educational opportunity through charter expansion, and it is a form of social engineering. http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/022317/7-gentrifying-neighborhoods-washington-dc.asp
I found this map of Washington, DC gentrification. You can see that most of the gentrification has occurred in areas near the CBD with few of the gentrified areas on the outskirts. They probably could achieve similar results through a public magnet school, but they would not have been able to control admission and make a profit. http://www.governing.com/gov-data/washington-dc-gentrification-maps-demographic-data.html
An exact explanation of the “revamped inner-city” overview pushed by many who call for charter school reform; strategically hidden city renewal and lucrative gentrification are the actual driving forces behind so many “we care about kids” decisions.
GF Brandenburg’s blog has posts showing that DC charter schools aren’t outperforming district schools. Disappointing to think that people will fall for the line that just because they’re charter, the seats are “high quality.”
Those high-quality chairs come with cloud comfort memory foam and butt implants that will tap into the child’s nervous system at the base of the spine to keep them alert and focused.
What, indeed, are “high quality seats?”
I would imagine them to be thrones…in a fairy tale!
Here are some more prosaic definitions and methods of calculation, excluding the ancillary ratings for potential profits from real estate.
In Cincinnati, we have a privately funded “Accelerator” trying to put as many charters in our district as possible. They have a simple way to determine the number of high quality seats in the district. The Accelerator defines high quality as a school that earns an A or B in state ratings for student achievement AND growth. The enrollments in those schools are the basis for determining the number of high quality seats that are available. All other schools and their enrollments are candidates for charters to meet the often imagined demand for high quality seats.
All of methods of determining “high quality seats” are based on an underlying “supply versus demand” theory and some rating scheme for determining “quality.”
This one is for childcare in Philadelphia, with the quality of care rated by several criteria (supply) and a parent survey on their priorities in seeking care (demand). https://www.reinvestment.com/childcaremap/pdfs/ReinvestmentFund-Documenting%20the%20Influence%20of%20Fund%20for%20.pdf
Here is a method from Bellwether Education Partners for identifying the potential demand for “high quality seats” at the district or city-wide level based on the “need for academic improvement.”
“The Need for Academic Improvement …has four indicators: 1) five-year student achievement trend, 2) past year achievement compared to state average, 3) five-year gap closing trend between students who are eligible for government-subsidized meals (a proxy for poverty) and those who aren’t, and 4) past year achievement gap between the same groups.
All of the indicators use state test scores to calculate results.“ pp. 26-27.
With that information you get a measure of the potential demand for high quality seats, based on overall district enrollment. You can do breakouts on potential demand by neighborhoods and schools. Bellwether is a big fan of charters and other “innovations.”
http://bellwethereducation.org/publication/us-education-innovation-index-prototype-and-report
When reformers refer to “high quality seats” in charter school, they generally mean seats reserved for “high quality kids”.
“Low quality kids” — those with special needs or disadvantaged backgrounds who may struggle to learn and who get “low quality” scores on standardized exams that make them unworthy of having one of those “high quality seats” — are unceremoniously shown the door.
Somehow, the “high quality charters” make sure those “high quality seats” are open for “high quality kids” by using reprehensible practices that we see in the world’s most “high quality” charter school where “got to go lists” and “model” teachers well-versed in humiliating those “low quality kids” are part of their very secret sauce. How many “low quality” children disappear? If you want to have a high quality charter school, you need to have enabling oversight agencies who go out of their way to cover up that information. After all, a low quality kid counts for nothing in the eyes of overseers so why bother to see if 20%, 50% or 75% of the entering Kindergarten class gets shown the door before they reach the testing grades. The “high quality” students will stay and that’s who those seats are reserved for anyway!
You mean all I have to do to be a great teacher is buy nice chairs? Who knew! I might as well have just been a TFA temp instead of gaining all the methodological and pedagogical experience required of true public school teachers.
LCT: See, that’s your problem! You don’t know where to go to get the “high-quality seats.”
COSTCO
Not Sam’s Club. It belongs to the Walton family.
Diane,
Well, not knowing how to get good seats is a problem. I couldn’t have that, so I thought and thought and thought. Now I know how to get “high quality seats”. They’re in the front of the bus. There were boycotts to secure the rights of some to them. School “choice” portends to essentially segregate those seats again. If I want better seats, I will go to the NAACP for a moratorium on seat privatization.