In the wake of Betsy and Randi’s visit together to a public school in Ohio, Russ Walsh reflects on how school choice affects democracy. Every dollar that goes to a charter or voucher is taken away from public schools like those they visited. “Choice” means budget cuts to the public school, and it means that public dollars go to privately controlled schools.
“While the school that DeVos and Weingarten visited is in a heavily Republican district in Ohio, the voters there are no fans of school choice. As one voter put it, vouchers are “like theft.” “It’s saying we passed a levy to go to our school district, and it’s going somewhere else.” Exactly. School choice is theft of our tax dollars and theft of our democracy.
Choice sounds so democratic, so quintessentially American that voucher and charter school champions keep using the term to hoodwink people into thinking that choice in schooling is a good thing. I suggest that those of us who oppose vouchers and charter schools call school choice what it is in the eyes of that Ohio voter, tax theft. The government collects our taxes in order to provide essential services to all of us. There is no choice involved, we all must pay taxes (unless, apparently, we are hugely wealthy). Those essential services include providing for a military, promoting research on health and welfare, providing for police and fire protection, and funding public schools. When money is diverted from the support of the public schools, it amounts to, as the Ohio voter said, theft. Or maybe another way to say it is “taxation without representation”, since voters have no voice and no oversight of how tax money is spent in schools that receive money through vouchers or charters.
It should be readily apparent that corporate education reformers are anti-democracy. In city after city around the country democratically elected school boards have been replaced by boards appointed by the mayor or governor. In Philadelphia, an appointed board has been in place for nearly two decades and the deterioration of the schools has continued unabated. In Detroit, in Betsy DeVos’ home state, the state took over the schools and has systematically led them into chaos. And let us remember that DeVos has spent millions to get legislation passed in Michigan that limits any kind of oversight for voucher and charter schools. So quite literally these schools are stealing public funds with no accountability as to how they spend it…
When parents send their children to charter schools or voucher schools, they are looking for a better opportunity for their children. We can all understand the appeal of that. What parents may not realize is that they have entered into a Faustian bargain. In order to get this shiny new toy of a voucher, they must give up their voice in their child’s education. No elected school board, no independent audit, no budget vote, no say in school policies.
In this drama, Betsy DeVos plays a willing Mephistopheles, offering choice, but getting you to sign away your voice. Without a voice, there is no democracy.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I find it very troubling that you lump all charter schools: “It should be readily apparent that corporate education reformers are anti-democracy.” Not all charter schools are corporate educational reform. Many are the brain child of a few diligent citizens who wish to improve schooling in their city when they feel that the cumbersome burden of bureaucracy has entrenched poor practices and misguided spending. These people see the benefit of working within the public school system rather than moving to private schools. How is this undemocratic? Is it democracy in play to keep your kid in a failing system just to be “democratic” ? That sounds like the Faustian bargain.
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Wendy,
There are some charter schools that support public education, such as those approved by the local board to meet a need. Unfortunately, as you well know, the corporate charter chains are eager to take “market share” and compete with the public schools. I support those that are approved by the elected local board as collaborators. The very concept of a chain is akin to Walmart, driving the locals out of business, then hiring them as greeters.
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But all charters fall under the same, semi-private category, which is undermining the system as a whole. We cannot rely on “a few diligent citizens” to do the right thing, because what if those citizens choose to do something wrong? Or what if they retire or move on to some other project? What if they get bought out? Not being democratic institutions under democratic control means the actual stakeholders (parents, students, teachers, communities) have no power in the decision-making processes.
Anything a charter is doing well and that serves all kids, can be replicated in a fully public school, if districts allow it. The types of programs #NotAllCharter types brag about are things like dual language, expeditionary learning, Montessori, etc Why not just allow all schools that sort of autonomy? All those things can be done in fully public schools. But that is not the kind of “autonomy” charter supporters are looking for. They want “freedom” from unions in order to exploit workers. They want “freedom” from spending money on students with special needs or who are still learning English. They want “freedom” to implement truly repressive or exclusionary policies in order to sort kids. And they maintain bureaucracy and actually explode administrative costs with separate legal depts, HR depts, PR depts, CEOs, etc.
I’ve been following the charter debate for years, and I’ve yet to see even ONE example of something only a charter can do that is pedagogically sound and does not rely on exploitation or discrimination.
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But all charters fall under the same, semi-private category, which is undermining the system as a whole. We cannot rely on “a few diligent citizens” to do the right thing, because what if those citizens choose to do something wrong? Or what if they retire or move on to some other project? What if they get bought out? Not being democratic institutions under democratic control means the actual stakeholders (parents, students, teachers, communities) have no power in the decision-making processes.
Anything a charter is doing well and that serves all kids, can be replicated in a fully public school, if districts allow it. The types of programs #NotAllCharter types brag about are things like dual language, expeditionary learning, Montessori, etc Why not just allow all schools that sort of autonomy? All those things can be done in fully public schools. But that is not the kind of “autonomy” charter supporters are looking for. They want “freedom” from unions in order to exploit workers. They want “freedom” from spending money on students with special needs or who are still learning English. They want “freedom” to implement truly repressive or exclusionary policies in order to sort kids. And they maintain bureaucracy and actually explode administrative costs with separate legal depts, HR depts, PR depts, CEOs, etc.
I’ve been following the charter debate for years, and I’ve yet to see even ONE example of something only a charter can do that is pedagogically sound and does not rely on exploitation or discrimination.
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And I find it troubling that a “few diligent citizens” believe that improving schooling is to abandon neighborhood schools by creating private schools within the system – especially since it is well documented that they segregate and are often guilty of embezzling public funds for private purposes. Rather than fighting to improve a system, you selfishly create a two-tiered system because you are more important than the other. No, not only are you bad citizens, you are part of the privatization of the public good. You want a “better school” pay for it yourself.
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Thank you, Carrie. That is exactly the point I am trying to make here. I understand that many charter school idealists have their hearts in the right place, bu their minds, money and efforts are abandoning public education. This is really no different from what “white flight” did to the public schools in the 50s and 60s.
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Alas, far too often in the south I grew up in, choice was based on getting your child out of range of the problems of one particular minority. You are correct in suggesting that private schools can be part of the picture, my own experience at a traditional private school shows that. Still, the private school I went to depended on committed alumni and tuition, not tax dollars. It’s main effect was to attract more citizens who would vote to increase local funding of education, always a fight in a rural place. If this were the case in all situations now, we should see increased funding in districts where these new charters exist. This web site leads me to believe that the reverse is true, that modern charters are siphoning off valuable funds while public schools flounder and hurt for funds. I have not done the research myself, but the people who post here have no agenda and stand only to find truth. They will not profit from their research. So I can only trust what they say.
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“. . .the people who post here have no agenda and stand only to find truth. ‘
No, not true. The people here do have an agenda. We’re all human and can’t get around that self-interest (agenda). The key is to have that agenda be guided by a fidelity to truth attitude wherein one seeks out as much information, data, insight of others, etc. . . while at the same time adhering to a scientific free thinking course of being. And I believe that attitude is practiced by most here (and what I think you are trying to say with your statement).
Educational practices based on error and falsehood, as are so many of the current educational practices, actually malpractices, must be confronted and challenged until those malpractices are eliminated and lessen the injustices, harms and violations of mind and spirit of the most innocent in society, the children, the students.
Anything less results in the holocaust of children’s minds, spirits and being.
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On the whole, “choice” means unregulated privatization of tax revenue (and choice real estate grabs). Privatization of water systems results in lead poisoning. Allowing private monopolies of telecommunications and internet services stymies innovation, and access as well as privacy rights. Privatizing education funds wreaks havoc, overall, on the quality of public education because competition to corner markets causes shortcuts to be taken in providing services.
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In other words, the “cumbersome burden of bureaucracy” is the burden of providing public services without taking shortcuts. Having democratic leaders regulate public service is how we try to keep the public from being injured. (See Flint, Michigan.) If a few like minded people see regulation (Title IX, IDEA, etc.) as too burdensome, they are welcome in this free country to join together and open a private school. They can pay for it too.
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Simply put: Without a voice, you have no choice.
Yes, WE can…& WE WILL.
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The deceptive call for “choice” and school vouchers was the first racist response to the 1954 Supreme Court ruling on Brown v. Board of Education in which the Court declared that “separate but equal” public schools are inherently unequal and ordered racial integration of the public schools. That ruling triggered “white flight” from public schools to private schools — but parents quickly realized that the tuition cost of private schools was more than they wanted to pay out-of-pocket. That realization led political and private resegregationists to the concoct the “reform” of vouchers, and to sell it to eager parents by deceptively marketing it then —and still today — as merely giving parents a “choice.”
Charter schools are the profit-making part of the “education reform/choice/voucher” movement that has from its very beginnings been rooted in racism. The movement has always had resegregation of America’s schools as its core agenda.
Reports from the NAACP and ACLU have revealed the facts about just how charter schools are resegregating our nation’s schools, as well as discriminating racially and socioeconomically against American children, and last year the NAACP Board of Directors passed a resolution calling for a moratorium on charter school expansion and for the strengthening of oversight in governance and practice. Moreover, a very detailed nationwide research by The Center for Civil Rights Remedies at UCLA shows in clear terms that private charter schools suspend extraordinary numbers of black students.
The 1950’s voucher crusade faded away when it became clear that because of school attendance boundaries no more than a few token blacks would be attending formerly all-white public schools. In 1972 when the Supreme Court finally ordered busing to end the ongoing de facto segregation, the reform movement rose from its grave and has been alive ever since then trying new tactics to restore racial segregation because it’s unlikely that the Court’s racial integration order can ever be reversed. When it became clear in the 1980’s that vouchers would never become widespread, the segregationists tried many other routes to restore racial segregation, and the most successful has been charter schools because charter schools can be sold to blithely unaware do-gooder billionaires as well as to unscrupulous profiteers who recognized charter schools as a way to divert vast amounts of tax money into their own pockets and into the pockets of supportive politicians at every level of government.
An essential part of the strategy to mask their underlying motives has been for segregationists to sell the public on the necessity for charter schools because public schools are allegedly “failing.” With all manner of “research” that essentially compares apples to oranges against foreign nations’ students, and with the self-fulfilling prophecy of dismal public school performance generated by drastic underfunding of public schools, and with condemnation of public school teachers based on statistically invalid student test scores, the segregationists are succeeding in resegregating education in America via what are basically private charter schools that are funded with public money.
The Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Education has issued a warning that charter schools posed a risk to the Department of Education’s own goals. The report says: “Charter schools and their management organizations pose a potential risk to federal funds even as they threaten to fall short of meeting the goals” because of the financial fraud, the skimming of tax money into private pockets that is the reason why hedge funds are the main backers of charter schools.
The Washington State Supreme Court, the New York State Supreme Courts, and the National Labor Relations Board have ruled that charter schools are not public schools because they aren’t accountable to the public since they aren’t governed by publicly-elected boards and aren’t subdivisions of public government entities, in spite of the fact that some state laws enabling charter schools say they are government subdivisions. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A “PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL” because no charter school fulfills the basic public accountability requirement of being responsible to and directed by a school board that is elected by We the People. Charter schools are clearly private schools, owned and operated by private entities. Nevertheless, they get public tax money.
Even the staunchly pro-charter school Los Angeles Times (which acknowledges that its “reporting” on charter schools is paid for by a billionaire charter school advocate) complained in an editorial that “the only serious scrutiny that charter operators typically get is when they are issued their right to operate, and then five years later when they apply for renewal.” Without needed oversight of what charter schools are actually doing with the public’s tax dollars, hundreds of millions of tax money that is supposed to be spent on educating the public’s children is being siphoned away into private pockets.
Charter schools should (1) be required by law to be governed by school boards elected by the voters so that they are accountable to the public; (2) a charter school entity must legally be a subdivision of a publicly-elected governmental body; (3) charter schools should be required to file the same detailed public-domain audited annual financial reports under penalty of perjury that genuine public schools file; and, (4) anything a charter school buys with the public’s money should be the public’s property. These aren’t onerous burdens on charter schools; these are only common sense requirements to assure taxpayers that their money is being properly and effectively spent to educate children and isn’t simply ending up in private pockets or on the bottom line of hedge funds.
These aren’t “burdensome” requirements for charter schools — they are simply common sense safeguards that public tax money is actually being used to maximum effect to teach our nation’s children.
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I live the metro WashDC area. The public schools in the city of WashDC are less diverse than the charter schools. (see this from 2014)
http://watchdog.org/187567/d-c-public-school-district-less-diverse-d-c-charters/
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Charles,
I think you mean that the charters have more affluent and fewer at-risk students than the FAILING public schools.
Comparing to all public schools is nonsense. Public schools that have affluent, middle class families do well. Magnet public schools that attract low-income parents who seek out a better education for their kids do better than public schools who teach an exclusively at-risk population.
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Why do you think that might be, Chas?
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I heard a report on the radio last Friday, which repeated the assertion posted in the 2014 article. I am certain that there are several reasons why the public schools (today in 2017) are less diverse than the public schools.
One reason, is that the WashDC public schools have the lowest participation rate of all the public school systems in the USA. Only 79% of the eligible students in the city, attend the public schools. And as bad as the public schools are, there is rampant fraud.
Many students from neighboring Prince George’s County Maryland sneak in, and attend WashDC public schools. See
http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/04/investigation-md-residents-ripping-off-dc-schools-while-admins-refuse-to-address-it/
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To NYC public school parent: I mean exactly what I say I mean. The data in the article speaks for itself. I did not make it up. The charter schools in WashDC are less diverse in students (racial) diversity than the public schools.
There are a number of factors leading to this disparity. The low participation rate is part of it. There are many excellent private/parochial schools in WashDC, some affluent neighborhoods, 70+% of the children attend private school. These affluent kids are mostly white.
Also, there are many “freeloaders”, from the nearby Maryland communities (mostly black), which are illegally enrolled in WashDC schools. Maryland kids don’t attend the charter schools, because the registration requirements are a bit tighter, and all students must prove DC residency.
I stand on my statement. The charter schools in DC are less diverse than the public schools.
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To add to what Diane said, Wendy, I have an analogy in mind: there was an old paint company commercial (Sherwin-Williams, perhaps?) that stated, “Cover the Earth,” w/the visual of Earth being covered by an overturned can of paint. Once these charter chains start, they tend to grow & spread, & even their abject failure (read earlier posts as to that subject) doesn’t appear to stop them or this phenomena.
Also–much like Pandora’s box, or opening a can of worms.
Yes, there ARE some good, not-for-profit charter schools (one in CA & one in Chicago come to mind), but they are not chains, & they were started in earnest, in the very spirit of the charter schools Al Shanker had envisioned.
But the snake oil salesman & carpetbaggers are out there (think: Mike Millken, K-12 Virtual Schools).
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The so-called “(corporate) Civil Rights Movement” of the 21st century and school choice are both obvious subversive assaults on the U.S. Constitution that was written to protect the people from the government that is represented by the public sector: public schools, public police, public firefighters, public prisons, elected representatives, medical care from the VA and Medicare, Social Security, and even tax collection by the IRS. If the IRS abuses people, then the people can go to their elected representatives, and they have making it more difficult for the IRS to destroy people financially.
The U.S. Constitution was not written to protect the people from corporations worth more than many countries. These profit-driven monsters of business did not exist in the 18th century.
The big brother that Orwell and other authors warned us about was never going to be a government guided by a document like the U.S. Constitution. The threat of a Big Brother is a private-sector corporate threat.
The public sector and the U.S. Constitution written to control that public sector stands in the way of the corporate Big Brothers. The swamp that the Malignant Narcissist in the White House wants to get rid is that public sector that, like the earth’s wetlands, is important to reduce the impact of damage caused by the malicious greed of the few in the private sector.
Without a strong public sector and its elected representatives, there will be no force to stop the corporate abuse caused by this unleashed greed.
Reagan’s trickle down economic theory wasn’t new. Before the 16th Amendment was passed in 1913, trickle down economics was the economic system in the United States.
If anyone wants to know the result of living under a trickle down economic system, look at 1900 when 40-percent of the American people lived in poverty, children as young as seven could be sold into a form of indentured slavery, 7-percent graduated from high school and 3-percent from college.
That is the world of trickle down economics where the 0.1 percent decide how much they allow to drip on the other 99.9-percent. No one is alive today who lived during that era of trickle down pennies to the masses.
Trickle down never worked and never will. Our ancestors have already been there, done that, and fought their way out of that swamp of avarice deliberately filled with quicksand.
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Trickle down did not work because big corporations are just another governance device, one that can assume control of other governmental devices. The only possible way to control one governmental device is with another, one more responsive to the many rather than the few. Friedman followers claim this is only possible in a free market economy. They link freedom to own with limited government and the prevention of Stalin. They ignore the compatibility of oligarchy with the fascism of that same period.
The link between freedom and economic distribution of wealth is unquestionable. How to maintain freedoms we enjoy as westerners is an interesting problem.
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How to hold on to the freedom that the U.S. Constitution provides is a huge challenge since the billionaire oligarchs mistakingly think they all have the power of gods and the U.S. Constitution is their toilet paper.
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WELL SAID. Unless anti-privatization activists decide to spend MUCH more time, money and energy on purposefully, repeatedly and unbendingly debunking choice, the public is never going to see through the smoke screens. “Choice sounds so democratic, so quintessentially American that voucher and charter school champions keep using the term to hoodwink people into thinking that choice in schooling is a good thing.”
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Marketing is everything. There is an old adage “Don’t sell the steak, sell the sizzle”.
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Um, I don’t sell steaks.
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Actually like what you wrote (!), Charles, in the sense that the public is being “sold” “sizzle” (& that’s all it is–glitz, snake oil, smoke-&-mirrors).
And there should be NO “selling” when it comes to education.
NONE.
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