Karen Wolfe is a parent activist in Los Angeles who fights for public schools against the behemoth that is the California Charter Schools Association and even against the Los Angeles Unified School District.
She recently discovered that the school district was considering spending $24 million to install a Unified Enrollment system. She became curious and began digging. After all, Los Angeles was the district that (almost) committed to spend $1 billion on obsolete iPads loaded with Pearson content.
The decision will be made on Tuesday at a board meeting.
Karen smelled a scam in the making. She was right.
The first thing she learned was that a common enrollment system is being pushed hard by the charter lobby, because it puts public schools and charter schools on an equal footing. The cheerleading for unified enrollment, where students have “one-stop shopping,” was funded by the Walton Family Foundation in New Orleans and Denver, which tells you almost everything you need to know.
The next thing she learned was that in a unified enrollment system, the school makes the choice, not the student. This also works out well for the charters.
Third, the OneApp system (as it is called in New Orleans) increases inequity and segregation.
Karen did research and wrote three posts. You should read all of them. The third post in the series has links to the other two.
Perhaps most alarming, Karen learned that the unified enrollment proposal was being pushed by insiders who were connected to the Broad Foundation and the Walton Foundation.
She writes:
In this post, as promised, we’ll introduce the privatizers who have infiltrated the school district to advance the interests of the charter lobby.
Conspiracy theory? Hardly. This just looks like the new business model. Since the iPad scandal, privatizers have had to find new ways to move their agenda. The scandal made direct corporate lobbying behind the scenes too risky. But there’s no need, if you have managed to plant your sales force inside the school system itself.
The District personnel pitching the Unified Enrollment scheme are not just any LAUSD employees. They are Broad and Walton acolytes, trained and placed in the school system to move the corporate reform agenda forward from the inside.
Peter Greene wrote about these “cyber shenanigans” here.
Just goes to show that you can neither slumber nor sleep when the charter industry is seeking a new angle to legitimize privatization and money.
Great job, Karen!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is similar to “Shanghaiing” sailors by kidnapping them to serve on a ship. I hope parents catch wind of the scheme and vehemently protest such unfair manipulation by privateers that have infiltrated the system. They will clearly stop at nothing to gain access to public funds. Any parent whose child is hijacked into a charter should sue for the right to attend a legitimate public schools. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2016/08/30/national-labor-relations-board-decides-charter-schools-are-private-corporations-not-public-schools/?utm_term=.df15f74eb47e
“The first thing she learned was that a common enrollment system is being pushed hard by the charter lobby, because it puts public schools and charter schools on an equal footing. ”
Ah, understandable that there’s some intense opposition to attempts to do anything like that…
“The next thing she learned was that in a unified enrollment system, the school makes the choice, not the student.”
Her attempt to impugn unified enrollment systems relies almost exclusively on an analysis of admissions procedures in New Orleans. She cites the Adamson, Cook-Harvey, Darling-Hammond study: “Whose Choice? Student Experiences and Outcomes in the New Orleans School Marketplace.”
But fails to mention this, which one finds on page 1 of that report.
“Furthermore, Louisiana’s charter school policy is unique from that of other states in that the law explicitly allows some schools to engage in selective enrollment practices that resemble those of private schools. Public charter schools can require minimum grade point averages and standardized test scores, and they can require applicants to have interviews, provide portfolios of work, or submit letters of recommendation to be admitted.”
How could that “unique” policy be properly regarded as an exemplar for the effects of most or all unified enrollment systems?
That’s a good question. We don’t know if LAUSD’s unified enrollment procedure will contain safeguards that prohibit schools from selectively enrolling because there has been such limited public discussion about this particular system.
Unfortunately, California state law hasn’t served as a safeguard for fair enrollment. The ACLU’s report on California charter schools found 1 in 5 illegally restrict enrollment. https://www.aclunc.org/news/new-report-reveals-illegal-admissions-polices-charter-schools
Yesterday’s New York Times reported that New York City’s unified enrollment system has left black and Latino students behind, despite its purpose being to increase equity. Like LAUSD’s, NYC’s system does not include charters. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/05/nyregion/school-choice-new-york-city-high-school-admissions.html?_r=0
Slight correction on the ACLU’s report. It found that 1 in 5 charter schools POSTED ON THEIR WEBSITES IN PLAIN SIGHT that they illegally restrict enrollment. Those were the ones that were unsophisticated enough to do that. Many/most/all charters in California impose admissions processes or requirements that illegally restrict enrollment — most are too sophisticated to be that open about it. Two examples are the big Alliance College Ready charters in LA, where everyone in the school community knows there’s a strict parent work-hours requirement; another one is the hip/groovy/crunchy WIllow Creek charter in Sausalito, Calif., where a parent proudly posted on Facebook about the 50-hour-a-year parent-work-hours requirement, and hastily took it down when it was pointed out that it’s illegal.
This is normal procedure at charter schools, and everyone in the charter sector knows it.
Karen Wolfe is neither an educator nor a journalist and frequently gets things wrong. Charters are not included in the LAUSD enrollment system. I love the support for the fight against DeVos and all things that are unjust, but caution you against weakening our efforts by misrepresentation. Again, please do your own research and be sure you understand Los Angeles.
Is the unified enrollment system going to be a boon for your school choice consulting business, Wendy?
DeVos is everyone’s enemy. The charter lobby is using her to pretend we are all on the same side. Wrong. The charter lobby is the force behind LAUSD’s unified enrollment system. The charters are not yet included, but their PR campaign is pushing for it, even pretending that the teachers union wants the charters to be included (links are provided in my posts).
I don’t pretend to be an educator or a journalist. I am a parent activist and I blog in order to shine a light on activities that some would prefer to keep in the dark.
And by lobby, I mean people pushing for charters. Registered lobbyists or not.
Testimonials like this on Wendy’s web site suggest that her services are considered valuable given the current circumstances, options, enrollment systems that parents try to deal with…
Nancy Noe, parent
Posted on 06/09/2016 by Wendy Zacuto
I went to Wendy absolutely sure I knew what I wanted in a private school for my son with some special needs. Wendy opened my mind to many other options, and she knew the contact people at each place. She had more than just schools in mind for me, she had ideas and goals for my son, which took him as a whole person into account. I followed the connections she set up for me and ended up finding a magical public school program in an amazing district. My son attended that school until we had to move out of L.A. county, and those were the happiest two years of his life. He came alive and ended up getting straight A’s. We are so grateful to Wendy for the ideas she had that opened our eyes and ended up being the best thing for him ever.
I’m a charter school parent since 1994 and employee of a charter school since 2007, I completely agree with Karen. She has never misrepresented who she is and what she stand for! As a charter school parent I too advocate for transparency, accountability and oversight of unregulated charter schools! I do agree with you that we must all do research and that’s what I do but unfortunately most charter schools aren’t transparent in their practices especially when I’m trying to figure how the money is being spent on the students.
For someone who’s running a business profiting off schools and children to attack a volunteer advocate is ugly and bad karma, and will backfire on the one who’s trying to make a buck.
Ms. Zacuto, that is a good question and I don’t see where you answered it. Will the proposed system be beneficial top you financially?
There are so many vultures hungry for our public school dollars and no regard for all children. Thank you for your honesty, time, and dedication to all the public school children.
What is WRONG with this country? Answer: Politicans..bought and sold by the billionaires. Sickens me.
Karen Wolfe’s commentary is terrific investigative reporting in an area that there has been shockingly little oversight or review.
In California, despite CCSA’s initial warm hug of Betsy DeVos, she and Trump are radioactive here. Eli Broad was forced a day before the Senate vote to come out against her although there was nothing but silence from him and his forces for months.
In California, the Charter lobby is full of the same neo-liberal Corporate Democrats who frustrate economic Progressives. It is so easy to be Progressive on (throw a dart) on any liberal social issue, but the movement still is backed by rapacious billionaires who have used the economic system to rape the country. Eli Broad/the Waltons/Bill Gates/Dick Riordan/Reed Hastings/Silicon Valley mucketymucks ALL have profited from a system that created Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos.
All these “people” ALL back MANY parts of Trump’s Education agenda–even if they reject the voucher portion of it. To deny this fact is simply (and dangerously) disingenuous. They will BENEFIT from DeVos’s tenure.
That’s the difference between the Charters and the Progressives. The Progressives want NOTHING of Trump and DeVos’s education advocacy.
Tomorrow’s NY TIMES article on the failure of “Equity” in the New York Public School System is especially telling and requires a whole separate column.
Two days ago, Ed Source had an article about California Charters with this headline:
CALIFORNIA’S LARGEST CHARTER GROUP PUSHES ITS AGENDA WITH MONEY AND PEOPLE POWER:
The last paragraph of the article that is particularly telling and explains how much of the GOP Education Philosophy has seeped into the Big Money Democratic Machine politics:
And while in past years the association partnered with Republicans to craft legislation, this year’s slate of sponsored bills was drafted entirely by Democrats. “That’s a big change for us,” Rand Martin, a lobbyist for the charter school association, told the March conference.
https://edsource.org/2017/californias-largest-charter-group-pushes-its-agenda-with-money-and-people-power/581044
When pushing through Common Enrollment or millions of dollars in new technology, It is hardly naive to believe that this is a movement of Progressives instead of its backers: billionaires and white power players who have their own stake in the outcome.
In my opinion, one will not meet many at LAUSD headquarters who aren’t enamored with degrading lifelong teachers, marketing over pedagogy, tech misuse, and evaluation by test scores. At staff meetings, they drink the koolaid together. Most of them come off as app salespeople when they visit my school. Eduspam seems to be their favorite reading. Bait and switch is their modus operandi. If there are charter chains in Los Angeles with TFA amateurs willing to let students google their educations, and there are, then there is likely a great deal of support downtown for selling out the district for further privatization, and OneApp smells like one of their bait and switch privatization schemes. If Karen smells a wolf in the henhouse, I wouldn’t doubt her.
Open enrollment policy is not just about Los Angeles. New Orleans and Denver were the first cities to try open enrollment. That was about 2012. In 2014, Washington, DC, and Newark, NJ expand their district enrollment processes to include charter schools. Here is a description of the aims of the open enrollment process. This report was funded by the Walton Family Foundation. http://www.crpe.org/sites/default/files/crpe-brief-enrollmentspotlight-rev2016.pdf
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An open enrollment process usually follows the formation of a portfolio district that includes public and charter schools. These districts have been in formation since 2010 with start-up grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. A portfolio district is created when a public school district and a charter school management company sign a compact–an agreement like a memorandum of understanding. These agreements, now known as “Gates Compacts,” are arranged for and monitored by the Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), a non-profit located with the University of Washington.
Gates Compacts are designed to: (a) transform an existing public school district into a portfolio district incorporating charter schools, and (b) make resources from public schools available to charter schools as if to promote goodwill, cooperation, and sharing of assets. These “sharing’ arrangements are supposed to be mutually beneficial. Mutual benefit is rare.
Here is the problem. In a typical compact, the public school district becomes a host to charter schools who, not unlike parasites, feed on resources from the district and contribute little or nothing to it.
In about a dozen of the compacts I have examined, charter operators want to use the district’s technology infrastructure; to have access to facilities and programs for extra-curricular activities including competitive sports; to occupy underused school facilities, and to avoid payments for capital improvements on buildings they occupy. Charter operators want the freedom to sub-contract with the district for other services such as transportation, food, and facilities maintenance.
In other words, the administrative architecture of the public school district absorbs costs for the charter management company, but without full compensation and without the active participation by the citizens who fund the public system. The compacts have no legal status. By design, they are intended to make charter schools look as if they are an integral part of a public institution. In fact, charter schools are under private management.
Below is a current list of cities that have signed a Gates Compact —a formal agreement between officials representing the school district and charter operators. The Gates Foundation usually offers a signing bonus of $100,000 with a “promise” of more money depending on on how rapidly and completely the terms of the compact are being met. CPRE provides staff and a system to monitor progress.
Active links to the compacts and evaluations (by date) can be found at http://www.crpe.org/research/district-charter-collaboration/compact-cities. Notice that Los Angeles is on this list, and with two evaluations of progress on the compact from CPRE.
Aldine, TX (2016)
Austin, TX (2013)
Grand Prairie, TX (2014)
Spring Branch (Houston) TX (2013)
Franklin-McKinley, CA (2015)
Los Angeles, CA. (2013, 2015)
Sacramento, CA (2013, 2015)
Baltimore, MD (2013)
Boston, MA (2013, 2016)
Central Falls, RI (2013, 2016)
Chicago, IL (2013, 2016)
Cleveland, OH (2016)
Denver, CO (2013, 2016)
Hartford, CT (2013, 2015)
Indianapolis, ID (2015)
Nashville, TN (2013)
New York City, NY (2013)
Minneapolis, MN (2014)
Philadelphia, PN (2013)
New Orleans RSD, LA (2013, 2016)
Spokane, WA (2015)
Tulsa, OK (2015)
In addition to this project of blurring the distinction between public schools and privately managed charter schools, CRPE is devoted to expanding charter schools and promulgating computer–based learning. It forwards the use of corporate models for education, especially for managing human capital, and redesigning school governance and financing. CRPE is funded by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Laura and John Arnold Foundation, Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, and Walton Family Foundation.
Laura, this is fascinating. May I repost this on the PSconnect blog?
OF course.
Laura,
Thanks for your eye opening research.
Found out today that Warren Buffet is leaving the Bill Gates Foundation 90% of his wealth in his will.
Does Buffet realize the Gates scam?
And if so why isn’t Buffet creating his own Foundation to do the same dirty work?
Cross posted at https://dianeravitch.net/2017/05/06/los-angeles-karen-wolfe-unravels-the-unified-enrollment-scam/
with this comment:
It is no accident that the Walton family (the richest family in America, thanks to Walmart) is spending $200 million annually on charter schools. It is not about children; they could do a lot with $200 million to help children in their home state of Arkansas. They could build health clinics or provide nurses for every school in a poor community. They could pay their parents $15 an hour. But, no, they want charter schools, and they will give $200 million a year for five years (that is $1 billion) to create new charter schools. Why? They hate unions.
As Michael Fiorillo notes more than 90% of charters are non-union. he writes: “There are issues of control woven throughout the charter issue, separate from the looting they are prone to.
“There is the desire to have iron control of the labor force, explaining why charters are over ninety percent non-union: the desire, as seen virtually everywhere else in the labor markets, to replace full-time employment with temporary/ contingent labor, the desire to pay teachers less, and the desire to have them under the thumb of management, which is much more difficult to maintain in a union, career-oriented environment where institutional memory has value. Thus, it’s no accident that charters have such extreme staff turnover, and often have teachers working from scripted lessons. As has occurred in so many other industries, the de-skilling of the workforce is a management axiom.
“There is also a social engineering aspect of charter schools, especially prevalent among the “no excuses” chains (KIPP, Success Academies, Uncommon Schools, et. al.), which are obsessed with herding and controlling children in punitive, Skinner Box- type environments. It’s about training children, not educating them, to be docile and obedient, no matter the oppressiveness of the environment, prepping them for the lack of autonomy they’ll face in the adult workforce, and preventing them from having even an inkling that another world is possible.”
Well, lets look at the upside. It won’t be Pearson’s fault this time. Shocking I know.
San Francisco has an all-choice assignment system that doesn’t include charters on the same application. The entire landscape is different, but it’s still useful to know that. The big picture is that it’s neither a success nor a total failure — some families are happy, some are not, it’s a constant source of controversy and friction, and it’s not leading to successfully diversified schools. Bearing in mind again that the picture is completely different, here’s a commentary I wrote about San Francisco’s system. It’s local inside baseball, but since I know how likely “reformers” are to paint a completely false picture, I’m sharing to clarify things.
hewire.k12newsnetwork.com/2017/05/04/bay-city-beacon-gets-san-francisco-usd-school-assignment-wrong/
Sorry, I don’t think that link came out right. Try again. http://thewire.k12newsnetwork.com/2017/05/04/bay-city-beacon-gets-san-francisco-usd-school-assignment-wrong/
Wow, while I’m not familiar with the situation in S.F., that seems an almost entirely plausible, well-articulated analysis.
This certainly rings true….
“Reality: No diverse, high-poverty school district has solved the problems of diversifying schools, creating schools with equitable resources, raising the achievement of impoverished students and making all families happy. ”
I’d be curious if anyone could suggest an existing school assignment process better than San Francisco’s that doesn’t include charter schools. And I’d be curious to know, carolinesf, why you think the S.F. model would or would not be improved by including charter schools on the same application.
If you haven’t seen it you may find of interest this by Meira Levinson former Boston Public Schools middle school teacher, who now teaches at Harvard Graduate School of Education, examining the school assignment process in Boston: “The Ethics of Pandering in Boston Public Schools’ School Assignment Plan” https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/12991704/Levinson%20Ethics%20of%20Pandering%20TRE%20FINAL%202%20.pdf?sequence=1. Levinson states with detailed substantiation “that BPS’ plan violates equal opportunity by giving middle-class families privileged access to existing high-quality schools.”
Regrettably, the article about S.F. is slightly marred by this:
“(Schools that are more successful with impoverished, high-need students are always — 100 percent of the time — schools that have an admissions process that selects for compliant, motivated students from motivated, supportive families, and that are free to kick out any students they don’t want.)” Rather overstated, eh?
No, that’s not overstated. It’s simply the case. To claim otherwise is to deny reality.
I oppose charter schools and wouldn’t support including them in the SFUSD enrollment process (or having them exist in our district at all, for that matter). That said, I’m sure the few charter schools in SF wouldn’t want to be included in it anyway, since it might impair their ability to impose admissions processes that select for higher-functioning students from higher-functioning families.
“No, that’s not overstated. It’s simply the case. To claim otherwise is to deny reality.”
Maybe you meant it in some way other than how you stated it.
When someone like this walks in as principal:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/07/29/principal-who-transformed-school-honored-retirement/L71FyYLo3akkoecrMLi2jN/story.html
he or she can make a school “more successful with impoverished, high-need students” without altering either the admissions process or expulsion procedures.
Given parental choice within a public school district, however, it is true that the most capable, motivated parents are most likely to avoid the least successful schools. Perhaps rather than an argument for removing any parent choice, that’s an argument for far more effectively providing supports for families that most need assistance in the school application process.
Here in Boston, by the way, the admission processes for charter schools is far more quick and simple and devoid of admissions selectivity than is the case for the public district schools. Still, I suppose one could argue that many of the most knowledgeable, capable, motivated parents strive to send their kids to the charter schools.
And thanks for the compliment. (SF is not a particularly charter-friendly environment, by the way, so we don’t have a lot.)
I hear your points. But. In the real world, all charters are free to impose whatever hurdles in the application process they choose, or just to say, “Sorry, we don’t have the resources to support your child,” or, “Your child isn’t a good fit,” and they do. You say they don’t, but they do. There’s nothing more to say.
“You say they don’t, but they do. ”
I don’t say that they never do. I do say that here in Boston, for example, they do that far, far less than many of the public district schools. While by standard measures they improve students’ academic performance more rapidly than many of those more selective schools.
“There’s nothing more to say.”
There’s scads of research to discuss in detail. There’s an opportunity to rectify misconceptions. But, I understand…
They did this in Newark, NJ with the “One Newark” app, and effectively took choice AWAY from students/parents. In one instance 4 kids in one family were sent to 4 different schools across Newark, far from their homes, where each would have to take public transit, which was NOT in place at the time. Imagine your 7 year old kid waiting on a street corner to catch a public bus to go an hour through/across Newark at 6:30 a.m., and getting home at at 6:30/7:00 at night if the app sent him/her to a charter school. Shame on these profiteers and those who defend them.
The big lie is the list for seats in charters. Its a lie. “ONE” apps are used to get butts in seats and preference seems to be given to the charters. Why, indeed, was a student living a 1/2 block away from its local/neighborhood school in Newark sent across town to a charter when it wasn’t even amongst its choice of schools?
The reformers tout choice above all else, but they give the student/parents, oftentimes, no choice at all. And thats the way they like it. The wealthy reformers know what is best for the poor peasants in the neighborhoods they choose to disrupt, just because they can.