One year ago, John Oliver roasted charter schools. Since then, that show has had 8 million views.
On August 15, the conservative magazine Education Next released its annual poll, reporting that public approval of charters has plummeted.
Question: was the drop in the polls the result of:
1. John Oliver’s takedown
2. The Network for Public Education’s advocacy against privatization
3. The experience of communities with charters, school closures, and budget cuts to fund charters
4. All of the above
Write an essay on this question:
Why are there so few Democrats who endorse charter schools, which are part of the Trump-DeVos agenda?
Or you may answer this question instead:
Why does the Democratic National Committee and other fundraising activities of the Democratic party send emails asking you to pick the issue that matters most to you and list 12 issues, none of which includes K-12 schooling?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Two words: Cash talks.
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The Democratic governor of California vetoed a bill which would have required disclosure of charter school finances. It is our right to know how public money is being spent.
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He also vetoed a bill that would have banned for-profit charters like the avaricious and ineffective K12 cybercharter, started by those great educators, the Milken brothers.
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Every time the DNC calls asking for contributions I tell them they won’t get one nickle from me until they get the billionaires out of education. When I receive those lists in the mail, I write in my own priority – and repeat my promise of no money until that problem is addressed. I don’t understand why this issue is not discussed on MSNBC.
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MAY THE DNC and all organizations pushing “left” find that until they understand this crucial point there will be little enthusiasm from doners.
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In the year running up to the POTUS election I received a call almost daily from the DNC about Dems taking back the Senate, or winning NC for Hillary, or the evil republicans (a point I have been well aware of for 50 yrs). I told them I was not sending one dime to the DNC for 1 reason: Arne Duncan. Several volunteers said they’d heard the same from other people.
You would think the DNC would have listened to their most loyal voters as they lost state house after state house to Republicans (the count is now 32 states in Republican control).
Instead the DNC abandoned us.They thought they could helicopter in at the last min & win the election. After all, in their mind we had “nowhere else to go” (from Thomas Frank, Listen, Liberal!).
After Devos was appointed, Arne Duncan tweeted “Miss me now?” That tells me all I need to know about the DNC.
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I do not have the time to write an essay but I am reminded of the very old joke of a farmer accosted by a passer by for hitting his mule over the head with a 2×4. “What are you doing?” the farmer was asked. His response was “First you have to get his attention.”
Hands down, the largest effect is John Oliver’s piece, because for the others to have an effect, you would have to be paying close attention, which most people are not.
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I don’t think this shows us too much. Support for charters is down. Ok. However, look at technology in the survey:
“Technology. Forty-four percent of the respondents think the effects would be positive if students spent more time on computers at school, while 35% think the effect would be negative.”
Click on the technology part and read away.
All that this survey shows is that the leading edge of the reform/privatization movement has shifted. Charters are no longer that leading edge. It is technology in the classroom. That’s where everything will go. Look at parent and teacher support as well. Insane. Totally uncritical near complete buy-in.
Technology in the classroom is by far the biggest threat against public education and organized teachers. As always, we will likely collectively realize that when it’s much too late.
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In a survey of this kind, it is not surprising that parents and the public would agree that technology is a good thing. I would probably say “technology is a good thing. Kids should learn how to work on computers.” But ask if they want computers to replace teachers, and I expect the results will be different.
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BINGO!!!! I’m a parent of kids with an IPad pilot in school. The other parents thought I was just crazy….until they quickly learned that it was just bad policy and junk curriculum with a whole lot of extra money spent for broken screens and charger wires. Now, guess who’s not so crazy anymore? But doesn’t it sound nice that a school system is willing to give poor kids a free IPad to use? That’s the spin!
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“Look at . . . teacher support as well. Insane. Totally uncritical near complete buy-in.”
GAGA Good Germans all of those teachers. Jawohl, mein Meister!
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On target: Why does the Democratic National Committee and other fundraising activities of the Democratic party send emails asking you to pick the issue that matters most to you and list 12 issues, none of which includes K-12 schooling?
My blood pressure goes up when I get these. The Republicans only ask about the wall, tax cuts, and repeal Obama care. I send all of these back with graffiti like notes, no money.
Thank you for targeting the Democratic National Committee on the collective grand silence about public education, charters, choice, and efforts to privatize everything, including public education.
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Laura,
Whenever I get a fundraising email from the Democratic party asking which issues are my top priority–and there are usually 12, and they NEVER include K-12 education–I send an email telling them they won’t get a dime from me until they begin advocating for public schools.
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amen
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John hit the nail right on the head. When DeVos sidestep the accountability question when she went through her confirmation hearing, that said it all. If you can’t see a problem with a privately run business that is funded by taxpayer dollars, you’re beyond hope. And to add, education is not a business.
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Why not add these 3 questions:
As great a president as Mr. Obama was, what was most disappointing about his education agenda?
How much difference did Arne Duncan deliver to the Dept. of Education?
If it is a “failing school,” why not use the $$$$ to FIX it rather than leave children behind while providing $$$$ for others to go elsewhere?
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I keep telling the DNC and every org and person: SUPPORT OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS & OUR PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS. They are two of our National Treasures.
The fact the NO politician and group does NOT have this on their stupid questionnaires is pure FOLLY on their part.
The DNC, the DFERS, and those who love charters and vouchers NEED TO GET A CLUE.
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All of the above + Fake President Trump and deplorably ignorant Betsy Devos.
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Plus deporable DNC for not mentioning education as an issue in its polls . . .
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I think you are talking about the neo-liberal wing of the Democratic Party. I wouldn’t shed a tear if all the neo-liberals were abducted by aliens to never return to Earth.
If that happened, I hope the aliens would also take the neoconservatives, the Koch brothers branded libertarians, Donald Trump and his family, and all the Kluckers and Nazis too.
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Mr. Lofthouse,
This would only be productive if the aliens turned the elected officials you referred to into hamburgers and hot dogs, sort of like that old and famous Twilight Zone episode!
Burp! . . . . Belch!
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If that happens, I’m glad I’m a vegan. Imagine the indigestion and heartburn from eating Kluckers (KKK) Nazis, etc.
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Wonderful to hear of your veganism, Lloyd. Good for you. And that from an old warfighter! I am impressed.
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Changing my lifestyle back in 1982 and becoming a vegan comes with a story. It happened sort of by accident in a big night club of all places.
I was teaching days full-time and working a second job 30-hours a week nights and weekends in a nightclub and resteraunt combo. The place was huge. The nightclub held 1,000, and the restaurant had three large dining rooms. There was a stage for life entertainment, a there was also DJ booth in the middle of the club, and three long bars.
I was the maitre d’ for the front desk that served the restaurant, and one of my hostesses never got sick when everyone else that worked in that West Covina Red Onion came down with the common cold or flu. When one employee got a cold or the flu, almost all of the employees did. There was no paid medical days for being sick. If you took off work to recover from an illness, you weren’t paid for that time so everyone came to work sick or not and shared their illness with everyone even the customers.
It took awhile for me to notice that she was always happy and never sick so one Saturday night after the dinner rush, I asked her what her secret was.
She said she was a vegan. I’d never heard that word before so I asked more questions. To shorten the story, she told me that my health would improve dramatically if I became a vegan so I decided to try it. She introduced me to her husband who had been raised vegan by his vegan parents, and he helped guide me through the transition so I wouldn’t get sick. It seems we who eat the average American diet are building up a lot of toxins in our bodies and if we stop that lifestyle cold turkey, all that poison can flood our system and land us in the hospital.
I decided to try that lifestyle diet for six months. I remember telling Greg, the husband, who also had a black belt in Tai Kwan Do, that if I didn’t feel better at the end of that six months, I’d go back to my fast-food, beer, and booze diet. I never did. Everything Greg and his wife told me true. Gone were the headaches, the joint pain, the colds, and the flu.
And, knock-on-wood, I haven’t had a common cold or the flu since. I seldom get a headache and even then they are a dull ache that fades away fast instead of skull blasting pain that hangs on for hours.
I’m 72 and don’t take any medication for any health problems. Not one pill. Should I knock on wood for that too?
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For the multiple choice question about why charter insanity is on the wane, the answer is obviously all of the above, but I would add another answer too, in all seriousness: grizzlies. The face of choicy-choice reforminess is now Betsy the, well, dumb. She’s a national joke. The NAACP and Black Lives calls for a moratorium have to figure in there somewhere too. And you’re being too modest in excluding yourself and this blog from the list, Diane.
And my answer to the second essay question is (sorry I don’t have time to write a full essay at the moment): The Democrats do not want to discuss their support of privatization and attacking unions because they enjoy losing elections. They really like being feckless. I mean, a lot. And they will continue to lose elections until they support social democracy and provide a liberal alternative — that’s ‘alternative’ not ‘alt’ — to neoliberal and conservative politics.
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Add to the list everyone on your honor roll and most of your regular commenters. I am thankful to all of you.
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LCT,
You are right about Betsy the Clueless. The more she advocates for choice and charters, the more the public sees them as a dead end.
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There is another explanation not listed above and that is local investigative journalism. The single most corrupt market sector in the nation is the charter sector, and that’s all charters are, a market sector. Though much maligned and under assault, good investigative journalism is still alive and well in America and, as with teachers, local folks are more likely to trust people they know and have a proven relationship with. Their knowledge of the character of their local politicians is also sufficient to inform their understanding of the political component of the waste, fraud and myriad other abuses of the charter sector. When some number of parents become aware of other, similar stories of charter abuses, that clinches their position in opposition to charters. There is/was? a great site called charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com that is a collection of local investigations into charter abuses. The stories go back many years. I suspect the site owner has had trouble keeping up with them all.
I also agree with NYSTEACHER on the tech invasion component of the situation. Too many people still have a view of “math” as being infallible and have not yet been exposed to stories on the folly and hype of algorithms. They also don’t get that the almost indispensable utility they find in their own smart phones does not translate into educational utility or necessity. Silicon Valley does get this however: recall if you will the stories about the high priced Montessori schools there where no screens are to be found, and none are permitted.
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A clarification: local investigative journalists have broken a ton of the stories we’ve heard about the pervasive corruption in the charter sector, and many parents have become aware of similar stories in places far from where they live.
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Unfortunately, in Washington the number of charters and students have more than doubled. The folks are not interested in anything but getting children out of schools that they feel are poor. It is not an important issue up here but they seem to thrive in the socialist environment of Seattle.
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I believe members of the DNC continue to hedge their bets on charters – yes, no, maybe, sometimes, in some form, etc – because they hope for/accept contributions from “the billionaire charter families”.
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The D/RNC “gathering the public will” ploy (faux closeness) may well be the age old
“keep your enemies” closer. Keeping tabs on how often the “myths” surrounding the
gov are bleated, functions as a snellen-chart.
A collective questioning of the “myths”, would expose them as the naked emperors
they always were.
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