Gary Rubinstein has followed the progress (and lack thereof) of the celebrated Tennessee Achievement School District. It was the ultimate proving ground of the claim by charteristas that they could “turnaround” the state’s worst schools and vault them into the top 25% in five years.
As Gary reports here, they didn’t.
They have plenty of excuses. And the education press refuses to hold them accountable for their inflated promises and their failure to keep them.
The original architect Chris Barbic (one of the “stars” of the charter industry, having founded the YES PREP chain in Houston) left before the gig was up and went to work for billionaire John Arnold, ex-Enron trader, who devotes his “philanthropic” efforts to two goals: charter schools and eliminating pensions for public employees.
And now, the ASD has changed its goal, having demonstrated that its original goal was out of reach. And its second leader is leaving, having accomplished nothing. She too will go on to a cushy job.
Only the children will be left behind.
Gary reminds us that other states are copying the failed Tennessee model. In “reform,” nothing succeeds like failure.
I am reminded that last year, I had an acerbic exchange with an editor from one of North Carolina’s daily newspapers. I asked on this blog why NC was adopting the Tennessee Achievement School District, right after a team of Vanderbilt researchers found that it was not improving achievement (test scores). I dared to say that the experiment was a failure. The newspaper editor lashed out and demanded to know why I called the TN ASD a failure; it hadn’t achieved its goals “yet,” but that was no reason not to try it in NC. Wonder what he will say now. Give it another decade? Two more decades? Forever?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s “No Excuses!” for everyone except the so-called reformers, who fail, fail and fail again, yet persist in making their preposterous claims about “miracles,” milking their Overclass donors (and taxpayers) for ever-more millions, and making the lives of students and teachers miserable.
These people need to go away, crawl back under the rocks they came from, and reflect upon the damage they’ve done. If they’re even capable of doing so…
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Diane, did you see this guy won on a public education platform?
“The public school teacher has sought the seat for virtually two years. He unsuccessfully campaigned against Martin last year, and he must stand for re-election in 2018.
Before taking his seat, Rosecrants will have to resign his teaching position because legislators cannot simultaneously hold a state job.
State Rep. Emily Virgin, D-Norman, said the election was a referendum on education funding, as the issue was the biggest topic on the doorstep.
“I think this sends a clear message that Oklahomans are concerned about the state of education funding,” she said. “Speaker McCall and his caucus should be able to see voters aren’t happy with the state of things at the Capitol.”
Democrats should fire a few of those high-priced consultants and start supporting public schools again instead of supporting 7 billionaires. They might start winning every once in a while. There are a LOT of public school families.
http://newsok.com/democrats-win-special-election-in-norman/article/5563866
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“At no point in the charter school debate has someone argued that every child should attend a charter school as that would undermine the central tenant of charter schools which is “choice”. The only people attempting to force all children to attend their schools are the public schools districts. What makes this fact even more distressing is the fact that some public-school advocates do that while maintaining that they are in fact the victims in this situation even while they challenge rather or not charter schools should even exist. ”
This is not true. There’s a whole faction in ed reform who DO argue that all schools should be privatized.
David Osborne’s whole thesis is all schools should be privatized. They’re advocating for all-charter systems without saying so explicitly.
The other side of this is public schools, which ed reformers ignore. They have so captured government that public schools are rarely even mentioned, other than to bash them.
They have abandoned the 90% of US kids in public schools and that would be okay if we were just talking about charter lobbyists, but we’re not. We’re talking about the entire federal government and a lot of state governments.
Go back and read the coverage of the Illinois school funding law. That law affects every single child in Illinois and the ENTIRE coverage is what it means for charter and private school students. They have effectively excluded every public school family in that state. They simply weren’t considered.
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This is DeVos visiting a “school of choice” within a public school system:
“We began the day in Casper, Wyoming, at Woods Learning Center — a school that is teacher-driven and student-centric. Woods’ teacher-driven model means there is no principal and instead the school is led by a collaborative team of teachers and staff. Since the Natrona County School District offers open enrollment, parents get to decide which public school options best fits their child’s unique education needs.”
At the school she visited she bashed ordinary public schools. I guess it didn’t occur to these zealots that she is bashing the majority of schools in that district- the kids down the street, in other words.
The cluelessness is incredible. She’s standing in one public school and denigrating the other schools IN that district and this doesn’t occur to her.
Imagine being a public school family in one of the schools in that town that DeVos trashed? That is the MAJORITY of families there.
She probably doesn’t understand how towns or districts work, because she doesn’t so much “live” in western Michigan. Her family owns western Michigan.
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Did she bring a gun to protect herself from the bears since she is Wyoming?
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The Achievement District idea probably would have been fine if they hadn’t so ridiculously oversold it as miraculous and then shoved it down those poor peoples’ throats.
They’re like some horrible combination of “marketing” and “ideological zeal”
Why not go in and just talk to them about their public schools? Why behave like an occupying army? Parents want to improve their children’s schools and so do teachers. Why over-sell it as as miraculous and then deal with the inevitable backlash?
It was SO HARD to get them to admit that Ohio charters needed regulation. It literally took 20 years before they would admit it was a problem and by then every newspaper in the state had conducted an expose. They still aren’t regulating the schools properly. There are giant loopholes in the laws and charter operators are busy exploiting them.
I’m not even sure they CAN regulate Ohio charters. It’s probably too late.
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It goes on and on. Can I wait to go outside and vomit?
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