Carole Marshall is a retired high school teacher in Rhode Island. She has been frustrated by the Providence Journal’s relentless cheerleading for charter schools. When she complained, she was told that as a retired teacher with a pension, she has a vested interest and lacked standing to comment. After much back and forth with an editor, she finally got her letter published.
It turns out that the charter school beloved by the newspaper has entrance requirements. Guess what? The school gets higher scores because students with low scores are not admitted!
Good work, Carole. Keep fighting against ignorance!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Very interesting. I wonder if the selection bias of requiring applications also affected the famous or infamous CREDO comparison of public and charter schools.
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Isn’t “CREDO” the one that uses “virtual” students to come up with their skewed propaganda? I never had any use for that BS and wish they would get called out on it.
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Agree.
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It’s ridiculous and hypocritical, but sadly predictable, that a retired teacher has no “standing” to have a letter to the editor published – isn’t being a reader “standing” enough? – because of presumed bias, while so-called reformers, funded with endless streams of dark money, magically do?
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Michael, you are right. But part of the brilliant strategy of reformers is to say that unions and teachers are self-interested, while “reformers” are not part of the system and are thus selfless. What they don’t say is that the reformers don’t know what they are talking about, wallow in their ignorance, and are awash in big bucks.
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add to this the fact that the news endlessly blames all anti-school-reform protests on teachers’ unions, thus effectively disguising the fact that many, many parents are doing what they can to fight back
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Yes. The media regurgitates the reformers’ phony claim that only unions support public schools
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This was an example of not an apple to apple comparison of a charter and public school located in the same area. But, I don’t see that it matters whether or not a charter outperforms the local school district in an apples to apples comparison.
I’m saying I think an apples to apples comparison that identifies a charter schools as superior to its local public school should not matter because I believe, as a taxpayer, I should be paying my taxes for public schools and not privately managed schools.
Lead has been found in the drinking water of some of the Oakland schools. The publicity has resulted in ALL public schools in the District; and including public school occupied by charter schools, having their drinking water tested and the problem dealt with.
Whether charter schools located off of the Oakland District campuses, and private schools in Oakland, will be tested is a private matter. Maybe the publicity regarding lead being found in the District schools will result in all Oakland schools private, and privately, managed charters having their water tested and dealt with–or not.
In the privately managed school sector the decision to test a schools water is a choice. Some privately managed Oakland schools may, because of the cost, choose not to test their school’s water.
This is a downside of privately managed school choice and not having government school system responsibility for all students.
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Charter schools insist that the only comparison be between charters and public schools. That is a condition for any research. It may not do any direct comparisons of charter to charter.
The independent charters remain quiet in exchange for getting the tiny donations the reformers throw their way. Their low-attrition rates are used to hide the fact that top performing charters lose many students. And in exchange those high performing high attrition charters won’t compare their scores directly to those low attrition mediocre charters and demand that they be shut down and turned over to the charter operators who claim to get 99% passing rates.
There is a reason that no researcher will ever get funded to compare charters to charters.
It is very likely that what they would find is that the charters with some of the highest attrition rates of their entering classes also have the highest scores. And the only way to justify it is by directly stating the racist theories that the pro-charter folks have been implying for years without being directly challenged on how racist they are.
When high performance correlates with high attrition, you can bet that school is a charter school and not a public school.
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“The Teacher Lacks $tanding”
The teacher lacks $tanding
In other words, dollars
For ads and for branding
For charters and scholars
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It’s just bewildering that they can never find a single public school to celebrate.
In the whole country there are NO public schools that are worthy of praise. None.
I don’t believe that.
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If all public school employees are self interested and therefore not to be consulted or believed, then is the same true of all charter school employees?
If not, why not? Why doesn’t this exclusion apply to all employees of charter schools, employees of lobbying shops for charter schools, etc?
Are ed reformers unpaid volunteers? Why are they trustworthy and public school employees untrustworthy?
The whole “self interest” thing is just nonsense. Either it applies to both sectors or it’s just a way to silence opposition.
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Chiara:
Your last two sentences deserve to be underscored.
Those pushing for and benefiting from corporate education reform are shameless hypocrites who take their cues from their favorite book — “The Art of the Steal.”
Here’s another, sadly minor, example: Ref Rodriguez of the LAUSD school board is excused, defended and relied on in spite of his “rookie mistakes” [aka egregious conduct] by rheephormsters large and small. On the other hand, those supporting public education [think the recent elections to said board] are not just mocked by these same self-proclaimed leaders of the “new civil rights of our time” but subjected to all the outright lies that big money can buy.
But, of course, “it’s all for the kids!”
Those swelling bank accounts and egos are just, you know, an unavoidable consequence of their selflessness and hard work.
Sure…
🙄
Thank you for your comments.
😎
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It sounds suspiciously like the propagandistic notion pushed by Buchanan [Koch tool] to fool the public into mistrusting their own govtl reresentatives & agencies, furthering the far-right agenda. I read about that in Diane’s NY Book Review article posted yesterday. Public school teachers, esp union teachers, conflated here into “govt”, like their “govt schools.” Privates, incl charters, get a pass. No reresentation for you, mr j q public!
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Well we all paid for yet another charter promotion event by the US Department of Education today:
“DeVos touted charter schools as pathways “for kids that need something different than the school to which they’ve been assigned.”
DeVos said there is a high demand for charter schools across the country and that states have an opportunity to meet this demand through creative means.
“There’s room for many many more of them in virtually every state,” she said.
It’s odd how “the agnostics” in ed reform spend all their time bashing public schools and promoting charter schools. Is that “science” or something else, I wonder?
Too bad about all the public students in this country, huh? They should know better than to attend unfashionable schools.
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I don’t think anyone can accuse BDeVos of being agnostic on ed-reform. DofEd’s out of the closet at last.
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Carole Marshall, never giving up, wrote a very thoughtful, sensible response to propaganda. Carole rocks! Thank you!
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As a parent with 3 children in a “high performing” AZ charter school, I have seen evidence of self selection. There is no entrance exam, but the pace/ workload is significant and students have to work hard to keep up. After a few years and certainly by the time high school starts it appears only the brightest and/or hardest working remain (that includes equivalent commitments from parents too). So, I fully agree with Mrs. Marshall in her observations.
Having said that, the article discusses the inequity induced by the presence of charter schools, especially for poor or disadvantaged children. This goes too far. I fully agree that socioeconomic eniquities exist and the school system needs to be able to accommodate a diverse set of needs. But, I don’t think the needs of academically advanced children are met. Too often public schools are complacent to their needs, my perception being that this situation is derived by focusing resources mostly on the disadvantaged. This is why charter schools are such a draw for many parents, me included.
There is a need for advanced programs, and frankly parents are attracted by programs that are exclusive and high performing. Unless that need is addressed adequately by public schools, there will continue to be pressure to add charters …
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“There is a need for advanced programs, and frankly parents are attracted by programs that are exclusive and high performing. Unless that need is addressed adequately by public schools, there will continue to be pressure to add charters …”
Here is what being accepted is the competition model and entitlement of a parent to choose between publicly managed and privately managed charter school. Most states have charter school laws that provide that parent entitlement. An entitlement that is paid for by defunding public schools.
Key to the above choice entitlement argument is that the public schools do not serve all the needs of the public and therefore competitive privately managed parallel publicly funded education system is needed.
But to meet unmet needs or wants within the public school system, the parallel privately managed education system growth is funded by cannibalizing the funding of the public school system.
The rationale for a competing privately managed system of charter schools that states, because there are unmet needs and wants in the public school system, is a rationale that ignores the harm that each parent’s choice of the privately managed charter school education system does in defunding the public schools of our Nation.
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