John Oliver explores the seamy side of unregulated, unsupervised charter schools.
The charter school idea sounds good. They say they will “save” poor children from “failing public schools.” They say they will be “innovative” because of their autonomy. It is easy to make promises but hard to deliver on promises when 25 years have gone by without the miracle that was expected.
Supporters of public education have found it difficult to break through to the general public about the purpose of public schools (citizenship, not test scores), about the fact that charters select students and toss out the ones they don’t want, about the fact that charters drain students and resources from public schools.
John Oliver’s video about charter schools has been viewed more than 8 million times. That is the kind of public advocacy that the billionaires have not been able to buy.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The only thing “public” about charter schools is they use public money. The horrors inflicted on our young and in the end, this country ARE HORRID. Charter schools don’t SAVE kids, they USE them for profits.
And charter schools are NOT autonomous. They are beholden to big money, not the public.
Thanks, John Oliver.
LikeLike
“After working for more than two decades to close the charter-school funding gap, charter advocates celebrated two victories in 2017 when Colorado and Florida both passed laws—the first in the country—mandating equitable access to certain local tax revenues for charter schools. The passage of the two laws gave hope to charter supporters in other states while coming as a blow to those who see charter schools as detrimental to public education.”
This, like all ed reform pieces, completely ignores public school families.
They don’t see ed reform as detrimental to “public education”. They see ed reform as detrimental to public SCHOOLS. Their schools. The ones their children attend.
It’s not surprising it happens in Florida. I read a recent anti-public school screed from Jeb Bush that ALSO ignores every public school family in Florida, but Colorado? They’re treated as if they don’t exist there, too?
It’s the strangest thing. Charter school families are always mentioned in ed reform, as are private school families. Yet public schools are always presented as this abstract concept – “public education” or “systems”. I know very few of them attended public schools and none of them have children or grandchildren in public schools but they must realize that this system they’re dismantling and defunding and eradicating includes actual families.
Is there some operating assumption that public school families have no interest in the schools their children attend? Why would that be true?
LikeLike
This is another triumph from John Oliver, with 10 million views–on standardized tests. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6lyURyVz7k&t=196s
LikeLike
DeVos: “To a casual observer, a classroom today looks scarcely different than what one looked like when I entered the public policy debate thirty years ago. Worse, most classrooms today look remarkably similar to those of 1938 when AEI was founded.”
This is just so silly it shocks me that people who went to such fancy private schools keep repeating it.
Offices also “look” much the same as they did in 1938. They have desks and chairs and cubicles and people with various “updated” titles that are different only in modern usage.
Hospitals still have beds and rooms and the same job structure they always had.
Colleges still have lecture halls and classrooms. A Costco is just a really big store.
For some dumb reason this is supposed to be some indictment of public schools, but what does it even mean? The Apple founder uses it too. Apple has a VERY snazzy headquarters but it’s an office. They could be doing the same work in a 1938 building with updated wiring. What does Betsy DeVos think it should look like? Fewer chairs? No desks? Ban pencils?
LikeLike
You forgot “Guns for grizzlies?”
LikeLike
DeVos is pouring public tax money into charter schools in spite of the fact that the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Education has issued a report which finds that, because of their lack of financial accountability to the public “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 financial fraud and the artful skimming of tax money into private pockets, especially hedge fund pockets.
If nothing else is required of charter schools, one thing must be required so that charter schools are accountable to taxpayers and inform taxpayers as to how taxpayer money is actually being spent; that one key thing is: Charter schools must be required to file the SAME detailed, public domain financial reports under penalty of perjury that public schools file.
Charter schools will cry out that this is “too burdensome” — yet public schools file such reports. What would the outcry be if public schools were “freed” of this “burden”? Why, the outcry would rattle the very heavens! So, why is it that private charter schools are allowed to get away with taking public tax money and not have to tell the public on an annual basis how those public tax dollars are spent?
Charter schools bill themselves as “public schools”, but Supreme Courts in states like New York, Washington and elsewhere are catching on to the scam and have ruled that charter schools are really private schools because they aren’t accountable to the public because they are run by private boards that aren’t elected by voters and don’t even have to file detailed reports to the public about what they’re doing with the public’s tax money.
LikeLike
If parents want to send their children to private schools fine, but all money allocated to Public Schools must go to Public Schools!
LikeLike
I find myself in agreement. Can there be room for compromise? How about allocating money to publicly-operated schools, based on the number of students that are attending the schools? States have formulas for funding, based on per-pupil occupancy.
LikeLike
Still feeling good about finding Home schooling? The Turpinfamily could have collected enough to feed their children when chained to their beds
LikeLike
Aren’t publicly operated schools called public schools? Private schools are privately operated. Charter scams are privately operated. Home school is privately operated (the Turpins were not democratically elected to torture their children).
YES! It’s nice to be in agreement: all money for public schools must go to publicly operated, public schools!
P.S. The John Oliver clip is as entertaining as it is well researched and factual. Must watch!
LikeLike