This article summarizes a year-long investigation Of Michigan charter schools by the Detroit Free Press.
Eighty percent operate for profit.
No accountability.
This is Betsy DeVos’s handiwork.
Michigan scores on NAEP plummeted since adoption of the DeVos plan of choice with no accountability.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Don’t the community based, democratic (based on school board and union elections), transparent, non-profit, traditional public schools still have accountability — probably based on the results of secretive, flawed, for-profit, high-stakes, rank and punish tests?
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Diane, I know you’re traveling so don’t know if you saw this:
https://www.thenation.com/article/the-trump-effect-helps-democrats-pull-off-a-surprise-win-in-wisconsin/
The Democrat who won a state seat in WI was a school board member and ran on restoring funding and support to existing public schools.
She was a PRO public schools candidate. A real advocate. SUPPORTS students and families in existing public schools. They got one. It may be “one” but one is better than none.
Maybe Wisconsin won’t go down the Michigan /Ohio ed reform road after all. They always had a strong tradition of supporting public education. Maybe they can avoid the same mistakes Ohio and Michigan made.
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
I keep hearing cries about “waste” in public schools and yet we have the double standard of charter schools doing what they want in terms of using government money and not a peep. When everything comes out in the end, a large portion has just been stolen.
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Chump change. The legislative analyst of the State of California says that $5 billion per year goes to charter company schools in California. NEA, AFT, CFT, CTA and UTLA are making our state safe for charter company schools.
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And thank goodness the Democrats and Republicans are united in protecting charter school companies. Our next governor, Gavin Newsom, nephew of Nancy Pelosi, just wants what’s best for the children.
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I assume that last line is sarcastic, since Newsom has been careful to finesse the charter school/privatization issue, from which it can be inferred that he will continue giving the state education budget over to private interests.
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Are you using irony here or are you serious?
“And thank goodness the Democrats and Republicans are united in protecting charter school companies” (here is the missing part of that statement) so they can steal all they want without any fear of being caught or going to prison.
We clearly live in a time when most of the elected and appointed government are thugs, crooks, con-men, liars, frauds, and freaks.
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Lloyd,
I think you are being very harsh lumping freaks in with thugs, crooks, con-men, liars and frauds.
And I’d welcome a bearded lady from the circus any day of the week over most of my choices for governor, Senator, Representative and president.
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How about the top definition for “freak” from the Urban Dictionary? I think that fits Trump well.
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Look at the list of pre-approved speakers in ed reform:
http://www.gettingsmart.com/2018/01/smart-list-50-advocacy-organizations-making-a-difference/
100% echo chamber.
Ohio actually HAS a very lively advocacy group for public schools and public school families, although apparently they’ve been excluded from those permitted to speak as only Fordham is on the “acceptable opinions” master list they’re compiling.
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US Dept of Education
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We’re excited to kick off National #SchoolChoice Week with an opportunity to discuss every student’s right to learn in the way and at the pace that best fits their unique needs.”
Except public school students. Who won’t be invited or have any adult advocates present.
It’s charter and voucher school week, same as every other week in DC.
I hope Betsy DeVos can restrain herself from announcing that every public school student in the country is suffering from “malaise” as she did the last time she went out campaigning for privatization. It’s bad enough they don’t lift a finger for the unfashionable public schools- actively bashing students should be off limits.
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Holy carburetors! Michigan’s charters are horrible! And I thought California was bad. (California is horrible too.) I find myself, as a Californian, jealous of Michigan, though. What does Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Sacramento have to do to get a major source of news to do some honest, in depth, investigative reporting on the waste, fraud, and abuse of charters like the the Detroit Free Press?
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This has been in the works long before Devos. It seems every few years the system is changed for profit for “stakeholders” & I see talk of “vendors.” I’m not saying she is good for public education and I don’t know, since it seems she hasn’t really said much. We have had our children sold out by corrupt politicians and big business & sadly, we continue to have to pay for it.
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