The Michigan House passed a bill to let the charter sector—including for-profit charters and cyber charters—share in millage revenues. Voters no doubt think they are underwriting their local community public schools, but they will be paying for the privately managed charters if the State Senate agrees.
Michigan charters are unusual in that they operate with little accountability. Some 80% of the state’s charters operate for profit.
In recent years, with the spread of charters, Michigan’s ranking on NAEP has fallen from the middle of the national rankings to near the bottom.
Michigan believes in investing in failure. Results don’t matter.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Holy cow. I wonder what percent of the people of Michigan know this information.
LikeLike
Who cares if kids get educated when there is BIG money to be made?
LikeLiked by 1 person
yes; educational tax money is a truly massive gold mine for opportunists
LikeLike
Corporate Charter schools are terminal cancer for the United
States and its Constitution.
LikeLike
As a Michigander, I am ashamed of my state.
Drives as many unions jobs out of state as possible, charter schools with very little accountability, selling our state assets to the highest bidder, now pouring tax money into the pockets of charter school thieves and shysters. All these and more, compliments of the rethugs and evilangelics.
Our politicians should be ashamed of themselves and we must repeal term limits.
LikeLike
Don’t be so hard on your state. It takes a long long time to recover from profound economic changes like the undermining of MI’s auto/mfg base. I’m from upstate-NY, which during my growing-up yrs (’50’s-’60’s) was suffering prolonged fallout from the earlier demise of the Erie Canal, as the industries that grew up around canal use collapsed. The only things keeping my hometown more vital than many surrounding shells of once-great 19th-c meccas were dairy farms, and our Ivy League University.
Michigan has it tougher, as its mfg decline occurred during the 40-yr reign of trickle-up conservative policies. It is being plundered by the shock-doctrine vultures who feed off the social chaos created when the economic rug is pulled out from under a region. But Michiganders are not stupid. I sense just from comment threads to ed-reform-articles that folks are becoming cynical & starting to get a clue.
MI is a beautiful state (where I once lived for a few yrs): one is never farther than 10 mis from a lake or 100 mis from a Great Lake. Perhaps it will experience rejuvenation through tourism, universities, retirement areas, niche boutique cultures like wine/ beer/ gourmet farms etc – as has been happening in upstate NY.
LikeLike
But first, the voters have to get wise.
LikeLike
I live in Traverse City, MI and the rejuvenation suggestions you made have already begun to be implemented. The results are a mixed bag.
Land values have soared making rent or purchase of homes very difficult for the hourly worker. Crime and homeless has increased. Most jobs are close to minimum wage but new business’s are opening.
A new title this year is “the drunkest town in all of Michigan” based on the number of wineries, breweries, distilleries, and bars per capita.
America needs manufacturing jobs for anywhere near a decent life. My state is crumbling.
LikeLike
“America needs manufacturing jobs for anywhere near a decent life. My state is crumbling.”
That’s not going to happen in any big way unless the manufacturing sector stops automating and replaces robots with humans.
The U.S. manufacturing sector is the 2nd largest in the world and its output has grown steadily for decades but jobs in this sector have declined because of automation. Even though the U.S. dropped from 1st place a few years ago to 2nd, manufacturing output still increased.
“The US did indeed lose about 5.6m manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2010. But according to a study by the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University, 85 percent of these jobs losses are actually attributable to technological change — largely automation — rather than international trade.Dec 2, 2016”
https://www.ft.com/content/dec677c0-b7e6-11e6-ba85-95d1533d9a62
“U.S. Manufacturing: Output vs. Jobs Since 1975”
The red line on the cart represents output and the blue line jobs.
In 1975,Output generated $1,500 Billion and that Output more than doubled beyond $3,000 billion by 2009 that number was down to less than 12 million and dropping.
There were more than 20m million jobs in 1975 but by 2009 that number was down to
https://www.mercatus.org/publication/us-manufacturing-output-vs-jobs-1975
China and other 3rd world countries did not take most of those jobs. Robots and automation did.
LikeLike
It’s not just your state. Utah has done the same thing. It actually reads on our property taxes that we are paying a charter school fee.
LikeLike
The charter crooks in Michigan want to grab as much cash before the voters wake up and kick them out. I hope this horrible idea does not trickle down to Florida where they seem to emulate all the mistakes Michigan makes.
LikeLike
Dear Diane, We Need to hear from you on the Single payee health system. Without such a system working class families looking at possible family health disaster will not get fired up about education. Bernie Sanders is doing his best to forward this idea. But he needs help from all progressives and sensible people. Families live in fear of what one disastrous health diagnosis would mean. Out goes their savings and house possibly. And sadly their dreams for their kids goes as well. The public needs to wake up and Act now! Please do what you can do. Bill Murphy Dunedin,Fl.
Sent from my iPhone
LikeLike
We as a nation need universal health care.
Period.
No one should be without Medical care because of cost.
LikeLike
You note that “Voters no doubt think they are underwriting their local community public schools.” That’s because state teachers’ associations and the NEA have failed to conduct effective, sustained, and large-scale public information programs to explain to voters that there is no such thing as a “public charter school” and that all charter schools, including those that advertise themselves as “non-profit”, are actually operated for profit — and maximized profit, at that.
Voters nationwide need to know that 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.
Voters nationwide need to know that the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Education has issued a report that, because of their lack of accountability to the public, charter schools pose a risk to the Department of Education’s goals. The report finds that “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. Yet, charter schools don’t even appear on your radar.
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?
LikeLike
“Yet, charter schools don’t even appear on your radar.” Surely you didn’t intend “your” to refer to Diane or this blog! I must have misunderstood you.
I think it’s a bit much to blame voters’ ignorance re: the harmful effects of charters on public-school budgets on the failure of state teachers’ associations and the NEA to “conduct effective, sustained, and large-scale public information programs to explain to voters that there is no such thing as a “public charter school” [etc]. The natl teachers’ unions have been clear on this. You can google “NEA -Charter Schools” and find positions echoing all your points. And you’ll find state branches of NEA & AFT actively advertising on TV & print media against raised charter caps & similar proposals as they come up. But “state teachers’ associations” are toothless professional groups in right-to-work states who are howling into the wind against widespread anti-union sentiment.
LikeLike
Common-sense facts about the effects of charters on district-school budgets do not sink in, in states determined to lower public-ed expense regardless of consequence to state ed-achievement, when coming from union sources. Those citizens automatically chalk up such sentiments to self-dealing for higher salaries/ bennies/ teaching conditions at the expense of students’ education.
LikeLike
Hey Diane – unrelated to the post, but you will be interested to know that I tried to type the name of your website in a comment I left on another WordPress site, and it WOULD NOT put the name of your site. It just says “Diane’s website is” and there’s nothing after it, even though I wrote the name of the website as well.
LikeLike
David,
Something strange is going on. I can’t identify it. I keep complaining to “Support” at WordPress but they have no idea why readers get blocked, comments get blocked.
Send complaints to:
Support@akismet.com
Reference #3270123
That is one of the many complaints I have filed. Maybe it would be best if they heard directly from readers.
LikeLike
I just searched Google for “Diane Ravitch Blog” and the Blog was the first hit on the first page. The second hit was her website, and in the description for the website, it said she blogs at dianeravitch.net that is the address in the 1st hit.
The Wiki entry for Diane Ravitch was #3 on the first page of that Google search.
LikeLike
This was me trying to write “dianeravitch dot net” (obviously with an actual dot) on another person’s WordPress site, but it left a blank, with my sentence finishing in empty air, so to speak. It’s like that scene in “Oh God” where George Burn’s words do not appear on the tape or the transcript. Weirrrrrrrd.
LikeLike