This article by Carol Burris was published in January but it remains as pertinent as ever.
Tell this to your friends and neighbors:
It is time we have an honest discussion about the true cost of school choice. It is a policy with steep fiscal consequences for our communities and our nation. Here is what every taxpayer should know:
Billions of federal tax dollars have poured into charter school promotion, without regard for success and with insufficient oversight.
By 2015, the federal government spent more than $3.7 billion to boost the charter sector — with millions wasted on financing “ghost schools” that never opened. According to the Center for Media and Democracy, Michigan spent $3.7 million of its federal dollars on 25 “ghost” schools. In California, more than $4.7 million federal dollars went to charter schools that shut down in a few years. And the flow has not stopped. In 2016, the federal government poured another $333 million to push charter schools, yet put forth no reforms to prevent waste. The same year the Department of Education’s own Inspector General warned of “the current and emerging risk” that is posed by charter management organizations for fraud and abuse.
Some charter schools spend more tax dollars on administration and less on teaching.
Most taxpayers want their tax dollars to go to the classroom for teaching and learning. Yet time and again, some charters spent far more than public schools on administration. In 2014-2015, Arizona charter schools spent over $128 million more than Arizona public schools on management costs. One charter chain, Basis, spent nearly $12 million on administrative costs in one year, for fewer than 9000 students — all hidden from public review.
When the latest federal study of D.C. voucher schools showed that students who take a voucher go backwards, not forward, Betsy DeVos responded that it didn’t matter. She said that when choice is fully implemented, all sectors–public, charter, and voucher–will get the same results.
Some investment! Divide up the money, undermine public schools (that take the neediest kids), and get the same results in all sectors.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Analogy:
Charter School Founders = Pimps
Charter School Workers = Whores
Charter School Students = the Meals/Slaves/$$$$$
Federal Dollars going to Charters = Payola for Political Contributions of the Oligarchy
The above is call “The Free Market.”
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“Most taxpayers want their tax dollars to go to the classroom for teaching and learning.”
And, logically taxpayers should therefore be opposed to competition between publicly managed public schools and privately managed charter schools because the competition itself has the unintended consequence of diverting taxpayers’ education dollars away from “classroom for teaching and learning”.
Feeling the need to compete for market share of student enrollment means both the public schools and the privately managed charter schools are caught in a competitive market pressure that will bend their budgets toward spending greater spending on advertisement, public relations and joining associations that lobby for government education dollars. The cost of competition between publicly managed and privately managed schools is seldom discussed.
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Disinvestment in public education has been one of the most harmful consequences of privatization. The political deck has been stacked against democratic education by complicit state politicians. That so many our so called representatives have been taking money to undermine public education is disgusting and anti-democratic. These complicit representatives should be on every public teacher’s “got to go” list. As you mention, the competition is not helpful. When the so called “competition” includes collusion between government and privatizers it is dishonest, but not illegal.
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Y’all have both stated briefly, in clear and direct language, what corporate education reform is all about.
You haven’t just eviscerated that snappy rheephorm claim that “It’s all about the kids!” but have also made it clear what they are Rheeally, and really, getting at—
“It’s all about the adults!”
And just a few adults at that, i.e., the owners and top managers and enforcers and enablers.
If the leading lights of the self-servingly self-proclaimed “new civil rights movement of our time” were honest they would resort to a more painfully honest expression: “It’s all about the Benjamins!”
Now THAT would be “disruptively innovative”!
😎
P.S. “Disruptively innovative” aka “refreshingly honest”!
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True, our local Charter has a $25,000+ annual cost for a PR firm, for one school!
And the California Charter School Association, ugh, don’t even get me started!
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And even use of the word “seldom” here feels too optimistic…
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DeVos is a disaster!
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You are being far too kind. She is worse than that.
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