The legislator who launched charter schools in Utah declared that they are a “grave disappointment” to him.
Sen. Howard Stephenson, sponsor of the laws that launched charter schools in Utah, said Tuesday that the alternative schools have fallen short of their mission to improve education through innovation and competition.
The Draper Republican said he’s looking for a “fresh start” for charter schools, as their average performance on statewide tests is no better than that of their school district counterparts.
“I don’t want to discount the fact that many, many students have found success in these schools of choice but on average, we have not seen that occur,” Stephenson said. “That has been a grave disappointment for me as the sponsor of that [original] legislation.”
Stephenson thought that if he changed the composition of the state charter school board, that might fix things. First, he offered a prohibition on anyone who was currently a charter school board member or member of a charter governing board. But that would have cut some of the current board members, so he revised the bill to seek someone “with expertise in classroom technology and individualized learning.”
One of the charter members who might have been kicked off warned that the board needed someone with expertise in digital technology and “personalized learning” since that was the wave of the future.
Guess the word hasn’t reached Utah that “personalized learning” means “depersonalized learning” and that teachers and parents are rebelling against the replacement of teachers by machines.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I think this guy’s constituents should find him a “grave disappointment” and remedy that situation at their next available opportunity.
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He IS a grave disappointment, but most of us can’t even vote against him. He has been tearing down public education for 20 years now. But his specific district keeps re-electing him. It’s infuriating.
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Heresy! Everyone knows charter schools are vastly superior to public schools.
He must love the status quo or hate children.
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Luckily for ed reformers, it doesn’t matter how the schools actually perform.
If charters don’t outperform public schools they smoothly transition from selling “great schools” to selling “choice”.
I don’t know why they bothered with “great schools” at all since the end game was clearly vouchers for everyone and they clearly don’t care at all if the voucher schools are “great schools”, so the whole argument fell apart long ago.
We saw this in Ohio almost immediately. One of their main arguments for enthusiastically supporting ECOT for 20 years was “parents choose” the school. Had not ONE thing to do with quality. They all knew it was garbage. Hell, everyone in the state knew.
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If Utah wants to be pleased with change, they should start fairly funding authentic public schools with professional teachers. They should look at successful schools that have provided wrap around services for poor students instead of believing in the myth of privatization and market based ideology. They have to invest in their young people in order to help them grow. They should forget the gimmicks and gadgets of “reform.” https://www.air.org/news/press-release/evaluations-massachusetts-school-wraparound-zone-and-school-redesign-granthttps://dianeravitch.net/2015/05/01/the-little-known-story-of-chelsea-massachusetts/
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That would require Utah to actually fund education decently. The state spent $6500 per student last year, FAR below any other state in the nation. Our class sizes are the largest or second largest in the country.
Personalized learning is being hailed as the second coming. At least one member of the state school board is a tech representative and lobbyist, and this will give him and his company major bucks.
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Some enterprising university researcher should look into how much time ed reform dominated state legislators spend on charters and vouchers versus public schools.
In Ohio I would bet it’s 80/20.
Talk about “capture by special interests”. You can’t PAY these people to expend any effort on behalf of public schools. We ARE paying them and they still won’t do it.
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Keep nailing them to the wall, Diane.
You have excellent resources. How do they come together?
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Failure follows failure follows failure.
At some point, legislators wake up, unless their constituents wake up first and replace them.
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You won’t find this poll on any ed reform sites:
@MULawPoll
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63% of voters would rather increase public school spending than reduce property taxes; 33% favor reducing property taxes. In March 2014, it was 49% to reduce property taxes, 46% to increase public school spending. #mulawpoll
Too bad Democrats decided they didn’t support public schools. They probably could have run on it. They would have had the issue all to themselves, since the entire elite consensus seems to have abandoned public schools.
90% of Americans use public schools but inexplicably 100% of their elected representatives do not support public schools. That’s nuts.
Voters should fix it 🙂
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To which MU does the poll belong? Missouri, Minnesota, Michigan, Mississippi, etc. . . .
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The numbers are similar in Utah. In fact, there is a referendum afoot that would raise income taxes 3/4 of a percent, and all that money would go to public education (about $700 million a year). I hate the regressive nature of the tax, but people are mostly supporting it.
Utah went to a flat tax of 5% in 2005. It is estimated that Utah public schools lose one billion dollars a year from this and some other changes made around the same time.
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Utah is diving head-first into “personalized learning.” Most teachers I know have caught on to what this means, and hate the idea, but district, state, and building administrators are pushing it hard core. I was told by my principal that the ONLY way to “increase engagement” was to use technology. The whole thing is ridiculous, particularly since a ton of money will be diverted into technology, in a state where class sizes are routinely 35 or more per class.
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