Eric Blanc, writing in the Jacobin magazine, describes the epic battle that is unfolding in Arizona between the privatization movement and most of the state’s teachers.
For most of the past two decades, the archconservatives and ALEC have sought to destroy public education in the state.
Can the striking teachers change the narrative?
”Winning won’t be easy. Arizona’s educators have powerful enemies. And the prevalence of charter schools across the state is a serious obstacle in the current strike. But if Red For Ed can sustain its momentum in the coming days and months, it just might be able to reverse the privatizing tide…
”Arizona has long been a favored target of the right-wing Koch Institute and ALEC, a hyper-conservative Koch-funded corporate legislation mill. A number of leading Arizonan politicians are deeply embedded in, and indebted to, these bodies. Governor Doug Ducey has been part of the Koch network since 2011 and more than a third of Republican legislators were wined and dined last year at ALEC’s annual summit to promote “free-market” model legislation.”
Beth Lewis, a leader of the #RedForEd movement, said last week,
“Why are teachers being forced to do more with less every single year? Our legislators, our state leaders, simply refuse to invest in our public schools. Our governor and many of our state leaders are being propped up by out-of-state big money donors. That’s the reason we are here. These people want to push things like voucher schemes to take money out of our already starving public schools.”
The state is awash in charter schools and voucher schools. And behind many of them is the pursuit of money.
“Since 1994, Arizona has witnessed a proliferation of state-financed but privately run charter schools. With over 180,000 charter students, Arizona now has proportionally more than any state in the US. ALEC was clearly justified in ranking Arizona number one in its Report Card on American Education.
“Many of these schools generate millions of dollars in private revenue. In 2014–2015, for example, BASIS charter schools made just under$60 million for the for-profit BASIS corporation that services its schools. “It’s true that some charters want to do right by students and staff, but they are few and far between,” notes Owen Kerr, a ninth-year Arizonan math teacher who was formerly employed at Imagine and BASIS charter schools. “Business is business. So I can see that though a number of charters try to do things differently, most are set up to make money.”
Charter schools are largely unaccountable. Teacher turnover is high. Working conditions are poor.
“The negative effects of privatization go far beyond draining public funds. Unlike real public schools, which are generally subject to the oversight of democratically elected school boards and superintendents, charters are accountable only to their own internal boards plus the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools, whose members are appointed by the governor. In the absence of real oversight, Arizona’s charters have been plagued by fraud and financial scandals…
”Politicians like Governor Ducey tout the high test scores achieved by charter schools such as BASIS, while conveniently overlooking the fact that these scores were produced by excluding or pushing out students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Many working-class families are deterred from applying to charter lotteries, since charters do not have to provide free lunch or transportation to school, unlike regular public institutions. For students who do make it into the charter system, rates of attrition are very high. Arizona charters are often particularly inhospitable to students with special needs or learning disabilities. Kevin Brown, a school psychologist in the Washington Elementary School District, notes that “‘school choice’ is just a nice way of saying that all the high performers need to be segregated from low performers (students and families who are disadvantaged socially and economically).”
The #RedForEd movement has awakened the public to the dire condition of education in Arizona. Will the public stay awake?
We will find out in November, when the reactionary Governor Ducey faces a Democratic opponent, educator David Garcia, who is allied with the striking teachers.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“the archconservatives and ALEC” and/or ” ALEC, a hyper-conservative Koch-funded corporate legislation mill”
The Koch Brothers and their bastard step-organization ALEC are in no way “archconservative” or even “hyper-conservative” but are regressive reactionaries seeking to destroy what is good about society. Conservatives seek to preserve what is good about society. To even hint that the Kochs/ALEC are anything other than reactionary regressives or regressive reactionaries is to falsely represent what they actually are.
So that Diane got it quite right with her thought:
“when the reactionary Governor Ducey”
The governor signed a law, authorizing raises:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/arizona-teacher-raises-passed-after-strike-shuts-schools/ar-AAwGBbz?ocid=ientp
The teachers have returned to the classrooms.
I am sincerely interested in how this is going to “play out” in the coming months.
Arizonans are going to be voting on whether to expand the current ESA program. This recent work stoppage may impact on the referendum.
Some Arizona voters may decide that the publicly-operated school system is dysfunctional, and decide to abandon the public schools, and vote in favor of the ESA expansion.
I believe the RedForEd teachers will lead public opposition in the referendum on vouchers.
The Koch brothers are terrified of the referendum and have tried to stop it in court, but have repeatedly lost.
A Maricopa county judge, vacated the challenge to the lawsuit. Prop. 305, which will decide if the law providing for statewide expansion of ESAs in Arizona, will be held.
There may be additional challenges to permitting the referendum to go forward, may be mounted. But I will give you even money, that the referendum will take place.
I sure hope so.
The Koch brothers thought they had bought the Arizona Legislature and the Governor.
While there are certainly bad charter schools and politicians unjustly motivated to force market based measures regardless of the context, the fact is that there is significant interest by parents to have their children attend high performing charter schools. These schools have teachers who try their best. The blind vilification of all Charter schools is misplaced. Why don’t you focus on retaining students in the public system by providing a superior education?
It is hard to provide high quality public schools when these schools are looted by charters, which take their best students and their resources.
Oh, and you should know that Arizona has possibly the most corrupt charter industry in the nation, with close competition from Michigan, Florida, and Ohio.
Vice News had an interview with the Oklahoma Teacher of the Year that voiced his opinion on the loss of funding to charters at the meeting the teachers had with DeVos. Her response was that she wants to “redefine” what a public school is. In other words she wants the public to accept charters as public schools. The teacher of the year stated that he found her response unsatisfactory. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2018/05/01/the-nations-top-teachers-met-with-betsy-devos-and-not-all-of-them-were-thrilled-with-what-she-had-to-say/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.71069a33b667
What do you mean by “looting”? When parents remove their children from public schools, and transfer them to an alternate school, the losing school keeps the same per-pupil funding for the remaining students.
Quality schools continue to provide quality, when a students transfers for any reason.
Arizona Charter Students Boast Larger NAEP Gains than Any State
“Recently released results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) show that Arizona’s public charter school students have posted greater scale score gains than any individual state, from 2009 to 2017. The data show that when measured as their own “state”, Arizona charter students outpaced the gains realized by their state level peers in all four major tested subjects: fourth grade reading and math, as well as eighth grade reading and math.”
https://azcharters.org/arizona-charter-students-boast-larger-naep-gains-than-any-state/
Carol Burris researched the BASIS charters in Arizona and found that they have few disadvantaged or minority students.
I expect that the AZ charters cooked the books by excluding ELLs, special ed, and other students they don’t want.
Well Cynthia Weiss, please tell me why I should listen to those charter students who “boast larger NAEP gains than any other state”?
Anyone can boast.
OH! WAIT! Never mind! The headline is misleading. Or should I just say it’s a bunch of bullshit?
D,
I posted this in an earlier post of yours but I thought it’s worth re-posting given the title of this post:
A couple of books that give the grand vision that’s been underway since the 70s and has gripped education for the last 10+ years, everything subordinated to the tenets of Neoliberalism where, in the words of Chris Hedges, everything is dollarable:
-“The Global Assault on Teaching, Teachers, and their Unions: Stories for Resistance” by Lois Weiner (Editor), Mary Compton (Editor)
-“A Brief History of Neoliberalism,” by David Harvey
-“Dark Money,” by Jane Mayer
-“Common Core: National Education Standards and the Threat to Democracy”
by Nicholas Tampio
As a teacher, for the longest time, I was unable to put the language to the dynamics behind the forces of privatization, trying to answer the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’. These 4 books work wonderful together to explain it all.
Hi Mr Swacker,
You have evidence that those numbers are a lie?
Cynthia,
Reread what I wrote. The headline is a lie.
The article says nothing about the “students boasting”. Now the charter school supporters might be doing the boasting but the students are not. A lie is a lie.
You repeat the same disingenuous comments over and over again. Are you slow? Do you not read well? Up until recently, when parents in my community chose to send their children to a private school, they still contributed the same amount to the the public system through their taxes FOR THE COMMON GOOD. They did not expect vouchers or tax credits, nor did they expect that the public schools would financially support their private choice. I pay very high property taxes that go mostly to fund a superb public school system. My kids are through school and yet I still pay those taxes even though I no longer personally benefit from them. I pay them because in the long run a well educated citizenry is important to maintaining a democratic society (no matter how messed up it is currently). Granted that funding for public schools is frequently not equitably dispersed, but charter schools do nothing to improve that situation. Forcing school systems that in many (most?) cases are financially suffering already to pay for a parallel system that is neither open to all children nor subject to public accountability is certainly NOT designed to improve education for all.
Sorry, Dianne. My comment has ended up so far down the list that even I wonder who I am talking to. Cahrles, take notice, please.
FYI, if you use the WordPress phone app, or the wordpress web site, then you can respond directly to whoever you’re respond to. If more people used WordPress, the comment threads would be a lot less confusing.
Sorry, Charles. When I start to mangle names, it is obviously past time for me to go to bed.
I am also an AZ parent. My children are receiving an excellent education in a traditional public school. I don’t fault any parents for the school choices they make for their children. To be sure, there are dedicated teachers in both charter and traditional public schools. I do take issue with our state and it’s allowance of private enrichment off taxpayer dollars through the charter system. A critique of this system, rife with inequity and self-dealing, should not be seen as a vilification of charter school teachers or families.
We should also recognize that here in AZ we have some excellent schools for the gifted run by traditional school districts. Privately run for-profit is not a pre-requisite for creating a “high-performing” school. To me, it is unconscionable that our state allows private entities to make bank off public school money. This insult is deepened by the fact that the majority of our state’s children are sitting in overcrowded classrooms with inadequate resources while their teachers are forced to work second and third jobs.
We also have to admit high-performing charter schools tend to share one very important characteristic with high-performing traditional public schools, they are largely filled with the children of affluent, well-educated parents. Is it the school or the kids you put in the school?
This underfunding and assault on our public schools in AZ is deliberate. Our legislators and governor know this will grow the charter school market share and lay the ground work for vouchers.
I am sure that there are awesome teachers and schools in the public system, but we did not find one for our children. That is why I and most of the parents at my kids’ school are in favor of school choice.
I understand the self selection bias inherent in a charter school student population but the narrative of entitled affluence belittles the hard work and dedication that students must do to remain in such schools. They earn their achievements.
I don’t begrudge charters schools from making a profit … ultimately that is why they are in business. Anyways, Ducey appears to have met some of the conditions to improve salaries and resources for public schools in AZ.
Why should their “rights” be any greater than the kids charter schools don’t choose? Why should private schools get to feed off the public trough? Either you support public education or not. Charter schools are not public in any sense of the word. While I understand the lure of a good charter school when the public system has been starved as it has been in Arizona, charter schools simply make the situation worse.
@AZ parent: Two thumbs up! There are not many people who will come onto this blog, and openly admit their support of school choice. It takes courage.
I also agree that non-public schools should be entitled to earn profits. There are profit-making vocational/technical schools, which turn out excellent graduates.
I am fairly sure that when charter schools have reached 70 or 80% the funds will start to dry up, and all schools will be underfunded.
Hedge funds managers run the pro-charter school DFER; hedge fund managers are the pirates of the financial world, so you have to ask yourself just what their interest is in establishing schools. Well, in charter schools they have found a slick vehicle to divert a steady stream of public tax dollars into their funds. How bad is the diversion? Well, the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Education has issued a report which warns 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 FALL SHORT OF MEETING GOALS” because of financial fraud and the artful skimming of tax money into private pockets, especially hedge fund pockets.
Billionaire hedge fund managers have found a way to bleed public tax money away from public schools and teachers and into their own pockets: Charter schools. They’ve been so successful in pocketing public money through their charter school scam that the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Education has issued a report which warns 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 FALL SHORT OF MEETING 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, there is one thing that must be required so that charter schools are accountable to taxpayers and inform taxpayers as to where taxpayer money is actually going when it’s given to charter schools; that one key thing is this: 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 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. Of course, if they have to do that, the public and the media will see what the charter school scam is all about, and charter schools will fade away.
The Arizona Legislature finally called sine die last night at 12:26 am. This is good news. It was also good news to hear they were unable to repeal the full voucher expansion. This means that Prop. 305, the initiative SOS AZ got on the ballot, will ask voters to decide on vouchers this November. AZ public education advocates are very excited to send the privatizers a clear message via the ballot box, that we want our public tax dollars to go to transparent, fully accountable, public schools!