Jeanne Allen, CEO of the pro-choice, Pro-DeVos Center for Education Reform, does not want you to watch an NBC special tonight on charter schools. Allen’s CER is an outspoken supporter of privatization of public funding and a hyperactive opponent of public schools.
In the following letter, she reports that she warned NBC that its show was based on an article in The Hechinger Report,” which she says is biased against charter schools. Really? It’s been my observation that The Hechinger Report is completely nonpartisan and unbiased on every contentious issue.
Here is the letter that Jeanne (former education analyst for the fringe-right Heritage Foundation), sent to NBC and to her mailing list of thousands.
The Center for Education Reform
RE: NBC’s Charter School Mistake
Dear Friends:
Sunday night, June 17th, NBC News is airing a charter school story that argues charters are increasingly geared to support “white flight.” If the claims weren’t so outlandish and unfounded, it would be laughable.
The producer, who was incredibly open to receiving information countering these allegations, based his report on an analysis performed by the Hechinger Report. In one of the documents CER supplied, we demonstrated Hechinger’s bias against charter schools, as well as the folly of the argument.
Indeed, Hechinger claims to have used NCES data to calculate racial balance in charter schools across the country that justify erroneous claims that increasingly charter schools do not reflect the racial balance of surrounding schools. However, as we pointed out, no researcher can make such statements based on NCES data. One needs at least 4 data points (see link for explanation) and further review, analysis and study, to make any legitimate comparisons.
In the case of the school they use as their prime example, George’s Lake Onocee Academy, originally boundaries were drawn around the school based on a development that was responsible for its existence. The other public schools in the district were failing, and developers wanted to offer a better school to the community. The district was opposed to the creation of the school. And while the boundary no longer exists around that school, local leaders have still fanned the flames of bigotry that Hechinger seized to market the sizzling story to its media partner NBC.
The Hechinger Report journalist then called numerous other states and asked about racial composition of their schools. One might ask why they’d have to call states if they thought they had irrefutable data.
We don’t fault NBC for viewing Hechinger’s work as legitimate or being misled by their data. The thousands of policies, laws and data points that apply to charter school everywhere are complex and require a trained eye and understanding. However, if one is disposed against charters as Hechinger is because they give parents freedom to make choices rather mandate assignment based on artificial factors, then one will make any conclusion that justified their narrative.
Such is the case in this piece which some charter advocates argue is balanced. Regardless of what is said tomorrow night, there is no balance in any piece which starts with the premise that the very reform that created opportunities for millions of children who were failed by the traditional system, and which serve a higher percentage of at risk and minority children, is creating racial imbalance. Indeed, if mandatory assignment by zip code and busing were the answer, we would not have failed students for 3 generations.
All children deserve the education they need to become exceptional adults. The freedom to make that choice is fundamental, as charter schools have shown consistently since 1992.
We hope NBC and other news media will find ways to help the public understand that fact, as well as the enormous need that still exists to bring innovation and opportunity to millions more students trapped in failing schools that Hechinger and its friends in the teachers unions irresponsibility seem determined to defend at all costs, including mis-use of data.
If you’d like to discuss this or any other issue, please call us at 202-750-0012 or drop us a note here.
– Jeanne Allen, Founder & CEO
Diane Ravitch's blog 
As Paul Krugman observed, the Heritage Foundation takes the think out of think tank. It’s a right wing 100% libertarian free market propaganda mill.
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When mainstream media recognize that charters are diverting resources into their owner’s bank accounts while heightening segregation, the charter hoax is in deep doodoo. Jeanne knows it.
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When mainstream media recognize that charters are pocketing resources while exacerbating segregation, when mainstream media report how much money is being poured into elections by a handful of billionaires, and when mainstream media stop hurling empty attacks at public schools and teachers, it will be a sign that diligent reporting has not seen its last days, that democracy can therefore still function, and that Gates, Walton, and Broad did not completely tear apart the fabric of society with their greed and hubris. I will believe it when I see it, hopefully starting tonight on NBC.
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I don’t really think there is such thing as a “think tank” based on the image the public has. They’re propaganda operations, and the name “think tank” is in itself a deceptive propaganda term. (There are a few liberal ones, and that applies to them too — though that’s hard to analyze because there are fake-liberal ones pushing right-wing ideas too.)
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Called “NO TINK TANKS.”
Guess this is like: “Thought Leaders.” When I heard the term “Thought Leaders,” I stopped listening. Maybe others can MAKE ME SIT, but the can’t make me listen to BS.
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That’s why many have taken to calling them “Stink Tanks”.
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The theme of charter schools in my opinion is currently ‘The Privatization of Public Schools for Corporate Profits’.
The fact that more parents are not rising up is astounding
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Is Allen trying to do some kind of Jedi mind trick?
“You will not watch the charter school expose on NBC tonight.”
“I will not watch the charter school expose on NBC tonight.”
Sort of like
“These are not the droids you’re looking for.”
*”These are not the droids we’re looking for.”
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Until the NBC post airs tonight, you can watch the John Oliver piece that drove Allen to paroxysms of rage:
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Oh, I loved that. Thanks for the memories.
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Just brilliant: they put it on on Fathers Day night, so, perhaps, NO ONE will be watching!
So…calm down, Jeanne.
Did someone drop the ball, or was this accidentally on purpose?!
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Diane: Thanks for this. The key passage (at least one of them) is this:
” . . . the premise that the very reform that created opportunities for millions of children who were failed by the traditional system, and which serve a higher percentage of at risk and minority children, is creating racial imbalance.”
(1) The writer ASSUMES the “failure by the traditional system.” Even if that were true, and it certainly is not for the entire system, it doesn’t automatically call for charter-privatization. Schools “sit” in social systems and cannot be abstracted from those systems or their influence on their schools. Their efforts are to keep the toxic social systems that inform “failed” schools in place; hence, the charter school encroachment on education, its public funding, and its efforts at accountability. Charters provide the local avenues for racist motivations, and work in unison with the monied interference of investors.
Fix the social system and, over time, the PUBLIC schools will follow. Ironically, it’s the schools that tend to “wash out” the bias that underpins segregation. (This is where the subtleties of absent or propagandized curricula come in to play).
The “failure,” if there is one, is in the unknowing children’s lack of power–the ones who actually learn, but who have so many counter-influences in their families and in the distorted and now-calcified social systems that force poor choices on their children (family or school), and who now need charter schools to propagate their bias to the next generation.
Perhaps when the smoke of testing disappears, we can understand that the so-called “failed schools” were doing a better job of de-biasing children than we think–as ideas tend to accompany children home. CBK
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I’m actually amazed a commercial station is looking critically at charter schools.
Is this a first? The only time I’ve ever seen anything that looks remotely like a “debate” is when they invite Diane Ravitch.
The US Congress doesn’t even allow real debate on charters. They invite paid supporters to testify and exclude all disssenters.
I have yet to see a PUBLIC school advocate address Congress, actually. Shouldn’t they invite at least one representative from the schools 90% of US children attend?
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and shouldn’t there be more public school advocates we can point to and call out by name?
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(I am referring to the worlds of politics and journalism)
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To get real critical analysis of charters you have to read local newspapers. They cover the charter situation in states- you know- the actual schools.
Try any of Ohio’s big city papers. You’ll find hundreds of pieces on specific ed reform policy outcomes and actual charter chains.
Compare the narrative of national ed reform lobbyists to real reporting from local papers in Florida. It’s two different realities. I know which one I’m buying.
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For what it’s worth, the exposé will be broadcast on Lester Holt’s Nightly News on NBC (Channel 4) at 6:30 EDT this evening.
A published article on which the report is based can be viewed now at:
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/education/it-s-black-white-thing-how-some-elite-charter-schools-n878656
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Thanks for the particulars. This will be interesting to say the least. The charter propagandists have enjoyed too many breaks from major media. The
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By the way, it does not take a “trained eye” to notice that many charters are mostly white or black, This is how “choice” is designed to work. Students are placed where the powerful feel they belong. This is no accident.
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It’s not just black and white. In South Los Angeles, there are predominantly black charters in neighborhoods that are predominantly Latin. People self-segregate. There as elsewhere, English language learners and special needs students take the biggest hit when their public schools are left with less funding. South L.A. has enough trouble without police aggression, rising rents, rising food costs, welfare “reform”, and now, segregated schools. Even in already redlined cities, there is nothing progressive about education “reform”. Moratorium now!
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School choice always produces segregation.
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Even if a charter is racially diverse, it is not socioeconomically diverse. If a charter could be socioeconomically diverse, it still would be segregated based on functional vs dysfunctional families.
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Charters by design don’t accommodate diversity, be it racial, ethnic or ability. The corporate charter chains exclude all but the best test takers with curricula that is primarily aligned with the state tests. The smaller, religious charters & those that specialize in themed or niche curricula cater to students who fit the school demands.
Even if charters were started with the best of intentions & fully public, as Al Shanker envisioned, segregating students is fundamental to their existence.
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Quick fix: “Charters by design WON’T accommodate diversity…”
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So why charter, why not reform the public and private schools in existence, why starting another problem? Please stop this charter politics and start rebuilding the existing schools.
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I read it at nbc.com, so did not need to see it – but know many mainstream viewers watch Lester Holt – let’s hope the message trickles down!
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