Jeff Bryant writes that Michigan is the “canary in the mine” for the end result of the Reform movement and its efforts to replace public schools with charter schools.
The rightwing whines about “charter school deserts” where there are no privately managed charters; the real danger to our democracy is the creation of “public school deserts,” where the rich and powerful play games with the lives of children and deny them the right to a public school in their community.
This is a frightening and prophetic report on the destruction wrought by Betsy DeVos, DFER, the neoliberal Center for American Progress, Eli Broad, Bill Gates, Reed Hastings, the Waltons, and the many other proponents of a “choice” approach to K-12 education:
In Michigan – home state to US Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos whose political donations and advocacy for “school choice” and charter schools drastically altered the state’s public education system – some of the state’s largest school districts lose so many students to surrounding school districts and charter schools that the financial viability of the districts seems seriously in question.
According to a new report, more than half of Michigan school districts experienced a net loss in enrollment last year, and the percent of student attrition in many of the state’s large districts is shocking, upwards of 60 to 70 percent.
Can a school district experiencing such losses in student enrollment continue to keep the doors open?
That question should be relevant to education policy leaders beyond Michigan as more states have enacted market-based policies that allow charter schools to proliferate, students to travel outside home districts to other districts, and voucher programs that let parents transfer students to private schools at taxpayer expense (something not yet allowed in Michigan).
Indeed, Michigan may be the canary in the coalmine warning that not only does unrestrained choice and competition fail to improve academic results, it also may risk the financial feasibility of having functioning public schools in every community.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Betsy DeVos visits GOP donors:
“The nation’s top education official was at Koch Industries in Wichita on Monday in a visit that was not announced to local school district leaders or media.
U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos met with “a small group” of teachers, students and representatives of Youth Entrepreneurs, a Wichita-based non-profit group founded by Charles and Liz Koch, said an official with the organization.”
This is why we’re paying 7 million dollars a year for her elaborate, ludicrously excessive “security detail” – so she can campaign for the Republican Party on our time and our dime.
None of these people pushing job training have ever worked for a wage in their entire lives. For most of them it’s been several generations. They really can’t find a single person in the federal government who has something practical and useful to contribute to teenagers in vocational programs? We get these 3rd generation billionaires and Ivanka Trump? Why is the public paying for Donald Trump’s campaign?
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Michigan may save their public education system after all. I think a lot of ed reformers in that state will find it very difficult to get re-elected this time, given their disastrous record.
Unfortunately they’ll all then get jobs working for the Trump Administration, because it seems to be impossible to fire an ed reformer- they just pop back up employed by some other ed reform entity. Six weeks later they’re employed again, running an ed reform lobbying shop or parachuting into another state.
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Yes. So long as they are willing to promote ANY form of the “reform” snake oil for money, they can count on big paychecks somewhere. All that the public hears is that they are now “educational experts.”
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If Michigan is the “canary in the coalmine,” let’s hope other states heed the warning. Continuous unfettered charter and/or voucher drain is unsustainable. Cities and states will reach a threshold beyond which they may not be able to recover. This will result in financial ruin for the state and taxpayers. Privatization has always been a form of sabotage against the public institution that helped build this nation. Voters need to go to the polls and vote out the complicit politicians and replace them with those that support social justice and the common good.
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Seriously, people need to stop ✋ using advertising jingles like “free market”, “unrestrained choice”, and “competition” to describe Private Ownership Of Public Education Dollars, since the end game of 💩ED is precisely to force choices on the population.
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AGREE, Jon. What we have with Charters and vouchers = JIM CROW.
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Thanks Diane!
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According to a new report, more than half of Michigan school districts experienced a net loss in enrollment last year, and the percent of student attrition in many of the state’s large districts is shocking, upwards of 60 to 70 percent.
This is not a bug. It is a planned outcome.
ESSA will do the rest of the job on public schools because it requires on-line “productivity measures” for every public school,by teacher, grade level, subject, and a long list of absurdities. Due date: Initially by 2018-2019, but extended to 2019-2020.
The ESSA requirement for per-pupil accounting is no joke. Every aspect of this press for corporate-style productivity measures, linking outcomes of education to specific streams of money, rests on the premise that funding for education SHOULD be lowered and redistributed to get the most bang for the buck.
Here is an EdWeek commentary on the initial requirements. https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/08/29/district-spending-is-about-to-get-a.html?intc=eml-contshr-shr-desk
The EdWeek commentary does not elaborate on the decisions enabled by the mandated data. The end-game is suggested in this 2007 paper: “Out of the Box: Fundamental Change in School Funding” by David H. Monk, Dean of the College of Education at Pennsylvania State University. Monk endorses the following ideas about budgeting for schools.
A system of education based on “user charges” designed so the cost/tax per-pupil is matched to levels of service.
A district’s citizens and the school board offers all students “a basic program” and allows for fee-based add-ons selected by the student and parent.
The school board and voting public decide if a particular course or service will be: (a) in the “basic program” and open to all, (b) offered, but with a fee-for-service, (c) offered with a fee-for-service and subsidy for students in low income households, or (d) excluded from studies offered by the school.
The school board and voting public must insist on “market discipline” in this system by denying access to add-ons unless parents pay for them, The only exception must be an agreed upon subsidy for students in low-income households.
Monk clearly favors several ideas to reduce the cost of education. One is to expand instruction on-line and by computers “because it may be better and less costly than human teachers.” Another is “Install pay-for-performance, provided that the best human teachers are put in charge of more students and managing student use of technologies.” A related idea: “Make greater use of technology if that makes the next generation of students more dependent on distant teachers at multiple sites and less dependent on learning from direct contract with “proximate teachers” (p. 11).
In addition to making the case for greater use of technology as a substitute for teachers …who are not reaching ”realistic, attainable, and measurable goals,“ Monk says: “there is not much point to advertising a professional development program for weak teachers” (p. 16).
Monk envisions a better education education system when: parents gain experience with matching services to their children’s needs” (p.19); school boards “make principled decisions about what to include and exclude from the basic program;” state officials ensure equitable access to the basic program and add-ons chosen by parents (p. 20). https://www.crpe.org/publications/out-box-fundamental-change-school-funding
In a follow-up to those claims about the virtues of per-pupil funding Marguerita Rosa, circulated the results of a study of per-pupil costs for high school education in three districts (2009). Among the conclusions, the most expensive courses were foreign language, AP courses, and music. Rosa’s policy recommendations can be seen in the following article (not peer reviewed). https://edunomicslab.org/breaking-school-budgets-following-dollars-classroom/
The basic idea of “unbundling” the costs of schooling on a per-pupil basis is not different from the principle of unbundling costs in the world of business, notably on airlines and with internet services.
The ESSA requirement for “per-pupil accountability” will favor schools and districts with: low pay and benefits for teachers, high test scores and year to year increases in measures of “growth,” college and career” readiness and more. If the ESSA requirements apply to all schools, the required metrics will favor test-centric charters and online learning everywhere.
By no small coincidence, USDE’s “technical guidance” for states struggling with new data requirements for per-pupil funding has been outsourced to a team lead by Marguerita Rosa, Director of the Seattle-based Edunomics lab and Research Professor at McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University. She is also former Senior Economic Advisor to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation who has led a multifaceted campaign for dtat of use in productivity measures since 2005.
The reductions in democratic governance across the country are being driven by looking at almost everything in terms of short term economic costs and benefits and the assumption that budgets for public education should and MUST shrink. Education “lite” and cheap for the many is just fine if it saves money and sorts us all by economic well-being and productivity, beginning in school (and preschool, and infancy).
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Good lord. Monk’s paper is almost as regurg-inducing as Wrenchinthegears’ apocalyptic vision. And unless I’m very much mistaken, his description of basic cable (er I mean education) plus adders looks like where Chile ended up about 3/4 of the way thro their Friedman experiment — soon arriving at a place where mid/wkg classes could no longer afford the ‘extras’ reqd for anything beyond the most rudimentary ed. That’s when students started rioting in the streets.
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Edunomics? Good Grief, that’s right up there with Ronnie Raygun’s VuDuNomics, lately replaced by XLV’s BuFuNomics.
When are people going to get a clue that the end game of capitalism is to utterly destroy the public sphere. Citizen’s Uniturd already gave us a privatized government at taxpayer expense and now education is going down the same drain.
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Since where is there a “right” to have a publicly-operated school in every neighborhood/town,etc. For many years some states in New England (and other areas) where there is no functioning public school, have chosen to provide families in these areas with a voucher that is redeemable in a neighboring state.
Not all communities are entitled to have a post office in their town.
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Providing universal public education is a human right.
An educated populace is critical to a country’s progress and well-being.
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Providing an education at public expense is a wholesome and cost-effective expenditure. It pays for itself many times over. It is also a moral imperative. I am just saying that a community/district/neighborhood does not necessarily have a “right” to have a school building located within its boundaries.
Education is more than just a bricks and mortar building. The state/municipality can provide educational services through several means.
The state of Arizona has abolished district lines altogether. An Arizona child can attend any publicly-operated school, regardless of the location or any arbitrarily assigned district line. This helps to ensure that minority children can access schools in other areas.
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Is that why Arizona has such a pitiful education quality?
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I am certain that there are a number of reasons that the public education system in Arizona has problems.
Nevertheless, I find the concept of abolishing district lines to be intriguing and well worth a study. It would seem intuitively, that abolishing arbitrary district lines, would serve to help integrate schools more fully among racial/ethnic/income lines. Almost everyone would agree that this is a laudable goal.
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Michigan abolished district lines.
Its scores on national tests have plummeted since then.
The charter industry has collected $1 billion (and more) from taxpayers and is completely unaccountable.
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District lines where I’ve lived in NY & NJ are not arbitrary, they reflect town borders and municipal govt. A fairly customary arrgt. Abolishing district lines means no municipal control of school budget/ planning, just let the county or state take over. I don’t think so! & speaking locally now, around here the county has an inflated budget & profligate spending, unlike hands-on citizen control of municipal budget.
It’s just another idea — like school choice — claiming to address a broad social issue by tinkering w/one piece [schools]. The issue is residential/ SES segregation, combined w/ funding schools primarily from local tax base.
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In the old days when politicians were not married to Wall Street and the management of pension funds wasn’t a full time job by hedge fund managers and when we stopped making anything, public education was a right. Now its a game at how rich people can get, off of the backs of children. How many scholars can research black youth and produce the same reports thirty years later from the original reports Old men stay in politics forever like Hatch who is 87 because they love to be in charge and don’t know what else they could do.
All those old white men on TV pretending outrage was a hoot. This country is built on racism and we saw it in full display for the last two weeks. The only thing these old politicians haven’t figured out is how not to die.
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I am certain the reduction in test scores in Michigan, is due to a number of causative factors. The ability of parents to select alternate public schools, in neighborhoods other than their residential neighborhood, may be one of the factors.
I recall that the impetus behind bussing children out of their neighborhoods, to assist in racial balance, was championed by many progressives. Again, it seems intuitive, that taking inner-city (minority) children to well-run schools in more affluent (and safer) neighborhoods, would serve to provide the (minority) children with a higher quality of education. Am I wrong?
I live in the WashDC metro area. The public schools in Prince George’s county Maryland are generally awful. A substantial number of Maryland parents, illegally enroll their children in WashDC schools, and shuttle the children into/out of WashDC, on an “underground railroad”.
This should show that (at least in this case), that there may be merit in eliminating (school) district lines, even permitting shuttling children to public schools, out of their state of residence, may assist in providing the children with an increased quality of education.
There should be an “educational common market”, where students in one state, could attend the public schools in an adjacent county/state. The receiving county/state, could receive compensation from the losing jurisdiction. The child would still be receiving a publicly-provided education in a publicly-operated school, with teachers on the public payroll.
Could progressives, with their penchant for public schools, support such an arrangement?
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This is a ridiculous idea. Schools are community institutions.
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@Beata: I am somewhat intrigued by your comments. People go into (and stay in) politics for a number of reasons. Power may be an aphrodisiac, but it is also addictive. Else, why would a walking fossil like Grassley (R-IA), remain in politics? [Charlie is 85 (eighty-five) years old]
Until our nation has term limits, and public financing of campaigns (FAT CHANCE), we are going to have “time warps” in public office. At least some of the blame rests with the people who keep electing these persons.
To be fair, liberals/progressives/democrats are also riding on this train. Dianne Feinstein (D-CAL) is 85 (eighty five) years old. I do not see a cascade of calls from liberals for the senator from California to retire.
The recent judiciary committee hearings were a showcase for a number of rather sordid topics, I must agree. But please explain to me where racism was involved. I did not see any racism.
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Q This is a ridiculous idea. Schools are community institutions. END Q
What is so ridiculous? Public schools provide educational services (instruction,etc) to their students. I disagree about the “community” designation.
I remember back when cross-town school bussing for racial balance was getting underway after the Swann decision. Children from the inner-cities rode busses out of their neighborhoods, into more affluent (and whiter) neighborhoods. Children in the suburbs were transported away from their neighborhood institutions, into the inner-cities.
Liberals/progressives praised school bussing for integration, with a chorus of “Hosannas”. The goal of racial integration took a back seat (pun intended) to the concept of neighborhood (all-white or all-black) schools.
Are you now claiming that the people who opposed cross-town school bussing for racial balance, were wrong? I remember the riots and demonstrations in Louisville, KY, and Boston Mass. Are you now making common cause with segregationists, and stating that children should only attend public schools, in their own segregated neighborhoods/communities?
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Schools are paid for by the citizens of states and districts.
They belong to the public.
They are not zwalmarts or shoe stores and children are not customers.
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Q Schools are paid for by the citizens of states and districts.
They belong to the public.
They are not zwalmarts or shoe stores and children are not customers. END Q
What is your point? Of course public schools are owned by the citizens of the various states/municipalities. And the costs (personnel/utilities, etc) are paid from the public treasury. (Around 10% is from the federal treasury, the balance is state/municipal). No one disputes this.
What is the purpose of your final statement? Public schools, like any public enterprise, provide a service to the community. Like the Federal Aviation Administration, provides air-traffic control services to the flying public. This is why we have government in the first place.
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Schools are not federal agencies. They are first of all district schools. 90% of their funding is state and local.
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Irrelevant. First of all, the ‘rights’ issue is whatever the state constitution says; usually defined as equal access to an adequate education. Nobody has ever claimed every zip code gets their own. Check out any small NJ town, you’ll find due to pop incr the old K12 bldg now holds K-5 or K-8, w/mid- &or hisch-age overflow consolidated from several small towns into nearby regional midschs & hischs, thereby reqg only one new bldg per several towns’ pop incr. Or see large cities w/declining sch-age pop, some schs shuttered, w/smaller pop consolidated into a smaller no of bldgs. Normal adjustment of facilities to accommodate pop change, $ & sense.
School choice makes no $sense. Multiple smaller schs opened willy-nilly w/o ref to district budget/ planning, run by out-of-district orgs so each reqg its own dupl admin/ facil/ transp [or reqg distr to provide extra transp], leaving distr trads to ed left-behind most-exp-to-ed studs on depleted-enrollment budget barely sufficient to keep lights on, let alone cover SpEd costs once spread over larger pop. All the nearby districts are similarly affected, so when each distr tradl sch needs to close where do kids go?
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“US Dept of Education
Yesterday’s “classroom”? The Mississippi Children’s Museum! BetsyDeVosED joined a group of homeschool families to explore how they leverage local community resources as hands-on learning experiences, proving that “school” can truly be anywhere.”
The US Department of Education just discovered that children can take trips to museums – they honestly were operating under the assumption that no one knew this.
This is commonly called “a field trip” in the US public schools they are entirely unfamiliar with.
Do we really need to pay 500 federal employees to travel the country and pretend they invented field trips to museums? Who is this for? What group of people need Betsy DeVos to tell them to take field trips? They know their policy and practice has all but ended field trips for many public school students, right? That the whole point was to take them to museums because they won’t get an opportunity to go otherwise?
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And go quick, before the Repultures bleed them so dry they have to charge $20/head to see the art.
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25% of Michigan virtual school students fail to complete even one class (Michigan State University public radio). What canary?
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Jeff wrote about St. Louis, last summer….”The sad story of public education in St. Louis”, an extensive study, which St. Louis seldom gets…..carried in the Washington Post, but not the St. Louis Post dispatch, which boycotted all mention of it. I am not sure how destruction of Pubic schools affects other cities—St. Louis seemed to start with hiring a 5 million dollar superintendent in 2003 named Roberti, but consider basic census reports from 2000, 2010, and the latest updates: Population 348,191 in 2000, 319,294 ten years later. Is there any demographic info about the 29,000 people who left during the decade the public schools were taken over, (illegally a lot of us believe) by the state? 178,266 were black in 2000, 157,160 remained in 2010—a drop of 21,106—-which changed the percentage of the population from 51% in 2000 to 49% in 2010. Did mayor Slay brag about running black people out of town—no. He emphasized passing of more legislation and programs to increase the loss of population, all the while shedding crocodile tears about the loss. 19,500 females were lost, 9397 males went elsewhere. Slay and Kavanaugh might have split a couple of six packs over that result……22,000 children from 0-17 moved out, presumably most often with their mothers.In the age of Trump…..we might soon find politicians openly bragging about who is moving out of their cities, rather than smirking to each other about it in their private party rooms.
This is not material I got directly from Jeff’s study—-but I can almost guarantee, if you read what he writes, you will be inspired to learn more about whatever subject upon which he is choosing to educate us.
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