The Aspire charter chain in Memphis is in trouble and debating its future. This is one of billionaire Reed Hastings’ investments, and it is not faring well.
Facing a roughly $2 million operating deficit and lagging academic progress, a California-based charter organization that runs four schools in Memphis is reconsidering its future in the city — even floating the possibility of pulling out of the area altogether.
At a public meeting on Friday, Aspire’s national board discussed with its Memphis staff four possible scenarios for moving forward. Board chair Jonathan Garfinkel said that changes are anticipated, given the budget deficit and the fact that academic “results have not been what we’ve hoped.”
As a result, Aspire could cease to oversee its four Memphis schools, which serve some 1,600 students in total. This wouldn’t mean the schools would close, but that the governance of the school would change. A task force — composed of board members, Aspire staff in Memphis and consultants — came up with the following four possible paths forward, though Garfinkel said more possibilities could be considered.
Memphis remains an Aspire region with additional supports and a plan to close the financial gap.
Memphis becomes an Aspire “franchise,” keeping the name and core approach and receiving some supports, like curriculum and coaching, but operates as a separate nonprofit with significantly more autonomy.
The four Memphis schools become a standalone charter network with their own central office and fundraising function.
The four schools team up with one or more existing local school district or charter network.
If any changes are made, they wouldn’t go into place until after this school year. Garfinkel emphasized that no decisions have been made, and the task force would use Friday’s conversation to steer its board recommendations, slated for January.
Guess they are not “saving poor kids in failing schools.”
Wonder if Reed Hastings will rethink his grand plan to privatize every public school? I’m guessing not. Being a billionaire means never saying you made a mistake.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
All you have to do is read the sentence fragment “national board discussed with its Memphis staff four possible scenarios for moving forward.” Translation: local control of public education is not an issue for them.
Yeah, that was my impression too as I was reading the article: Aspire can just play with “scenarios” as if its schools were private.
Public schools never pull up stakes and move to another city.
“even floating the possibility of pulling out of the area altogether”
That’s what always amazes me about these “public schools”. Luckily for the people there is a public system infrastructure in place where the “operators” can’t just pull out.
All of these experiments are completely reliant on the unfashionable and much-maligned public systems to act as a back-up. That’s never, ever admitted.
“Luckily for the people there is a public system infrastructure in place where the “operators” can’t just pull out.”
What does the above mean? It seems, Aspire can just pull out of Memphis.
” Being a billionaire means never saying you made a mistake.”
Good line, or if you are Bill Gates:
Being a billionaire means: “It would be great if our education stuff worked, but that we won’t know for probably a decade.”
Of course a lot of people knew from the get-go that his “education stuff” would not work as he intended, but kids and teachers are just there to be the lab-rats for stuff.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2013/09/27/bill-gates-it-would-be-great-if-our-education-stuff-worked-but/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c6a2b4ced9df
DT is an alleged billioanre who is never wrong, if you listen to only him. After all, he did say he was a stable genius and during the campaign in 2106 he said he’d never had a bankruptcy — even though US banks have lost about a billion dollars from his six bankruptcies, that according to DT back in 2016, never happened.
Reed Hastings is also an alleged billionaire but probably not that much different than DT.
Birds of a feather flock together and rot together too.