A report from Utah documents wasteful spending by charters schools on advertising and marketing.
Whatever happened to those famousbut phony wait lists?
Of course, this is the tip of the iceberg, as charter schoolsacross the nation do the same to recruit students, doing what public schools typically are not allowed to do.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Looks like they take their cues from the pharma industry (the US and New Zealand are the ONLY two countries in the world that allow pharma advertising). Their logo should be the stereotypical snake oil salesmen of the old West.
LikeLike
Ever since I started taking Chartangra, I’ve been much happier when I hear about charter schools.
LikeLike
Now that’s a good one, Ted!
LikeLike
I’m with Duane on this one.
LikeLike
No tax dollars to support charter schools.
LikeLike
Marketing First. Hard to see how this would translate much into student achievement. Just flush that taxpayer money, down the drain.
LikeLike
But all the advertising is 100% scientifically accurate!
ECOT used to advertise. They used this made-up stat where “92% of their families were satisfied!”
They ran those right up until they collapsed in a heap of corruption and lawsuits. Thank goodness the unfashionable public schools all hadn’t been eradicated- the ECOT students had a school to go to.
LikeLike
This year it was Milken’s K12 that spent a bundle in Ohio.
LikeLike
Bellwether Education Partners is a policy shop that purports to be independent.
Today it issued a report “The State of the Charter Sector: What You Need to Know About the Charter Sector Today.” The timing of this report, in the midst of national promotions of charter schools and school choice is no accident.
I have looked over this Walton-funded report. The online version is 117 pages. Most of these pages resemble PowerPoint slides.
The report begins with an overview of the “charter school sector.” Other major sections focus on the growth rate of the sector, enrollments with demographic informationabout students, trends in geographic locations of charter schools, then some fine-tuning of definitions for types of charter schools (none for traditional public schools).The report ends with an inventory of “challenges” meaning legislation that is not favorable to charter schools and claims that charter schools are underfunded.
The report is filled with color-coded charts and graphs that offer multiple contrasts between charter schools and TPS—traditional public schools (as if these are all alike). These info-graphics have foot notes that show data sources. Most of the research citations are from charter-friendly sources: CREDO (The Center for Research on Educational Outcomes), CRPE (Center for Reinventing Public Education, and NAPCS (National Alliance Of Public Charter Schools) and TNTP (The New Teacher Project).
Test scores in math and reading are prized as measures of school performance and student achievement. Year-to-year changes in these scores are treated as if significant indicators of educational “growth.” The only loud and clear negative note in the whole report is about the absolute failure of online charters to produce evidence of learning in reading and math. Also of special interest are disciplinary practices in charter versus “TPS” with charts showing disproportionate use of selected practices for various subgroups—in both categories of schools.
Readers of the report should note that many of the color-coded charts and graphs do not reflect current data. For example the trend lines for charter school growth end in 2016 (p. 4, 9). This report also makes use of a totally inane metric to claim that charter school test scores in math and reading reflect superior outcomes that should be expressed as gains in “days of learning.” NO. There is no anchoring of that claim in reality. That inferential leap comes from economists who love to produce fictions about education based on standard deviations in test scores—statistical acrobatics–nothing more.
The report includes data on “charter sector market share” over time, including the number of schools, enrollments, distribution of charter schools by state, and school closures (considered a virtue of charters and uncommon among public schools). Several pages are devoted to “high quality charter management organizations (CMOs).” Fourteen of these CMOs are identified by name. Most are part of the Charter School Growth Fund (CSGF) national portfolio, plus KIPP and Harmony Schools. These favored CMOs enroll about 13% of all charter school students. That information is worth keeping in memory because proponents so often portray ALL charter schools as “high quality.” Among the favored charters are the champions of no-nonsense discipline (Success Academy) and computer centric programming (Rocketship).
The “challenges” cited in the report are really complaints about inadequate funding, especially at the local and state levels. The writers also express some fear that federal support, generous for more than a decade, may not be sustained. There are also complaints about the industry’s failure to secure charter friendly legislation (less regulation, freedom to expand market share).
I found not a single word about the billions invested in charter schools by some of the wealthiest individuals in our nation and the many billionaire-funded foundations. There is no mention of the widespread corruption in this “market.” The most absurd claims in the whole report are about financing for “poor me” charter schools compared the relative wealth of public schools. https://bellwethereducation.org/sites/default/files/State%20of%20the%20Charter%20Sector_Bellwether.pdf
LikeLike
Thanks for your research and analysis, Laura!
LikeLike
Let me guess.
Bellweather Education spent millions of dollars to report on the state of charter schools today and didn’t include one fact about attrition rates, right?
Of course, they did subtitle their report “What You Need to Know About the Charter Sector Today” and I assume that as an organization run by people whose very generous compensation is entirely dependent on pleasing the billionaires who promote charters, their definition of “what you need to know” means “only what makes charter look good and implies the falsehood that charters are educating a random assortment of the exact same students found in the most failing urban public schools even though we all know that the ones who we say are better are the ones most ruthless in shedding students who won’t do well.”
I always wonders what it takes to intentionally mislead the public and use your Ivy League education to push the false notion that charters prove that the most disadvantaged students in America need large class sizes and lots of suspensions and “discipline” and poorly trained non-union teachers and MBA administrators and nothing else to succeed.
Truly, those people at Bellweather have absolutely no moral or ethical compass beyond what is good for them. And then they pretend that what is best for their own bank accounts is what’s good for the most disadvantaged children in America.
LikeLike
Thank you, Laura. Exactly right.
LikeLike
The founder of Gates-funded Bellwether also claims to have founded the Gates-funded groups, Pahara, New Schools Venture Fund and TFA. At Philanthropy Roundtable, she identified the goal of charters- “….brands on a large scale.” Z-berg and Gates are investors in the largest for-profit seller of schools-in-a-box. Politically, Gates and his Microsoft co-founder spent $500,000 to defeat the reelection of Washington state judges who rendered verdicts favorable to public schools. When all of the common good is eliminated, Melinda and Bill still won’t be sated.
Concentrating wealth to the point of social destabilization doesn’t stop billionaire oligarchs because they can’t restrain themselves. And, the people working for them value their paychecks more than their consciences (assuming they have them) their neighbors and their country.
LikeLike
Here is a 2016 report about advertising expenses now common for public schools in major Ohio. In Cincinnati,those costs have increased year over year because charter school enrollments take so much money from the budget.
https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/education/2016/05/12/selling-our-schools-competition-rise-s-fight-students/83923032/
LikeLike
And Utah already spends less per student than any other state. And districts aren’t allowed to advertise. And most charter schools score lower than public schools around them. But sure–advertise! https://fox13now.com/2018/05/21/utah-still-last-in-per-pupil-funding-with-efforts-to-improve-falling-short/
And charter schools advertise in sneaky ways, too. Charters are always in the news for some “special project” they’re doing that public schools have done for years. Charters are in parades. They send in WAY more “teacher appreciation” write-ups than public schools do. They don’t care about education as much as they do about advertising.
And then, we get the kids back all year long from charters.
LikeLike