Jersey Jazzman (aka Mark Weber) has been preoccupied both teaching and earning his doctorate degree, but fortunately he did earn the degree so he is blogging again, shining the light of accuracy and truth on inflated claims.
In this post, he reviews the bait-and-switch in Camden, New Jersey. Camden has opened charters called “Renaissance Schools,” which were required by law to be open to all the children in their neighborhood. The charters are run by KIPP, Uncommon Schools, and Mastery, all of which have a history of skimming the students they want.
JJ reviews a state auditor’s report that chides the charters for gaming the system, picking the students they want, contrary to the law.
No surprise here. More broken promises from the privatization industry. They are not better than public schools, although they are better at picking the students they want.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane Ravitch and others have been doing a tireless and wonderful job of pointing out the inadequacies of many charters.
It is now time to take the handcuffs off teachers so they can show the power of public school teachers. This will not happen from the top down.
A Great start is for every school across this nation to strike for smaller class size. This will be significant but just a beginning. We must subvert the system for the agenda of children.
The greatest challenge to educators, in this decade is to prepare children to rise above the confirmation bias and embrace critical thinking. This will only be done by public school teachers.
That was really interesting. That’s the challenge with charters- one really has to understand the specific laws and delve into the details to puncture the myth-making.
Ed reformers are all lock-step promoting Indianapolis now- what they don’t mention is the privatized schools get a kind of grade inflation that was built into the law that existing schools don’t enjoy. One would have to know Indiana charter law, then follow that thru news reports, then apply what one learned to specific schools to realize they’re misrepresenting the success of privatization.
The exaggerations and puffery eventually are (eventually) revealed- we’ve seen that in place after place, where there has been some expose but it takes so long that the myth is embedded by the time it’s debunked.
You can go to The 74 right now and find the “all charters are run by non profits” lie proudly promoted in essay after essay. They know it’s not true. Yet they still promote it.
It’s almost as interesting to watch what they DON’T say- DeVos promotes charters and private schools every working day- she literally does nothing else- but she promotes FLORIDA, not Michigan, even though she designed Michigan ed reform. There’s a reason for that. The Michigan charter myth has been debunked.
You see whole cities drop off the marketing platform. Detroit, Cleveland, the entire states of Ohio and Pennsylvania. If it fails, it disappears.
This is a good debunking article:
In a speech last week to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos made her latest pitch for a radical transformation in the nature of public schooling—one that would place vocational education front and center. “There are over seven million unfilled jobs in the United States,” she told her audience, because “there is a disconnect between education and the economy.” She declared that civic leaders need to “disrupt” education, or at the very least “rethink” it.
Over the past several years, DeVos has laid the groundwork for this position by telling a very particular story about the history of American education. Schools, she has argued, were modeled after factories, and “students were trained for the assembly line.” But as the economy shifted over time, schools failed to keep pace. As she has repeatedly insisted, schools remain “stuck in a mode” from 100 years ago.”
It isn’t just DeVos, though. This is endlessly repeated on ed reform sites and has been repeated for years- all of the Obama people recited it, including the President.
You can go to a congressional debate transcript right now and find it, along with the debunked nonsense about the “skills gap”
They don’t learn anything. They are out there lecturing students about “rigor” and they repeat the most facile BS for years, and never, ever admit error.
They’re simply not in a position to lecture students. They don’t undertake any “learning process” themselves. Because the Google Education salesperson said it doesn’t mean it’s true. A 7th grader wouldn’t be as credulous as these people are, yet they scold 7th graders for being lazy slackers. They don’t even model what they preach.
https://newrepublic.com/article/152979/betsy-devos-fabricating-history-sell-bad-education-policy
They live in a bubble. Betsy never got rigor. She was cushioned from life. Nothing she says matters because she is out of touch with reality.
Diane, you “nailed” her. So true.
Almost all charters are selective. The question is whether they are overtly selective or covertly selective as in the case of Renaissance Charters. Since their main objective is profit, it makes sense that they would game the system in order to provide the corporation more ROI. Most charters are not “all about the kids;” their goal is protect their investment. Public schools can never fairly “compete” with them, and that’s the way most of the politicians want it.
Camden, former home of Campbell Soup, has long been a forgotten city. In order to get to the Jersey shore from Philly, my family took the Ben Franklin. On the bridge my dad would say, “Lock your doors.” Beyond the bridge in those days was a drive through the main street in Camden. I remember seeing lots of people drinking out of paper bags, and once we passed two men in a fist fight. When we would stop at a red light, the ladies of the evening who were out all day long, would come up to the car and knock on the window and wave to me, and I’d wave back.
Gentrification was supposed to “save” Camden, but it never did. After the high speed line was built, people in Camden could be in downtown Philly in fifteen minutes. The location is appealing to developers. New Jersey built the state aquarium there, and lots of middle class housing was supposed to follow. It never happened. Camden is not that large a city, and it is hemmed in by middle class housing and the Delaware River. As with Paterson, there is no place to relocate the poor. Developers walked away from Camden. Charters won’t save them either. They will just make money for favored “friends” while they undermine the public schools. Investing in public schools with wrap around services would make a lot more sense, and the state would not be wasting money to make the schools a center of profitability. The money that goes to profit would be better spent on the children in Camden.
I hope NJ Spotlight will carry Mark’s article at some point. As for the main stream media and the NJ Star Ledger, don’t hold your breath. The Star Ledger is a stenographer for the charter cheerleaders, the charter propagandists and the charter worshippers. The Star Ledger is rabidly anti-NJEA 24/7. It portrays the NJEA and the teacher unions as thugs, greedy selfish pigs who care nothing for the kids. Charter schools are always characterized as miracle wonderful schools that offer an escape from the horrible public schools.
Joe, agreed.
A few years ago, I was interviewed by one of the lead writers for the Star-Ledger. He was extremely biased against teachers, public schools, NJEA.
Mark Weber has also had his run-ins with the Star Ledger editorial board and S-L “journalist” Tom Moran.
Quote from JerseyJazzman, 2-9-14: First of all, only someone who was completely ignorant of education policy would ever suggest that Barack Obama is some sort of liberal standard for “reform.” No one — including George W. Bush — has done more to hasten the privatization of public education than Obama and his incoherent Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan.
What’s worse here, however, is that Moran has once again assumed bad faith on the part of teachers unions on the basis of nothing. Wait, scratch that: almost nothing. Because, as I’ve shown before, pretty much the entirety of Moran’s case against the teachers unions is based on one quote from a former NJEA president (yes, former) that Moran won’t even put into context.
Moran’s unthinking jihad against the NJEA saves him from having to actually think about education: for example, here he once again refuses to understand that the “best charter schools” don’t teach the same children as their public school neighbors. End quote.
Yes, it was Tom MORAN who interviewed me the day I spoke to NJEA. Clearly I was unpersuasive
I am disappointed that former guv Christie (he’s baaack!! well, he really never goes away…he is, after all, “larger than life” {& I mean that literally!}) is going to be on “The Late Show w/Stephen Colbert” tonight (well, he’s another one cashing in–he just published a new book, largely w/the intent of bashing Jared Kushner {as C.C. prosecuted Kushner’s father, sending him to jail, & Jaren is the reason that IQ45 sent Christie off into the nethers}).
Dunno, though…perhaps I WILL watch, because I am of the belief that one keeps one’s “friends close, but enemies closer.”
You wouldn’t permit any of your former students to make fun of another kid with a fat joke such as you make about Christie.