The editorial board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published a powerful editorial in opposition to the expansion of charters into the suburbs. They are currently limited to Missouri’s two biggest cities, St. Louis and Kansas City. The editorial warns that the introduction of charters would threaten the quality and viability of some of the state’s best public school districts. The Republican-sponsored bill to add charters does not include any new funding and allows for renewal of low-performing charter schools.
Besides, charters in the two urban districts have produced meager results. Why have more of what doesn’t work?
The editorial recounts the dismal charter record:
“Some high-profile disasters have resulted from lack of oversight and accountability for charter schools. In 2012, Missouri shut down six Imagine charter schools in St. Louis. Students consistently performed worse on state tests than those attending St. Louis Public Schools while Virginia-based Imagine reaped huge profits from a real estate business.
“About half of the 30-plus charter schools that have opened in St. Louis since 2000 have been shut down for academic or financial failure. That’s hardly a success model worth emulating.
”Nationally, the picture looks even worse. The federal government has wasted up to $1 billion on charter schools that never opened or opened and then closed because of mismanagement or other reasons, according to the Network for Public Education advocacy group.”
Why wreak havoc on successful schools by injecting charters, whose track record in Missouri is poor?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m nearing completion of Noliwe Rooks’s Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and the End of Public Education (which I got because of your strong recommendation). The answer to your opening and concluding questions above is easily found, unfortunately, in her succinct and compelling prose.
“Why wreak havoc on successful schools by injecting charters, whose track record in Missouri is poor?”
Because it’s ideological. They object to “government schools” and labor unions and thus they believe ANY charter school school is inherently superior to ALL public schools.
That’s also why they offer absolutely nothing of value to children and families IN public schools. They attend the wrong schools. When they make the right decision and enroll their children in charter or private schools they’ll be lavished with funding and attention and praise as a reward.
Sometimes the financial incentive is right out there. There’s a “portfolio district” that offers a 20% bump in per student funding if the school privatizes. This isn’t subtle.
Betsy DeVos is on a national publicly-funded marketing campaign to convince public school families that public schools are “dangerous” and they should “flee”. Public schools STUDENTS are now included in the smears. Whatever it takes!
“Roeber’s bill wouldn’t add additional funding to public education nor ..”
Of course it wouldn’t. Look at any ed reform bill. Find the part that benefits public school students. There won’t be anything in there. It’s standard practice in “the movement” to completely exclude public school students when considering “public education”.
At best there will be an over-confident and unsupported assurance that public school students won’t be harmed. That’s the best they offer. Their work will not deliberately harm students who remain in public schools. For this we’re all supposed to elect or hire them and pay them. They actually believe this is incredibly generous, a concession, and a selling point. We’re now supposed to pay tens of thousands of public employees to NOT harm our schools. The idea that they would actually add value or perform a lick of work towards public schools is unimaginable. That’s a bridge too far.
We really could do better. We could hire public employees who support our schools and intend to work on their behalf. That’s possible. It’s a really low bar.
I’m pleased that the real questions about ed reform that should have been asked 20 years are now spreading to every state.
Once the questions were raised in Ohio, ed reform couldn’t shut the inquiry and debate down, despite best efforts. All you need is a chink in the wall.
I don’t know if it’s true in Missouri but newspapers deserve some blame for creating the ed reform echo chamber. Ohio newspapers blindly cheered ed reform for 20 years. It’s only in the last 5 they’ve done any serious analysis.
I wish the ‘serious analysis’ part was happening in our state. All we ever see here is a blind support of charters, a nonstop blame of teachers/neighborhoods.
The waste of $1 billion federal dollars lost on unopened charter schools needs a mega publicity campaign. Conservatives and progressives alike should be deeply offended and concerned, and the same should be said for all public school parents. Teachers that buy school supplies out of pocket should also be offended by this lack of due diligence. Communities should understand that privatization is largely a scam designed to put public funds into private entities.
This is the Philadelphia ed reformer who initiated the DeVos plan for schools there:
“At the Yale event, Keleher said that it was the right time to turn power over to someone better at handling nitty-gritty details, now that sweeping changes are in the works.
“It was the appropriate time for someone to take on the leadership role who will be responsible for implementation,” she said.”
She’s the Big Ideas person. Now it’s time for the little people to make her vision work.
They always run aground on the old “implementation” problem. The ideas are perfect! It’s just putting them in that’s hard. I’ll make a bold prediction- if privatization doesn’t work in Puerto Rico it will be the fault of 1. teachers, or 2 labor unions. None of the “leaders” will be held accountable, in fact, they’ll have already parachuted into the next place and done the exact same thing. She probably has her next ed reform job lined up.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that ed reformers lost power and clout in Ohio and the legislature finally, finally addressed public school funding.
It’s been 20 years since any of these people contributed anything at all to the schools 90% of the kids in this state attend. It’s like they woke up from charter and voucher fever, looked around, and noticed we have public schools in this state.
If you want to improve your public schools you’ll first have to hire some people who have some interest in them and intend to contribute something of value to them.
Chiara, regarding your question about Missouri’s echo chamber, read the recent St. Louis Post Dispatch article from the president of the Fordham foundation. He grew up in west St. Louis county (read: upper middle class), and apparently his school district faced challenges (anyone else who grew up in St. Louis and is even mildly conscious–much less woke–to the divides that shape this city should be simultaneously laughing and crying by now). The Parkway district made it, but up on the North side, oh, those folks need charters.
https://www.stltoday.com/opinion/columnists/let-s-irrigate-north-county-s-charter-school-deserts/article_a9ddeab5-688f-5a8f-93d8-e7ac145da878.html
As an English teacher, I also find the irrigation metaphor appalling.
I was in St. Louis last week. Before heading to the airport, I stopped at Pappy’s and went up Jefferson Ave. and meandered to the airport through some of the neighborhoods in between, something I like to do when visiting cities. The first disheartening thing I saw we a building with the sign “KIPP:St. Louis” and under it “Public School” (!!). The second was the extreme poverty, some of the blocks looked exactly like what I saw in Detroit last year. The idea of someone from the affluent suburbs telling the people in those neighborhoods what they need lessened the satisfaction of the ribs I just feasted on.
The publicly funded corporate K-12 charter school industry motto should read:
“To profit and increase our wealth and power, our end goal is to subvert and destroy the United States Constitutional Republic and its democratic institutions.”
My comment about a candidate for attorney general in Missouri, who is concentrating on the effect of dark money in lower level elections such as state representative and school board races has been blocked. Was it the mention of his name, or his e-mail the trigger, or was it something else?
Oops….nothing was blocked—st. louis was featured twice—thanks…Now, if we can get the Cardinals back over .500…..that will make it all better.
front page story this morning in the Post Dispatch….”Missouri charter schools say they miss out on millions in local revenue” (I would not be shocked if the person who wrote the powerful editorial is no longer employed)