Carol Burris is the executive director of the Network for Public Education. She is a lifelong educator, first a teacher of Spanish, then an award-winning principal of a high school in New York.
She writes here to explain briefly why charter schools are unnecessary and are not public schools.
“When I was a high school principal, I also ran an alternative school called The Greenhouse. It was small–its average enrollment was 17 students. The students were older–juniors or seniors–who were credit-deficient or who, for personal reasons, needed an alternative setting.
“Greenhouse saved lives and reduced our dropout rate to less than 1%. It was run (and is still run) by a wonderful teacher, Frank Van Zant. I gave Frank ample resources with teachers from South Side going to the school to provide content instruction for one or two periods a day. I trusted him and gave him freedom. It has (and still has) a full-time social worker. Hours for students were more flexible. Instruction was small group. I called the Greenhouse a delicate ecology. I was careful to place in the program only those students who really needed it.
“Our students on suspension also benefitted. They would receive instruction there at the end of the day so that they were well educated and counseled when out of school and could more easily transition back.
“All of that innovation and I did not need “a charter” to do it. The ultimate authority was the School Board. The kids who graduated received a South Side diploma. In fact, by the time I left, 100% graduated with a NYS Regents diploma.
“I am weary of hearing that charter schools are public schools. That is a lie. Public schools are governed by the public, not by a private corporation.
“Charter advocates will say Wisconsin has “public charters” because they are authorized by the school district. However, all of those district authorized schools, thanks to Scott Walker, are now run by for-profit or nonprofit corporations. Publicly-governed charter schools without a private board are not allowed. I do not believe there is even one public charter school–that is a charter school run by an elected school board–in the United States. Is there one left?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Absolutely right. Pls send this to all Dem pres. candidates.
AMEN, IRA. Can’t vote for a DFER.
Many public schools offer innovative instruction and/or programs we never hear about. These programs are the results of authentic, well trained professionals putting their heads together and through collaboration arriving at a solution. My district was always looking for solutions to problems, and it had a culture of willingness to change. However, change was generally more of evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Every change we presented had to be EVIDENCE based in legitimate research. We also took great care, not to throw out the baby with the bath water. We studied other districts, made visits and then piloted programs. Then, we evaluated before we introduced a program to the system at large.
In addressing the needs of ELLs, for example, my district made one guidance counselor in the high school work with all grade levels so the counselor could get to know the families. The district also hired language liaisons to make communication work better. To help our poorer families, we had family resource centers that helped poor families deal with crises and social services. We ran summer schools for our ELLs that needed as much education as we could given them. The middle school ran a summer school program for bright, minority students to prepare them for Regents and AP coursework.
Each of these innovations started with identifying a student need and worked to address that need. We never looked at using particular products. We never started with a product and plugged students into those products. That is what the tech giants are doing today. They are not examining the evidence based on student need. They are assuming they are on the right track and pushing their products on all students.
Burris is right. We do not need charter schools that serve a few at the expense of many or technology driven instruction that totally fails to meet student needs. What we need are well trained, caring professionals that have the freedom to use their skills and wisdom to better serve diverse students so that each student receives an equitable education.
MAY this message be the one which finally gets through in the pres. debates: “We do not need charter schools that serve a few at the expense of many or technology driven instruction that totally fails to meet student needs.”
Problem is all too many people just want to liberate the money from the public system and nothing more. No one seems to be stopping them here in Tennessee. Always follow the money. We are about to hear a giant sucking sound when vouchers pass. This is what some people want. Forget student outcomes. It’s a rainmaker to have the failing school narrative.
sad, sad, sad truth
Perhaps this is an example of a charter school that meets the inventive prescription of what necessarily constitutes a public charter school provided by the innovative and visionary staff of NPE, a private corporation:
http://www.bhmcs.org/
There are of course many more chartered public schools here in Massachusetts that meet the definition provided in legislation by our elected legislature: https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXII/Chapter71/Section89
(I’d suggest a search for “public” there)
I can call a camel a horse but it is still a camel.
I could give campaign contributions to legislators and ask them them to call my private school a “public” school. But without democratic governance, accountability and transparency, it’s still not a public school, even through the legislators call it one. Ohio calls privately managed charters”community schools.” A lie, but then the legislation was written by charter lobbyists.
Yes. Carol asks.I do not believe there is even one public charter school–that is a charter school run by an elected school board–in the United States. Is there one left?”
Cincinnati Public Schools has served as the authorizer of two charter schools, but it has lost its power to be an authorizer of new schools and it has no power to intervene in the governance of charter schools. We have a group called “Accelerate Cincinnati” hell bent on expanding charter schools and public funding of Catholic schools. That effort is connected to the Education Cities initiative and GreatSchool.org, the latter a rating scheme for school helpful in redlining and also funded by the Walton Foundation among others. https://www.cps-k12.org/schools/community-schools
Anything funded by the Waltons is meant for disruption and destruction.
The public school district in California (in the San Gabriel Valley) where I taught for thirty years had and still has an alternative high school that saved and still saves lives, too.
I was called Santana High School.
Santana has a current enrollment of 174. (I just checked)
The regular high schools in that district are Nogales with 1930 students and Rowland with 2,122 students
There has never been justification or a need for publicly funded corporate charter schools. Most public schools if not all of them do what they can to meet the needs of most of their students but there will always be a few that fall through the cracks.
However, the corporate charter schools go out of their way to widen those cracks to massive canyons so they can get rid of any students that offer any challenges that might cut into profits and high pay for management.
Most public schools provide more options and “choice” than any of the one size fits all, amateur charter chains operated by clueless entrepreneurs and grifters. Public schools are operated by professionals, not corporations whose main goal is ROI and whose main draw is marketing. If anything, the charter experiment has failed, and the 1% refuses to accept it. Worst of all the charter experiment has weakened the ability of the public schools to provide a comprehensive education to all students, not just the cherry picked cream of the crop that charters take. Charter drain reduces options for students in public schools.