Mercedes Schneider brings us up to date on the disruption caused by charters in Baton Rouge, most of which are failing schools.
Apex Collegiate Charter School in Baton Rouge notified parents it is closing. Yet its website announces that it is accepting applications for next year. It has been open three years, and it has an F rating from the state. Two other charter schools in the city are closing, and a third is fighting the revocation of its charter. Local district officials are worried that the costs of the charters is eroding the fiscal stability of the district.
The East Baton Rouge School Board rejected Apex’s proposal in 2015 but the charter was approved by the state board.
“Note that concerns raised surrounding Apex Collegiate’s rejection by EBRSB include chartering goals too lofty to reasonably achieve as well as the reality that most EBR charter schools are graded as D or F schools. According to the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools (LAPCS) “find a charter” search engine (which has not been updated using 2017-18 school letter grades but appears to use 2016-17 data), there are 27 charter schools located in East Baton Rouge; 4 have no grade listed (including Apex Collegiate). Of the remaining 23 charter schools, 14 are graded D, and one is graded F.
“Apex Collegiate may have had lofty goals, but it seems that such goals do not apparently include maintaining an updated website.
“As of April 14, 2019, the Apex Collegiate website includes no information for the public regarding its May 2019 closure. On the contrary, it advertises, “We are now enrolling for the 2019-20 school year. If your child will be entering the 6th, 7th or 8th grade, please Apply now!”
“The application (misinformation in itself) includes the following misinformation for parents: “We will grow by one grade level every year until we are a full 6-12 school.””
The CEO of Apex was previously the state director of Howard Fuller’s Black Alliance for Educational Options, funded by rightwing billionaires to promote school choice among black communities, especially in the South.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Financial drain for no gain,” just about summarizes privatization. Once again public schools are the funding step child with the charter lobby in charge of decisions. Black parents don’t need more options. They need well funded, locally controlled, democratic public schools that can provide more legitimate options than cheap charters. “Choice” is a loaded word designed to “hustle” parents away from authentic. professionally operated public schools.
I love ed reform “debates” because public school supporters, advocates, teachers and families are completely excluded:
“In the closing plenary, Stacey Childress, CEO of NewSchools Venture Fund, objectively moderated a panel called “Why Can’t We Be Friends?: Disagreements, Tradeoffs and Common Ground.” There were two reformers on the ideological “left” (Shavar Jeffries and Layla Avila) and two reformers on the “right” (Matt Ladner and Gerard Robinson), along with a video montage of high-level reformers, discussing the role race, social justice and the federal government should/should not play in the ed reform debate.”
They conduct “debates” exclusively within the echo chamber, and since public schools are no longer part of ed reform (outside ‘accountability’, of course) public schools are simply… missing.
They’re “reinventing” education, except 90% of schools and families are excluded. It’s ludicrous. It’s not just the private orgs either. Go read any ed reformer at the state or national level and look for a mention of public schools or public school students. You won’t find one, unless it’s prefaced with “failing” or “status quo” or “labor union”.
This movement is completely irrelevant to 90% of families and students, except as far as how and in what specific ways our schools will be punished. If you or yours happen to attend a public school, they got nothing to offer, except perhaps budget cuts, cheap garbage ed tech to sell us, or new tests.
How are Baton Rouge PUBLIC schools doing under ed reform leadership?
No one in ed reform or state government knows or cares, right? They’re the throwaway default schools. The much-maligned “government schools” that no one we’re paying in government can be bothered to support.