NBC News ran a story about how Democratic candidates are turning against charter schools. The reasons, says NBC, is DeVos and unions.
The safe position for Democrats is to say that he or she opposes for-profit charter schools.
Bernie Sanders went further by echoing the national NAACP and Black Lives Matter’s call for a national moratorium on new charters.
In the story, everyone plays their expected part. Mike Petrilli, authorizer of Ohio charters, claims that only his team (the DeVos choice team) really cares about “improving education” by privatizing it and handing it over to entrepreneurs. Shavar Jeffries of the hedge fund managers’ DFER says, “Bernie Sanders apparently thinks he, in Vermont, knows better than low-income African American and Hispanic families in their cities about what’s best for their children,” because Sanders called for a moratorium on new charters. Apparently the hedge fund managers and billionaires who support DFER understand the needs of low-income African American and Hispanic families better than anyone else.
The points that never appear in the news story are, one, that charters have not delivered on their promises. On average, they are no better than public schools and many are far worse. And two, because most charters are deregulated and unsupervised, they have experienced many scandals and embezzlements, like the most recent one, in which charter operators in California were indicted for stealing more than $50 million. The unacknowledged fact is that no community has ever voted to privatize their public schools.
Democrats have had a hard time shedding the legacy of Obama and Duncan.
BetsyDeVos reminds them that school choice is a Republican Policy, not a Democratic one.
Thank you, Betsy DeVos!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Here’s what Petrilli, Jeffries, and the rest support:
LikeLike
I’m tired of the framing that implies ANY support for public schools is driven by teachers unions.
It disappears public school students and families and it parrots ed reformers.
I don’t know why support for charter schools = support for charter school students, yet support for public schools = support for teachers unions.
Because ed reformers see a public school and see only their nemesis, “teachers unions”, doesn’t mean that’s true of public school families and students.
I’ve been a public school parent for 25 years and the only people I ever hear equate “public schools” with “labor unions” are ed reformers and members of the media. These are schools with students in them. That’s what we’re supporting. If we also support collective bargaining and workplace protections for the people who work in public schools (and I do) that’s a separate issue.
Here’s a shocking thought- maybe we support public schools because our kids attend them and we value them, as schools. Maybe that’s what Democrats are responding to- the fact that ed reform offers absolutely nothing to public school students, except budget cuts and testing and scolding lectures. Maybe we expect politicians to actually value our schools and offer something positive.
LikeLike
Ditto!
LikeLike
“Politics K-12
BetsyDeVosED calls for better teaching of U.S. history and civics.
She says her granddaughter has learned more in her time with DeVos on her visit in Texas over the past two days than she would sitting two days in a classroom. DeVos’ schedule yesterday and today”
I’m also tired of paying public employees to promote this grim view of public education.
Because they don’t value public schools does not mean no one does. Maybe they could see their way clear to STOP telling our students that attending school is a waste of time. That’s not helpful to parents.
That the US Department of Education is spending taxpayer money to promote the idea that all students do is “sit” in classrooms, learning nothing, is shameful and it’s not fair to teachers OR students, because it’s not true. Of course, very few of the DC crowd would know this, not having attended public schools themselves.
It’s also incoherent, like everything else in ed reform. They know they have programs to promote regular attendance at school, right? Can anyone tell me why I’m paying public employees to tell public school students that they shouldn’t bother showing up?
LikeLike
I know I will take heat, but have you looked at middle school social studies books in the last few years? The texts are woefully lacking in content and important periods of history are missing or glossed over (white-washed). The same for the high school texts. I am totally aghast at how little my HS jr knows about the history of this country or about general civics. I dislike DeVos as much as anyone on this blog, but she has a point and she is correct. This is the result of ed deformers like herself and she is just trying to make her case for “choice”, but the kids graduating out of schools today have been robbed of an education.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We can thank Gates and company for turning too many public schools into test prep factories in reading and math. The narrowed curriculum is the direct result of high stakes testing that has been imposed on public schools. All the ratings, rankings and threat of school closures are the direct result of outside interference.
LikeLike
Lisa,
Textbooks have been almost content-free for many years.
I wrote about this in 2007 in a book called “The Language Police.”
I hope you will read it.
At the time and for many decades prior, education publishers were trying to placate both conservative states like Texas and liberal states like California.
Now they self-censor because it is an ingrained habit.
In the age of the Internet, that kind of censorship is absurd since they can customize to cater to each kind of big buyer.
LikeLiked by 1 person
YES; deformers willing to endlessly fuss and complain, but absolutely unwilling to SEE that the mess made of our kids’ curriculum is a direct consequence of their interference
LikeLike
The history textbooks in CA have quite a bit of substance, but how much of that substance gets into kids’ heads? Not much, I’m afraid. There are many obstacles. One is the privileging of ELA and math, which often cuts into history time. Another is teachers’ own miseducation: many don’t really know how to effectively transmit the knowledge. Reading aloud from the textbook is not very effective, though it’s probably more effective that having kids read it themselves alone or in small groups, which is more in line with current faux “best practices”. I have found it’s far more effective for me, the teacher, to internalize all the textbook knowledge, augment this knowledge with independent study, make all this knowledge my own, and then tell kids about it in the clearest and most engaging way I know how. Students, parents and teachers frequently remark that they learn a ton in my class. Unfortunately many of my colleagues do not do this. Another issue is that many teachers don’t really believe in transmitting knowledge. Far better, they think, to have kids do projects and activities that evince higher-order thinking. The fact that kids often don’t come away from these activities with much knowledge doesn’t matter: the activity was an end in itself.
LikeLike
Please read THE LANGUAGE POLICE.
The history texts have facts but not great stories that weave the facts together.
Dry as dust.
I believe in the narrative tradition of great historians that make history a great adventure.
LikeLike
Even a blind hog finds an acorn, once in a while. The actor, Richard Dreyfuss, has put up some his own money, to push for a return to civics education in public schools. see
http://www.thedreyfussinitiative.org
People all across the political spectrum, are pushing for more civics and constitutional law and history to be taught in public schools.
So mote it be.
LikeLike
Ponderosa, my kids never had a history class where the textbook was read aloud, nor did I, for that matter. If that is what passes for teaching nowadays, it’s no wonder schools are struggling. It sounds like a low-tech way of eliminating teachers. I ran into some awful scripted curriculum in my more recent years of subbing. I find it impossible to understand how anyone could expect kids to be engaged by this perversion of teaching.
LikeLike
I wonder what her granddaughter learned while traveling in the DeVos top-Security bubble in Texas.
I assume she attends the same evangelical school that the DeVos family supports.
Apparently she doesn’t learn much in her religious school.
How much can one learn about Texas in the Bible?
LikeLike
I’ve stopped referring to DeVos (and the Republican party) as conservatives any more, they’re religious radicals. They do not believe in playing by the rules, because Jesus loves only them. I think the Trump victory convinced them that they can just trample everybody else- and that they SHOULD trample everybody else. We’re all sinners in the hands of an angry God.
LikeLike
You could also call them anarchists
LikeLike
Do the public employees at the US Department of Education really believe that all public school students do is “sit” in classrooms, learning nothing?
Can I extrapolate this belief to all the people in the US who attended public schools? They believe 90% of the people they supposedly serve learning nothing in public schools? Because that’s where most of us went. What did we do to earn this contempt from the people we’re paying? Hire them? That can be remedied.
LikeLike
Since privatization has been introduced, all the money behind it has it has caused many state governments and the federal government to ignore public schools and give private charter schools preferential treatment. As a result of so much money pulling political strings, there has been nothing but slashed budgets and endless testing for public schools.
Charters are now going around claiming they are superior. Most of the better performing charters are highly selective, refuse to accept most ELLs and learning disabled students. They also often do not report the high rates of attrition in their schools. They send the neediest, most expensive students to public schools that must serve this students in large classes with few resources due to charter drain. The impact on public education has not even been a consideration in most cases, and charter schools act like they have accomplished something special, but anyone can get good results with the best and brightest.
Democrats need to understand that public schools are the public trust. They were never intended to be part of market based schemes. Public schools serve all students, and with investment they can do outstanding work. They are democracy in action and are accountable to the communities they serve.https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/unchartered-territory-2020-democrats-back-away-charter-schools-n1014706
LikeLike
Yes, and this is rarely addressed, even by Bernie.
Any public school system can establish a lottery “magnet” school that does what charters do by simply refusing to teach any lottery winners who bring down their scores.
If the situation were reversed, public schools could send all the students who were not thriving in public schools to charters.
Oh right, that’s what charters were SUPPOSED to be doing, but they failed miserably despite their claims. So they decided to focus on the students that thrived in well-funded public schools instead, and decided to lie about it.
Because those folks have no integrity and like Trump, all they care about is winning, not the children they are supposed to be serving.
LikeLike
“Shavar Jeffries of the hedge fund managers’ DFER says, “Bernie Sanders apparently thinks he, in Vermont, knows better than low-income African American and Hispanic families in their cities about what’s best for their children,”
I really think this issue needs to be addressed straight on. In fact, SOME low-income African American and Hispanic families also want vouchers for their children to attend private schools — is Shavar Jeffries going on record now to say that DFER supports vouchers?
SOME low-income African American and Hispanic families who thought a charter was best for their child have gone on record as to how the charter humiliated their child and made it clear that their child was unwelcome in the charter and should go back to public school.
Shavar Jeffriues should be asked whether he is certain that low-income African American and Hispanic families all want charters that don’t have to protect their children’s rights and are free to treat their child like dirt if he struggles to learn, or do those parents simply want well-funded public schools subsidized with millions of dollars in extra donations that do not have to spend any of that money on children with expensive special needs or any children they decide are not worth teaching and can thus offer students in their school more than a public school starved of funding can use.
Shavar Jeffries should be asked why his charter movement has embraced those who lobby for large class sizes in public schools teaching low-income African American and Hispanic families and why his organization has embraced those who lobby for Betsy DeVos.
Shavar Jeffries should have to go on record as to whether he agrees with charter CEOs who say that large cohorts of African-American Kindergarten and first grade children act out violently in their charters and that is why he knows that they all deserve to be given out of school suspensions. Is Jeffries is willing to certify to the violent nature of those 5 year old children, or is he saying that it is a lie when a charter CEO insists so many 5 year old children act out violently only because of their own violent natures and not because the humiliation tactics used by poorly trained charter teachers are to blame.
Shavar Jeffries would throw the children that charters don’t want to teach under a bus to please the hedge funders who subsidize charters that choose which children are worthy and which are not.
LikeLike
Shaver Jeffries thinks he knows better than the NAACP and Bernie Sanders. Jeffries recommits to privatization every time the charter lobby cuts him a check.
LikeLike
Shavar Jeffries would prefer for children with significant disabilities and children who charters don’t want to just go away. Out of sight out of mind.
Shavar Jeffries is no different than Betsy DeVos in this respect.They will trample on the rights of children by ignoring IDEA because they can. Arne Duncan dismantled DoEd’s IDEA compliance apparatus in 2011.
Shavar Jeffries is no different than Duncan & DeVos who believe Katrina-like destruction is the kind of education system poor children and their families deserve. Charters will keep the best & brightest and let those violent, ungrateful, and undeserving children disappear.
LikeLike
Perhaps (just perhaps) Demos are turning because of the growing awareness by the public (due to exposure of all the fraud, waste and bogus claims by charters that Diane Ravitch, Steven Singer, Peter Greene, Mercedes Schneider, NPE and others) that Robbin Hood is not who he pretends to be
Robbin the Hood
Robbin’ the hood
Of public schools
Fillin’ with flood
Of charter tools
Out of the wood
With his Merry Men
Robbin the Hood
Has struck again
LikeLike
“The Charter Rush”
The charter is a gold mine
A hedge-fund schemer’s trick
Like golden rush of forty-nine
It’s offer: “Get rich quick!”
But Gold of fools is our return
For buying into plot
And picks and spades and “lessons learned”
Are all we ever got
LikeLike
Off topic-
In a predictable situation at the University of Alabama, the millions from a donor who is socially liberal were rejected by the law school.
On the other hand, the public George Mason University (Virginia) reportedly allowed the conservative Federalist Society to take over its law college. UnKochMyCampus provides the ugly details about million dollar contributions.
LikeLike
Latest Charter SCANDAL: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/6/10/1863790/-Latest-Charter-School-Scandal?_=2019-06-10T04:43:10.056-07:00
by Alan Singer
LikeLike
We can think of this as the hidden blessings of Brainless Besty and her ten yachts.
LikeLike
I can’t believe how much Randi Weingarten goes out of her way to PRAISE Cory Booker, and say that he is, “changing.” She’s such a sell-out to corporate reformers.
LikeLike
Booker supports “high performing” charters. What does he think about the remaining low performing students that wind up in under resourced public schools due to charter drain? Those high performing students were selected for their slots in these “better” schools. The charters didn’t wave a magic wand to make them smarter These are the students with the best potential. The “leftovers” get the short stick in the deal. Both of these student groups can be accommodated in a well funded, comprehensive public school for less money than in an entirely separate school. In a comprehensive public school no money goes into private pockets. Finance is clear and transparent.
LikeLike
Is Randi still glomming on to the billionaire-funded CAP?
LikeLike
“We’ve been in these fights [against public education] for 20 years,” [Shavar Jeffries] said. “We expect to be in them for another 20.” Well, there you have it. The war on poverty has been bought out and turned into the war on people of poverty. Thanks to Diane, Red4Ed, and everyone here for helping call this war to the 2020 fore. “This is not the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning.” All hands on deck.
LikeLike
Prediction: Shavar Jeffries will not be leading DFER in 20 years.
DFER will be long forgotten.
LikeLike
Somewhat related to this, I’ve written a number of times that education won’t be taken seriously as a top-tier issue until candidates lose because of being on the wrong side or win due to being on the correct side. I fear the downturn of Bernie’s numbers—especially coming after his articulation of his education position supporting public schools and condemning charters and privatization—is an ominous sign. We need to reward candidates when they make strong statements in support of our issues. Bernie’s numbers in Iowa are going down. Where is the support of teachers and parents? I would expect this will only allow candidates to equivocate and give nonsensical responses in the future. They won’t feel they are paying a political price or gaining support.
LikeLike
Greg,
I don’t see a connect between Sanders’ education platform and his poll numbers.
The two clearcut “Reformers” in the primaries are Cory Booker and Michael Bennett, and they are both far behind Sanders. Booker seems to be running away from his record.
LikeLike
I guess my point is that Sanders has seen no positive impact for taking the time to seriously think and make unequivocal statements about public education and Warren has faced no consequences for embracing the support of a charter school teacher. Where are the Iowa teachers and public education advocates who will explain Sanders’ views on education? Somebody’s got to pay a price for not doing the right thing and somebody’s got to get a political benefit for doing so. I haven’t seen it yet. As much as I hope and want to.
LikeLike
The Mr. of the “Mrs. El Paso charter schools”, Beto O’Rourke, is also losing in Iowa.
Adding, arguably the most racist, Republican, national politician in the country was elected in Iowa. If that’s an indicator about the state, the take away from primaries?
LikeLike
But Sanders is still #2 (according to a poll this week). That having been said, trouble’s a brewin’ in Iowa–reportedly, caucusing will be re-vamped in a not-so-very-democratic-way.
(I have to look at the article headline one more time & will comment on it in a little while.)
LikeLike
“How Proposed Democratic Caucus Rules Make Polling Even Harder, & How We Crafted Our Best Shot.” Des Moines Register, June 9, 2019. Calls for caucusing to be done through–get this–weighted online voting!!
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/2019/06/09/iowa-poll-how-caucus-polls-got-harder-and-why-our-best-shot/1383780001/
LikeLike