Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, writes here about the efforts by most Democratic candidates to avoid confronting the dangers of privatization:
When Democratic candidates are questioned about charter schools, many typically reply, “I am against for-profit charter schools.” Everyone cheers. Politicians have created a convenient (and false) dichotomy that says nonprofit charter schools are good, and for-profit charter schools are bad.
Don’t be fooled. There are now only 2 states that allow for-profit charter schools—Arizona and Wisconsin. California changed its laws.
However, 35 states allow for-profit Charter Management Organizations (CMOS) to run their nonprofit charter schools.
40% of the charter schools in Florida are run by for-profit charter management companies. While the individual charter is a nonprofit, it can turn over everything from hiring, to curriculum, to financial management to a for-profit corporation. In Michigan, 80% of the so-called nonprofit charter schools are run by for-profit companies.
To understand how this arrangement works, read this blog I wrote for the Answer Sheet on Florida’s charter schools. You will read about the Zulueta brothers who were on the board of an Academica charter school even while their for-profit real estate companies, including one in Panama, were leasing property to the schools.
Let me shock you a bit more. The National Alliance for (so-called) Public Charter Schools recently gave the controversial profiteer, Fernando Zulueta, an award at its national conference!
You probably know the names and reputations of the other big for-profit CMOs—BASIS, National Heritage, Academica, K12 and more.
The question candidates need to answer then are:
“Do you support for-profit Charter Management Organizations, and if you do not, what are you going to do about them?”
The most important questions to ask, however (and don’t let them off the hook), are whether they support the NAACP moratorium on new charter schools and “Will you stop the the federal funding of new charter schools?”
There is a reason the charter lobby never complains when a candidate says that he/she is against for-profit charter schools. It means nothing will change.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I could NEVER be a lawyer. They “Twist Words.” And NO DFER for me.
“However, 35 states allow for-profit Charter Management Organizations (CMOS) to run their nonprofit charter schools. ”
So important to point out. In the past, Ohio ed reformers used to be able to shut down any discussion of “for profit” by pointing to the state law, which requires “nonprofit”. Done. Discussion over.
But that’s just the contract (charter) between the state and the charter organization. There’s often another contract directly beneath the nonprofit charter “layer”.
I’d be interested in some kind of real analysis of how many private entities and businesses have sprung up around charter schools just in Ohio. Just a cursory look turns up law firms and accountants and managers of all kinds. Are these folks all “self interested” and “invested in the status quo” like public school employees supposedly are? If not, why not? How are they different? If all public school employees are “self interested” so therefore are discredited and must be ignored then that should also apply to charter employees and contractors.
If your cynical view of the world leads you to believe that everyone in a public school is working solely to protect their own paycheck, then that should also apply to charter employees.
Unless ed reformers just have some kind of irrational IDEOLOGICAL bias against “government schools” and labor unions, that is.
Yes, there are many industries with vested interests. Often the CMOs provide these services. Some have taken up to 90%. Read the link to the blog. For profits have always serviced public schools–book vendors for example. But these organizations, like White Hat, are actually running the school.
It’s the same ruse that is used in the USDA regulation regarding “free range” labeling. The size of the “range” is not specified, so if 10,000 chickens are raised in an enclosure with a single opening to a 4 x 4 ft or 2 x 2 ft outside area, producers can call these “free range” under the federal regulation.
And, ofc, as it is with chickens, so it is with charters. The same motivation is behind referring to charters as “nonprofit” even when they are run by for-profit management companies–greed on the part of industry lobbyists and the politicians who sup at the lobbyists’ troughs.
Unfortunately, in education, the devil is often in the details, and people have short attention spans. They will attend to Ed Deformers when they call the puerile Gates/Coleman bullet list “higher standards,” but they aren’t likely to read an essay-length critique of any one of those “standards,’ like this one: https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2014/04/10/on-developing-curricula-in-the-age-of-the-thought-police/
The Ed Deformers uses this laughable term “higher standards” so often when referring to the Common Bore, that I say in a Usage Note in my dictionary of Reformish (that variety of Goblish) that in the grammar of Reformish, the term “standards” must be preceded by an adjective of praise, usually “higher” or “rigorous.”
Right-wingers are very good at this sort of labeling: death panels, death taxes, right-to-work laws, snowflake, personalized education, parent trigger, academic scholarships
So, we in the Resistance need to give a lot of thought to creating and to propagating as memes our own slogans and catch phrases. The Common [sic] Core [sic]? We the last thing we need in schools is Big Gubbemint Thought Police.
cx: 2nd paragraph, 2st sentence, use, not uses, ofc; last sentence of comment, strike the first “We.” Aie yie yie. I really need to start proofreading before hitting the Post button.
Love this: “So, we in the Resistance need to give a lot of thought to creating and to propagating as memes our own slogans and catch phrases. \The Common [sic] Core [sic]? We the last thing we need in schools is Big Gubbemint Thought Police.”
Hey, Bob, I would like to correspond with you in private… if you message me at https://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html?sid=40790 we can exchange emails, like I do with others here, including Diane. I promise …no junk mail, just serious conversation about what’s afoot ‘out there.’
Charter schools, at base, are government contractors. In all other government contracting there is a working assumption that the contractor is to a greater or lesser extent lobbying for government funding out of self interest. This is routinely assumed in our huge and bloated “defense” budget. That they sometimes push these weapons systems not because they are great but because they are profitable.
For some mysterious reason, and ONLY in ed reform, this is never even considered. Instead PUBLIC school administrators are demonized as “self interested”
Doesn’t it have to be both or neither? Or are charter employees and contractors just inherently better people than public school employees? Because I’m going to need more than ed reformers telling me how wonderful other ed reformers are. I don’t find a team cheerleading squad particularly persuasive. I’m looking at these charter contractors in Ohio and to me they just look like government contractors lobbying my statehouse, but perhaps I’m missing their inherent, inner extra “goodness” as compared to other contracted services.
“The U.S. Department of Education said a charter school network’s lease prohibiting it from teaching anything considered “gravely immoral” by the Catholic Church does not violate federal guidelines, state officials wrote in an email obtained by Chalkbeat.
The federal guidance removes the final hurdle for Compass Community Schools to open its six campuses across Memphis on July 31 in former Catholic school buildings. The opinion also confirms the new network’s eligibility to receive $600,000 per school in federal grants for “promising” new charter schools.”
Ed reformers are obliterating the line between public and private. They will end up at a 100% voucher system, where public schools no longer exist. This can’t end any other way.
It’s incoherent without 100% voucher funding. In a decade they have gone from “charter schools alongside public systems” to “no public systems at all”.
It is outrageous that they sold this to the public as “improving public schools”. They never had any intention of “improving” our schools, which is probably why they haven’t lifted a finger on behalf of public schools OR public school students. The goal was and is to eradicate them and replace them publicly funded private systems.
Their ideological goals are inconsistent with anything other than a 100% voucher system. They should admit this. They will inevitably end there, because nothing else makes any sense, given the goal.
I’m old enough to remember when ed reformers all told us we had to accept charters because if we didn’t accept charters we’d get vouchers.
Now the echo chamber are all pushing vouchers.
Yet another promise they made to the public broken: 1. nothing to “improve public schools” and 2. continued efforts to move toward a wholly privatized system, despite getting everything they demanded on charters.
Why hide the ball? Is that fair to the public? Just promote privatization. Have the courage of your convictions.
in a world where the reformer agenda has been to first push a growing blame and anger at ‘government schools’ and then let the message become ‘everyone needs educational freedom to escape those scary government schools’ — the privatizer message is strategically creating a public conviction even as it hides its own darker motives
The non-profit status of some charters is deliberately designed to mislead. With the lack of oversight and accountability, there remain many opportunities for EMOs or CMOs to create schemes to overpay themselves for goods or services, particularly with crooked leasing deals. When Beto O’Rouke announced his support for non-profit charters at the NEA forum, some savvy audience members booed his statement. Maybe Ms. O’Rouke’s charter does not to misuse public money, but there are many more so-called non-profit private charter schools, particularly chains, that overpay for services and abuse the unregulated system.
Correction O’Rourke
Did you hear de Blasio’s statement at that forum? I know he is deeply unpopular but he was saying exactly what all the candidates SHOULD be saying. Short, simple and clear. Democrats should not support charters of any kind, period. They should support traditional public schools.
“Too many Republicans, but also too many Democrats, have been cozy with the charter schools,” de Blasio said. “Let’s be blunt about it. We need to hold our own party accountable, too. And no one should ask for your support, or no one should be the Democratic nominee, unless they’re willing to stand up to Wall Street and the rich people behind the charter school movement once and for all.”
Unfortunately, politicians need money, and the charter industry and billionaires have lots of it. Many of them like Cuomo take the money, and bash public schools.
Bernie also said at the NEA forum that public money should be for students and not to further enrich the rich.
I laughed when he did that… it followed his statement on the importance of unions. The charter chains she applauds want nothing to do with unions.
Would love a warning if a link takes us to the Washington Post. I can only read so many articles without subscribing, so every click is counted, whether I read the article or not. Thanks.
This is one of the reasons that I like that Mayor de Blasio is in the primary.
Doing the recent candidate forum at the NEA, de Blasio made his position clear. He did not support ANY charters. Period. No mealy mouth words about “for-profit” charters. He made it clear that Democrats should not support any charters.
And he publicly called out the Democrats who were pro-charter and said that the Democrats should be the party of public schools and any support of charters period should disqualify a candidate from becoming the Democratic candidate for President.
I didn’t have time to watch all the candidates at that forum, but I did also see Bernie, who was quite good. I do wish he wouldn’t muddy the waters by distinguishing for-profit from non-profit charters (only criticizing for-profit ones directly), but Bernie is at least willing to support the NAACP’s moratorium on more charters of any kind until more research on their impact can be done. Still, I think Bernie should be sounding more like de Blasio and making it clear that charters — including the non-profit charter networks that democrats continue to insist get miraculous results — should not be supported period.
The candidates should be saying that if communities want schools that exclude low performing or badly behaved students, they can establish public magnet schools that are also run by the community. The candidates should be saying that no Democrat should be supporting giving the franchise to establish a privately run magnet school for the easiest to teach students that simply dumps any student that can’t be taught cheaply and easily.
Talking to the BAT teachers on Friday, Sen. Sanders said he would end funding for any new charter, whether they are for-profit or non-profit.
Does that mean Bernie would still allow federal funding for charters that are already established? Shouldn’t it be no federal funding going to any charters, period?
The federal Charter Schools Program is for new charters and expansion of chains like KIPP. Stopping federal funding of new charters means stopping all federal funding for charters.
Great BATS video! Great Bernie video! Thank you. I am glad he clarified that the Thurgood Marshall Plan includes a federal moratorium on funding ALL charters, whether their revenue exceeds their spending or not.
Thank you for clarifying. Because the already established charter chains are given such an enormous amount of federal money, I was concerned that they would be excluded from any policy that said no funding for “new” charters.
If that means no funding for any charters, I am glad and I wish politicians would just say “no federal funding for any charters, period” instead of using qualifiers like “new” or “for-profit” that seems to leave a lot of wiggle room that DFER supporters could drive a tank through.
So far, Bernie is the only candidate to pledge to eliminate federal funding for charters.
And that is why Bernie is most likely to get my vote right now. I do wish that this issue of support for non-profit charters was a debate topic where candidates really cannot hide behind platitudes and would have to defend why they still want private entities running non-profit charters to compete for the easiest and cheap students to teach with no obligation to teach any other students.
DeBlasio said the right things about charters at the NEA forum.
Why then does he continue to give NYC charters access to the names and addresses of public school students for recruiting purposes? Parent groups have asked him to stop. He ignores their protests.
As to your last paragraph, Diane, I was wondering the same thing myself. Why would anyone from NYC defend him here, especially those who are regular blog readers? I don’t live in NYC or even NYS, but everything I have read here, so far (& in some other places), tells me he is speaking out of the other side of his mouth.
He’ll never get my vote in a Dem Primary, should he get that far by the time it’s held in IL!
DeBlasio started out against charters.
Then he got his ears pinned back by Eva and her billionaires. He gave up.
It’s good for the charter debate that deBlasio is trying to distinguish himself and get above 1% in polls, but he has never been this vocal in NYC, even when the PACs ran ads calling him racist.
He also kept silent about charters after the last negotiation with pro-charter Republicans for renewal of mayoral control, in which he agreed to secret giveaways.
Regarding NYC providing students’ data to charters, that sounds illegal from a privacy standpoint and also a great opportunity to determine whether they are targeting high achievers, which would run afoul of civil rights laws and state charter law. Curious to hear more – eg what agency provided the data?
The NYC Department of Education turns over student names and addresses to a firm hired by charter schools to drum up business.
Parents get inundated with charter mail and they complain. The DOE ignores them.
When the charters fear that DOE might withdraw this privilege, they loudly complain.
No waiting lists.
retiredbutmissthekids,
“Why would anyone from NYC defend him here, especially those who are regular blog readers? I don’t live in NYC or even NYS, but everything I have read here, so far (& in some other places), tells me he is speaking out of the other side of his mouth.”
I want to answer your question because I am someone with a kid in a NYC public school and I have been watching what has been going on more closely than most and I have seen both the Bloomberg years and de Blasio years.
I voted for de Blasio in the long ago primary where he ran against a much favored Christine Quinn (a favorite of the charter folks) and William Thompson (who got the teachers union endorsement) because of two of his stances. He was the first politician in NYC I had heard willing to directly call out charters and their dangers instead of offering vague support to “public schools”. And he promised universal pre-k. He also promised to end stop and frisk, which I supported, but education was my prime motivation and de Blasio was the only candidate willing to stand up strongly for public schools.
Unlike most politicians, de Blasio went to work fulfilling his promises right away. He got universal pre-k. He ended stop and frisk. And he tried to limit the expansion of charters. I will have you know that de Blasio did everything possible and was thwarted by right wing fake Democrats in Albany who caucused with the Republicans to force NYC to pay for charter space. The fact that Albany and Cuomo punished de Blasio for being willing to stand up for charters should not be confused with him somehow giving in. If you had followed him as closely as I have you would have learned that in fact, charter growth was greatly slowed and the DOE slow-walked giving space to charters to the best of their ability. de Blasio was forced to comply with what Albany ordered, but he could offer charters space that was not what they wanted and that is exactly what he did. He fulfilled that order by doing the minimum necessary to comply while trying to do the least harm to existing public schools.
And — this is most important — de Blasio after being thwarted by Albany immediately started to raise money to elect more progressive candidates to Albany. It was that fundraising and the people in power who tried hard to turn it into something corrupt (fyi, he was subject to a Ken Starr like investigation into his actions and it showed that de Blasio did exactly what every other politician did in raising money but of course, since he was raising it to elect progressive candidates in Albany who did not support charters, the pro-charter NY Times still treated his actions as if they were totally corrupt and not what every other politician had done that has always been fine since they were raising that money for politicians who supported privatization.
de Blasio’s first effort to raise money to get a more progressive Albany (which has the power over NYC) failed. But it was a legitimate attempt to help the progressive cause and in fact 4 years later that effort did show results and that is why there has not been charter expansion.
de Blasio’s effort also made him the sworn enemy of the billionaires who wanted privatization who have convinced people like you that he is “speaking out of both sides of his mouth”. It truly bothers me that you would say that about a progressive Mayor who has done the following:
Ended stop and frisk despite warnings that he was endangering the lives of NYC residents.
Established universal pre-k that people said could not be done that now serves nearly 70,000 4 year olds every single year. To put that 70,000 number in perspective: the entire K-12 Boston public school system is 54,000 students. NYC is providing full day universal pre-k to so many 4 year olds that the entire Boston school system is significantly smaller!
Kept his word about not allowing charters to have the run of the DOE and has made the minimal effort he is legally required to do to provide them with space. Compared to Mayor Bloomberg, de Blasio’s is totally “anti-charter” which is why if you paid any attention you would realize that he is the sworn enemy of the charter movement and probably the single most hated politician — de Blasio is far more hated by the charter movement than Bernie Sanders is, so it is ironic that people who don’t like charters insist that de Blasio is a big fraud when the pro-charter folks can’t wait to get rid of him.
Has been doing what no Mayor has been willing to do and made attempts to integrate NYC public schools despite that being the third rail of politics and something that is guaranteed to make a Mayor hated by the people who get the most airtime and publicity — middle class and affluent NYers. In fact, due entirely to de Blasio’s efforts, next year there will be many more integrated middle schools in District 15 and specialized high schools are taking far more students via a Discovery program that focuses on the least advantaged students.
Mayor de Blasio is deeply unpopular with the rich white people who run NYC and with the middle class white NYC residents who don’t want change.
However, every poll shows his policies for integration are very popular with the NYC residents who never get a voice — those who are African-American and Latinx who support de Blasio and don’t agree with the white intelligentsia that de Blasio has done nothing in 5 1/2 years but speak lies and hurt NYC residents.
I have a friend who knows a lot about education in California and almost nothing about NYC who heard de Blasio at the first debate. My friend was impressed at how spot on some of his comments were and did not believe me at first when I explained that the intelligentsia had deemed de Blasio to be a terrible Mayor who did nothing at all. I explained all that de Blasio had done during his relatively brief term. We both agreed it was shocking how public opinion could be swayted but people who ignore all the good someone does to only focus on his failings. Certainly de Blasio had made mistakes but he has also done MANYT good things and if you actually talked to most African-American residents instead of only the privileged white folks who are given themes airtime, you would probably change your mind. If you can name a single California politician who has done nearly the things that de Blasio had done in NYC that are positive changes for many of the most disadvantaged students, I would certainly like to know who they are. I suspect de Blasio’s accomplishments in his short tenure will have dwarfed all of theirs put together.
PS — I’m still torn between supporting Bernie or Elizabeth Warren in the primary so I’m not trying to convince you to vote for de Blasio who will probably be out of the race relatively soon. But I am trying to convince you to base your judgement on the facts and not to mischaracterize one of the FEW politicians in NYC in the last 20+ years who has enacted significant positive change for NYC residents.
I doubt anyone can come up with the name of another NYC politician who is as supportive of public schools — in both word AND deed — as de Blasio. He is not perfect, but it is absolutely false that he is “speaking out of the other side of his mouth” and I wish you would point to some evidence to confirm such a statement that would contradict all the evidence of the positive changes he has made.
Every politician is forced to make compromises but most do it far more often and don’t actually keep their promises. de Blasio has kept many of his promises despite those promises being laughed at and sneered out by those who said it could not be done.
Now he is working on integrating schools while people say it can’t be done. I know some people hate him for it and some people insist that he should have done a lot more already. But the fact is that SOMETHING is happening and NYC has made far more progress in integrating schools since de Blasio became Mayor than before and he is still trying to do more.
I wish I could agree with you about DeBlasio on charters. He started strong, got beaten by Eva and the billionaires, then gave up the fight. Why is his DOE, which he completely controls, still shaking the names and addresses of public school students with charters, despite the opposition of public school parents? One word from him and it would end.
Diane,
On April 11, 2019, pro-charter NY Daily news reporter Ben Chapman reported:
“Charter school boosters are crying foul as city officials consider cutting them out of a widely used direct-mail marketing program.”
As you know, Mayor Bloomberg started this practice 10 years ago.
According to the article: “Mayor de Blasio said at a town hall meeting in February that he’d look into changing it. Now officials say the change could be soon, and charter advocates are organizing against it.”
“De Blasio, who is a longtime critic of the publicly funded, privately run charter schools, seemed poised to yank the city’s parent mailing list — with data on hundreds of thousands of city families — on Wednesday night, as city officials reached out to parent leaders in an attempt to drum up support.
But as of Thursday morning the city had tabled the idea, at least temporarily.
“We’re looking at that issue and we have to come to a decision soon about how we have to handle it,” de Blasio said. “But there’s not a final decision.”
I think it is clear that de Blasio did not simply ignore this issue. He wanted to stop giving out names to charters and was trying to drum up support. Then for some reason it was dropped. And I do wish someone with contacts high up at the DOE or a reporter who actually cares about education could specifically ask the DOE why they decided to table this issue.
I am just speculating here, but what I imagine is that de Blasio has a lot of education fights on his hands and given a choice between spending the money and resources and public relations time fighting a lawsuit that will definitely happen as soon as he tells charters no and spending his time and effort in making specialized high schools and NYC public schools more integrated, he decided to spend his political capital to make public schools more integrated.
It seems absolutely clear that if all de Blasio had to do was wave a pen and decide not to share names with charters, he would do that. But if de Blasio did that, he would have another public relations fiasco on his hands about how he was hurting poor children, just like he had a public relations fiasco on his hands when tried to stop giving free space to charters.
I don’t remember any progressive NYC politician back in 2014 stepping up to support de Blasio’s attempt to limit charter expansion. They all left him hung out to dry and allowed the entire issue to be totally mis-characterized by a very expensive propaganda campaign as de Blasio intentionally harming the most vulnerable African-American and Latinx students. If I saw some progressive leaders stepping up to say “this is important, we need to do this now” it would be nice but they are all running away as fast as they can just like they did when de Blasio tried to stop giving free space to charters and as far as I remember, not a single progressive politician had his back.
And frankly, as a NYC parent, I would rather get lots of annoying mailings that I don’t want than have a politician who uses his politicial capital to fight annoying mailings when he should, in my opinion, use his political capital on getting public schools more integrated.
I don’t want de Blasio to waste his time on a fight about giving names to charters that he can’t win because the cowardly progressive politicians of NYC will hang him out to dry on this issue just like they did when it came to giving free space to charters.
I want de Blasio to use his political capital fighting for integration efforts. That is taking every ounce of political capital he is excoriated and attacked for every effort at integration he makes.
If de Blasio could stop giving names without using political capital he needs for more important issues, he would. I am shocked that anyone believes he is a secret charter supporter. If you can name some NYC politicians who are anywhere near as anti-charter as de Blasio is, I’d like to know who they are. All the others are too cowardly to do what de Blasio did at the debate — straight out say that Democrats need to oppose ALL charters, period. There was not a politician in the debate — including Bernie — who made that point in the very clear way that de Blasio did. That’s because he believes it. Just because he does not have the power to do everything he wants does not mean that all the good things he has done for public schools are not incredibly important and as a public school parent I am very grateful to have a Mayor who supports public schools and I expect the next one to return to the policies of Bloomberg.
No one has de Blasio’s back when he tries to enact progressive policies that help the people whose voices are rarely heard in the media. I wish there were some more brave progressive NYC politicians who stood up with de Blasio, but I’m still waiting to find some.
I do want him to have this fight eventually, but I’d rather have him fighting for integration and other good education policies now instead of having to fight a distracting battle where the public believes that de Blasio hates poor kids and wants to harm them by keeping them from good charters.
In my view, just because a politician doesn’t do everything perfectly and prioritizes some issues over others does not mean that he secretly supports something that he says he does not. I am shocked that anyone who looks at the entirety of de Blasio’s positions on education would believe he is not strongly anti-charter. It’s funny because the people who know that best are the pro-charter billionaires who have spent the last 6 years doing everything in their power and sparing no expense to discredit and destroy de Blasio.
DeBlasio is in charge of the DOE. He still has not stopped the practice of giving student names and addresses to the charter marketing firm. Why? They don’t own him but he seems to be cowed by them.
The practice violates student privacy law. He could end it with a stroke of his pen. Why hasn’t he?
de Blasio used his “stroke of the pen” to stop giving free space to charters. We saw how that backfired. He ended up with a distracting fight that ended up in a much worse situation. It seemed like a no-brainer for him to end something he wanted to end with a stroke of a pen, but it turned out to make things 1,000x worse and he got widely criticized for being politically naive enough to think that just because he could end something with a stroke of a pen that it was a good idea.
Everyone second guessed what de Blasio did when he used that stroke of a pen to end giving free space to charters and somehow I missed that groundswell of progressives who had his back saying how great it was that he stood up to charters and did the right thing with his stroke of the pen even though it backfired and made things worse.
What I did see was everyone saying how politically stupid de Blasio was and blaming him for the blowback that using his stroke of the pen to stop giving free space to charters caused.
So while I have no idea why he isn’t doing what he wants to do, I do know that if he does stop giving charters access to names there won’t be a single progressive politician in NYC who will defend that action when the blowback starts. They will join in the second guessing and attacks and be saying “how stupid of de Blasio to use his stroke of the pen for this and it’s all his fault that now charters are getting sympathy when NYC residents were starting to turn against them.”
Why doesn’t DeBlasio stop the illegal practice of giving the names and addresses of public school students to the charter industry?
Who will have de Blasio’s back when he does that and the blowback starts and charters get all kinds of sympathy and NYC is forced by Albany to establish more charters? I’m sure everyone will blame de Blasio for being so stupid as to pick this fight and it is his own fault that charters now have sympathy.
Who is clamoring to have their names taken off mailing lists? Are they more important than the folks that believe in integration? Should de Blasio use his political capital to get this though and spend months fighting an expensive court battle with public money and making charter schools the object of sympathy?
There wasn’t one politician who had de Blasio’s back when he used his stroke of the pen to end giving free space to charters and the expensive PR campaign against that began. Everyone second guessed his actions and said he was so stupid to “pick this fight” with charters and it was all his fault that it backfired.
I don’t know the answer to your question as to why because I don’t know anyone at City Hall or the DOE. But I don’t understand why you are 100% certain that doing something that would certainly result in huge sympathy and support for charters that they don’t currently have would be the ideal action.
I know there is a group of parents who want this. Who else? Who else will have de Blasio’s back and won’t be criticizing him for being so politically stupid and picking this fight when it ends up with charters getting a lot more than they currently have now because everyone feels so sorry for them because de Blasio is so mean to them?
I noticed there were almost no voices from the progressives who defended de Blasio using his stroke of a pen to stop giving free space to charters. Instead I saw a lot of people who jumped on the bandwagon to say how politically stupid it was and how de Blasio “did it the wrong way” and blamed him for all the blowback instead of standing up and defending him.
I’d rather de Blasio use his political capital to continue his efforts to integrate schools and not waste it on something that frankly is not the most important issue to most NYC parents. And I strongly disagree with your premise that de Blasio could simply end this with a stroke of a pen and it would all stop and there would be no controversy, no lawsuits, and no major PR efforts that would damage de Blasio and end up making him lose his credibility and political capital to enact other changes.
Sorry. What blowback?
DeBlasio can’t run for mayor again and he’s polling at less than 1% for president.
Why defend Bloomberg policy of giving personal data to charters? It violates state law. This is weasel behavior.
The blowback that makes charters — and the poor kids in them — the “victims” just like they supposedly were when de Blasio used his pen to stop giving free space to charters.
Look at the news articles from when de Blasio used his stroke of the pen to end giving free space to charters. I kept looking for some progressive voices defending him and instead most people just jumped on the attacks because he did this “the wrong way” and he should have waited.
When de Blasio does this, charters become victims and the objects of sympathy again. If de Blasio only has so much political capital, is this the issue that I care most about?
Your comment seems to presuppose that this will not cause major sympathy for charters and give them all kinds of advantages that they did not have now. But what happens if de Blasio does this and gets sued and the DOE spends hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend it and charters end up getting a lot more than they have now?
Do you think it is a good idea to make charters very sympathetic right now when there is currently far more public support opposing them?
Stop making excuses for DeBlasio.
Why is he giving private student data to charters in violation of state law?
Because he is afraid of blowback?
Come on.
Every day he refuses to make a decision is a weasel day.
We will have to agree to disagree. You seem to believe this can be done so easily, which is exactly what I believed when de Blasio tried to limit giving away free space to charters — which he could do with a stroke of his pen. It turned out that what I thought was easy to do was not and I was sorely disappointed that there was almost no one defending de Blasio. Instead every single voice was about how he “didn’t do this the right way”. Including progressives who said it was a battle he shouldn’t have picked.
As the Republicans learned when they tried to end Obamacare, it is a lot harder to end a program that already exists. And this is something that already exists because Bloomberg started it.
Maybe de Blasio will be like Jimmy Carter who was hated and despised while in office and when he is gone and the far right and privatizing democrats take over, people will have more appreciation for what he tried to do rather than focusing on every little thing he did not.
You may not recall that there are 70,000 kids in universal pre-k and de Blasio fought a losing battle that cost huge amounts of money and got no support from any progressive NYC politicians to make sure that charters who wanted to have universal pre-k had to follow the same rules that public schools did.
de Blasio had every right to require charters who wanted to offer universal pre-k to sign the same contract — with regulations protecting children — that other providers did. And he did so with the stroke of a pen. Only it turned out that it cost the city so much money in a losing court fight and the real weasels were the progressive politicians who remained silent because they did not have the courage that de Blasio had to cross the powerful charters.
So I do not understand why you believe that ending this program is something that won’t involve a huge battle that will not only cost money that could be spent on NYC public schools, but that will help charters garner sympathy for being victimized by the mean de Blasio.
Stop making excuses for DeBlasio’s inability to say no to the charter industry.
When he wanted to charge rent to rich charters, he needed permission from the legislature.
To stop giving student names to charters, he does not need legislative approval.
No one can say no to him.
All he has to do is tell Carranza what he wants.
He won’t do it.
What is he afraid of?
Why is he kowtowing to the charter moguls?
Why the weasel behavior?
He’s checked out, and he’s been checked out for a while.
^I also think that it is not determined that this is in violation of state law because if it was then de Blasio would be ordered to stop it. Why hasn’t he been?
Good question. Why doesn’t he simply direct Carranza to stop sharing private student data with charters.
They have long waiting lists, right?
“When he wanted to charge rent to rich charters, he needed permission from the legislature.”
I’m sorry, Diane, but that just isn’t true. When de Blasio came to office Jan 1, 2014, NY state law did not require any funding of charters rent. Charters were supposed to get per pupil funding and find their own space. There was no legal obligation for public schools to give them free rent, except that in NYC Mayor Bloomberg gave some favored charters (and not others) free space because he wanted to. Mayor de Blasio simply wanted to stop giving Bloomberg’s favorite charters the free space that other charters were not given. de Blasio did not need permission from the legislature to stop giving new charters free rent.
What happened is because de Blasio decided to take back something that Bloomberg gave the charters and they now expected, the legislature had to go to the trouble to pass a brand new law that now forced NYC — but no other city — to give free rent to charters. de Blasio was “punished” for doing something he was legally able to do, and instead of being supported, almost every progressive voice blamed him for picking a battle he could not win. They all said that even though de Blasio could legally do this, he should have known that it would get bad publicity and blamed him for the fact that the blowback gave charters even more than they would have had if he would have just kept continuing Bloomberg’s policy.
There is a reason that the NY Daily News just today printed an op ed from a Success Academy parent (who has been quoted numerous times) that criticized de Blasio’s anti-charter stance at the NEA and that does not say even one single negative word against Bernie. I find it odd that the charters and their billionaire supporters see de Blasio as their sworn enemy and the pro-public school voices think he is a fraud. There is a reason that the pro-charter billionaire money and efforts are directed toward discrediting and attacking de Blasio.
^^I find it ironic that FLERP! posts that Mayor de Blasio is “checked out” but the pro-charter billionaires and their paid minions still seem to consider him public enemy #1 as demonstrated by today’s op ed and the multiple recent “de Blasio is very mean to charters and how dare he” articles in pro-charter news articles that have been printed in the last few weeks.
If he is so checked out, why aren’t they ignoring him? Why spend so much money and effort to discredit him? Why isn’t it being spent to attack the other politicians who are so much more anti-charter? Why don’t other progressive politicians scare them like de Blasio does?
NYC Public School Parent,
I’m guessing you were not part of the parent protest at NYC City Hall, where parents demanded that DeBlasio stop giving their children’s contact information to the charter industry. You think he would be in deep trouble if he did that.
https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2019/04/nyc-parents-tell-mayor-to-stop-stalling.html
My longer reply didn’t post and disappeared, so to answer your question: “You think he would be in deep trouble if he did that.”
Yes, I think if de Blasio did this that he would be the subject of a massive propaganda campaign and lawsuit and the charters would look like victims and become more sympathetic and end up with more than they have now. And I think every progressive NYC politician would be attacking de Blasio and saying “what an idiot to pick this battle now”. Just like they did when they didn’t have his back when he tried to change another giveaway that the Bloomberg administration gave charters.
Why do you defend DeBlasio s cowardice?
I don’t know if that it meant to be a rhetorical question but I will try to answer it.
What I “defend” is the notion that de Blasio’s decision has anything to do with “cowardice”. The one thing de Blasio has done that almost no other democrat in the entire country has done is stand up to the most powerful charter interests. de Blasio has made many mistakes, but the one thing that he is shown me over and over again that he is not is a “coward”. From the first month in office that he kept his promise and stood up for severely handicapped children being evicted from their school because Success Academy coveted their space, to holding fast when charters wanted the money to run universal pre-ks without having to actually having to follow regulations, to his willingness to pull no punches at the NEA forum, de Blasio has not been a coward. (And that is not just true in education but in other areas of governance, including his willingness to end stop and frisk when any uptick in crime would have made him a pariah and his willingness to visit places the ebola doctor did to calm fearful NYC residents when any new case of ebola would have made him a pariah. When it was important to do something that made him unpopular, he has done it, which is more than I can say for 99% of the politicians I have come across.)
When de Blasio has stood up strongly against charters in the past and lost, no one — not even progressives — said he was “brave”. They said he was an inept politician who should have picked a different battle.
Whenever de Blasio loses a battle, he is called an inept politician and becomes the object of derision. Whenever he wins, all that he gained is treated as if it was nothing. Not brave.
I believe that de Blasio has shown he had no interest in helping charters and has shown no cowardice. But he does know that ending Bloomberg’s policy to give names to charters so they can send mailings will result in a huge outcry and a huge propaganda campaign that results in charters gaining all sorts of sympathy they do not have right now.
Why call that “cowardice”? de Blasio has demonstrating over and over with his many unpopular stands — the most recent being his willingness to address integrating public schools — that he isn’t a coward. But he is trying to be more politically savvy than he has been in the past when instead of calling him “brave” for standing up to charters, almost every progressive in NYC called him an idiot for picking a battle he should not have.
He is spending his political capital on integration. That’s braver than almost any politician in this country.
And he continues to give the barest minimum he is legally obligated to give to charters so all their many protests and attempts to gain sympathy because they wanted more than that have fallen on deaf ears. I suspect he isn’t looking to start a fight he can’t win that will end up helping charters and having progressives calling him inept instead of having his back.
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
Discover why and how most non-profit corporate charter schools are not non-profits.
Thanks, Lloyd. People really do not understand the difference.
It’s up at Oped News
https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Don-t-be-fooled-when-Demo-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Democratic-Debates_Diane-Ravitch_Privatization_Schools-190707-8.html#comment738649
—Exactly, Carol.
TFA is non-profit too. As are KIPP, IDEA, Green Dot & a host of others.
They all get federal grants to maintain & set up new schools—I.e., you & I are now paying for them.
They are weeds whose proliferation can be stopped by courageous legislators.
The executives of these organizations pay themselves very big salaries.
“The question candidates need to answer then is:
‘Do you support for-profit Charter Management Organizations, and if you do not, what are you going to do about them?’”
Yes! That is the right question. No wiggle room. What are we going to do about them?
The New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) created in 2000, a 39% tax credit on charter school investments with the ability to collect interest, expires if it’s not renewed in 2021 under the 2016 Omnibus Spending Bill. First of all, those tax credits that go to mainly hedge fund billionaires need to end in 2021 under the leadership of the 46th president. It’s an annual $3.5 billion giveaway from the federal government. To billionaires.
Second, real estate holders and others who operate charter management organizations often purchase their own real estate, construction, advertising, testing, curriculum, air conditioning, transportation, and other products with taxpayers’ money. Some of them are wealthy foreign nationals. Many of them spend more on administration and less on instruction than do public schools. The reason they get away with all of this is a lack of regulation. It would be prohibitively complicated to ban for-profit CMOs because they are really just private contractors, and public schools often have to hire some private contractors too. But with public schools, most of the self-dealing, waste, fraud, and abuse is eliminated with financial transparency. There must be transparency. There must be regulation.
There should be an SPA, a school protection agency like the FDA, the EPA, or the FCC. And there should be no more NMTC.
“SPA”–like it, LCT!
Right and don’t forget the Build America Bonds. As I understand they take these charter construction and financing projects, intertwine them into financial instruments and sell them to investors including foreigners who then get to skip the immigration line. Before she lost, Hillary intended to double the program. Not sure where it is under Trump.
Sorry to interrupt this thread, but this just in: renowned humanitarian, part-time President, and scholar of American history Donald (J for Jabba) Trump confirms that the band Jefferson Airplane got its name from Thomas Jefferson’s Continental Army Air Force.
Because every single nonprofit makes a profit somewhere, would it be fair to ask whether the candidate supports charter chains?
KIPP, IDEA & Uncommon are all nonprofit, for example—but they’re the last schools we need in this already-beleaguered district in FL.
Have to agree w/Diane (he allowed himself to be run over by that big charter bu$, driven by Evita, then talks–on the national stage–as if he could take on the entire American charter school industry*, when he cannot even do so in his city) about DeBlasio, NYCPSP…& also the judgment of my nice, her husband & several others I know living in NYC, who also know what DeBlasio has done…& not done. Of course he’s an improvement over Bloomberg & has done some good things. But he’s just not presidential material, just like a # of the other candidates running (Booker? Pleeeaaaze!).
Sooo…just, NO. End of discussion, for me.
I did not say that de Blasio was Presidential material.
I did say that it is patently untrue that de Blasio is pro-charter. He is one of the most anti-charter democrats in this country and if you can find some others who are more anti-charters please provide some name because I have certainly been looking. Bernie is a latecomer to this and in fact when he stood next to Andrew Cuomo praising the rabidly pro-charter Cuomo’s “free college”** (**with lots of caveats) plan in NY, Sanders gave a lot of progressive credibility to Cuomo that he did not deserve.
de Blasio’s main support is by NYC residents who are not white because he has done things for those residents that white people could take or leave. Who cares that a politician ended stop and frisk that doesn’t affect you at all if you still have to receive those annoying mailings? That politician is terrible and should be roundly criticized. You are getting mailings and the fact that stop and frisk ended is no reason to think that politician has done anything that worth mentioning.
Maybe one of those other Democrats would get rid of annoying mailings and we’d have no universal pre-k.
I’m old enough to have seen many Mayors and in the last 20 years de Blaiso has done a whole lot more than most. And the parents of the 70,000 kids in universal pre-k each year know that.
By any chance are your relatives the ones who hate that de Blasio is trying to integrate the top schools? I can’t tell you how many white NYC residents are very angry about that.
I’m adding to this deep-dive discussion about Mayor de Blasio down here where the columns of text are not so skinny.
As a NYC teacher, he is my boss and he is a great improvement over Bloomberg (and Giuliani before that). de Blasio restored funding for arts materials in public schools that had been cut over 80% by Bloomberg. Now I personally get to order the supplies on a “protected” budget line. Every kid in my school takes art and they all get to actually use supplies now.
de Blas also says he provided free lawyers for evicted tenants, a mental health helpline, body cams for cops and free school lunch for all. A single-payer health plan NYC Care was passed and is being piloted in the Bronx and phasing in fully by 2021: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-new-york-healthcare/new-york-city-launches-100-million-universal-health-insurance-program-idUSKCN1P21WF
I don’t live in the city, but I’m inclined to support deBlas (as Mayor, not president) because he calls for for a millionaires tax. He has also promised half price metrocards for low income people.
Now, here are some criticisms – de Blasio has been absolutely terrible on the issue of boys in yeshivas being denied basic education, including English, science, history, reading, civics, health and art. When sued, he slow-walked an investigation for years, which brings up questions about his allegiance to (or fear of) an influential lobbyist group called Agudeth Israel.
de Blasio’s pre-K rollout ended up shortchanging teachers and staff who had to fight for pay parity with other school staff (I don’t even know if they are being fully paid yet).
de Blasio tried to hire a pro-charter Schools Chancellor who was a top choice of Eva Moskowitz – but the guy backed out in an embarrassing shock announcement. That was bad.
I also think he needs to spend some quality time with the “No IDC” lawmakers that really push for progressive changes in Albany. He is a little too establishment for me, paying it safe a lot, but I think he is the best mayor we’ve had in NYC for a looong time.