The times they are a’changing.
PeterGreene reports what happened when Governor Tom Wolf really hurt the feelings of the charter lobby. He said that charter schools are NOT public schools.
“When Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf trotted out his budget last month, he made it a point to note that he was raising money for public schools– and that he had some definite ideas about which schools are public and which schools are not.
“He wants to see more of those basic education dollars to school districts get distributed through the state’s fair funding formula. He also wants to address concerns related to cyber charter schools, which he referred to as “the growing cost of privatization of education in our public schools.”
“And just in case that wasn’t clear enough, a press release from the governor’s office was even more direct:
“Pennsylvania must help school districts struggling with the problem of increasing amounts of school funding siphoned by private cyber and charter schools. Funding reform would increase transparency so all schools that receive state dollars are accountable to the taxpayers.
“This made Ana Meyers sad.”
Awww.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Once again Wolf is on the right side of the privatization issue. The charter lobby and the previous Republican administration have left Pennsylvania in a gigantic economic hole with overly generous payments to crooked cyber charter operators. Wolf needs to move resources to legitimate public schools as they serve most of the students in the commonwealth. Common good money should serve the interests of the common good, not private, for-profit companies.
People across this country should stop voting in libertarian candidates. They are not the garden variety conservative. They will hollow out any and all of your public resources and sell them off to private contractors. What has happened to Pennsylvania is happening to Florida and other states. Libertarians seek to destroy any common good function of government in my opinion.
Agree, retired teacher.
You are just so smart.
The problem is that the Democrats like Gov. Wolf are always stuck cleaning up the very expensive messes that the Republicans leave behind as they enrich themselves and their big donors.
So an extraordinary amount of funding is needed to bring the public schools back where they were before all the destruction was wrought, and the progressives do spend even more but (contrary to what charters claim) since real miracles don’t happen overnight, they always get bashed if anything doesn’t work perfectly. Any good policy that makes things better is dismissed because it isn’t good enough and the failures are magnified as if that is the entirety of the policy.
I don’t know how to change this, but the Republicans and those who want to privatize public education win even when they lose. They just sit back and attack any progressive attempts at change that isn’t 100% successful as a complete failure and waste of millions of dollars.
Progressive policies have a very high bar to meet in order to prevent them being attacked non-stop. But right wing privatizers only have to point to a few charter successes and the media will ignore how that success came about and will fawn all over it as a modern day miracle.
harshest truth: “I don’t know how to change this, but the Republicans and those who want to privatize public education win even when they lose.”
“. . . the problem of increasing amounts of school funding siphoned by PRIVATE cyber and charter schools.”
Governor Wolf got it right. . .
. . . Why can’t we get it right?
That’s not going to play well with Pennsylvania’s chancellor of higher ed who is from the Gates Foundation?
It will not go over with with the legislature that has a lot of gerrymandered proponents of privatization, but Wolf has stood up to them before. Some members of the legislature are in the private charter biz as well. I am delighted that Wolf resists them and stands up for the best interests of young people in Pennsylvania.
“This made Ana Meyers sad.”
Awww.
HAAAAAA!!!!! Oh, that’s wonderful, Diane!
Hmmm…virtual education (an oxymoron if there ever was one)…as I’d stated in an earlier post, K-12 Virtual Schools has been advertising constantly on tv–daytime & late night (guess they figure these are vulnerable audiences). If you have friends, relatives & neighbors who have K-12 aged kids & don’t know anything about this, please educate them!! (I have a friend who didn’t know what ICE stands for or does, so don’t assume!)
Started by the huckster financier, Mike Millken (sp.-?) who was looking for something else to make money $$$$$$$$$$ from after he lost his license(aha! the education industry! the new GOLD rush!), he started K-12, which he thought it would worm its way into every city & suburb (he tried–& lost–in IL).
Does anyone know if he owns/has some part of the for-profit detention centers?
Also–I am watching Seth Meyers Late Night (he just had an hilarious segment from Judge Jeanine–she outdoes Cicely Strong doing an imitation of her (which is pretty hilarious)–they just had a commercial for an online bank, name of “Green Dot.” Was that the name of that charter school chain, Diane, or am I now just crazy?!
Green Dot still exists. Alexander Russo wrote a book about it. It recently expanded into zseattle but had to close two of its new charters because enrollment was so low.
Thanks, Diane. Still wondering–does anyone know if Green Dot has also gone into the banking business?
I don’t know.
The following may be true–different, unconnected businesses.
The FTC does not afford the right to exclusive use of a brand name if, the product is in a different industry.
Uh-ooohhh…you don’t have to answer that, Diane–I looked up some prior posts–indeed, charter chain named…Green Dot. &, ironically, a lot of the Green Dot posts came from none other than Peter Greene (thank you, Peter!).
So, please, tell us that now these same crooks have not gone into…banking. OMG.
Look into how segregation was fostered in Sausalito & Marin CA. The tool that make it work was a charter school
Thank you, Linda!