When teachers in West Virginia launched the Education Spring of 2018, one of their demands was “no charter schools.” The state’s public schools are already underfunded, and public school teachers had low pay compared to nearby states. The teachers understood that the addition of charter schools would mean fewer resources for public schools. Given that West Virginia is a largely rural state, there was no need or demand for a parallel school system of private contractors.
The legislature and governor agreed to the teschers’ demands but proceeded to double cross them by passing a charter law.
Charter advocates were thrilled. Another conquest for privatization.
But now charter advocates are “perturbed.” In fact, they are truly dismayed and having a hissy fit. They are downright ticked off.
It seems West Virginia law allows only school districts to authorize charters.
That is very very bad in charter land because districts are unlikely to welcome entrepreneurs, amateurs, and corporate raiders to tap their resources and cherrypick the students they want.
The National Alliance for Public [sic] Charter Schools won’t provide any assistance because they are so displeased. Its crack TFA alum, Emily Schultz, expressed her displeasure with West Virginia law; she previously was in charge of charters for the state of Alabama (which has a grand total of two charter schools).
Imagine that! A local school district having the right to decide who can open on their turf and poach their students!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Well, teachers and parents better keep their eyes opened because it looks like there might be some changes to the current law. Loopholes suggested/pushed by the “stink tanks” are the demise of democracy.
“She said that West Virginia is also less likely to have charter schools because of the cap, and because the state won’t be eligible for federal funding for charter schools because states are more likely to receive that funding if they have multiple authorizers.
“I think if folks in the state are interested in amending the law to kind of – to give West Virginia a better chance of receiving that funding, we’re happy to help with that,” she said. “In the meantime, I think the work needs to go on to implement the law you’ve got and we’re happy to help as requested or as needed.”
Well. Do it our way or no funding for you! That’s very “student centered”, I must say.
They’re afraid the local school district might actually put some thought into the students who remain in public schools in what is a school SYSTEM plan, which is contrary to ed reform market dogma. Must ignore public school students completely. What do public school students have to do with “public education” anyway? Don’t they realize we’re phasing them, and their schools, out?
I think you misread the WV article – Ms. Schultz did not say her organization wouldn’t give WV their support or funds; she said WV was not likely to get some federal funds because the law that passed is not strong enough according to the USDOE standards for accessing the applicable federal planning grants for public charter schools. There are two camps in the charter school movement – one represented by Betsy Devos types who believe school choice is inherently good regardless of school quality, and the other represented by Ms. Schultz’s employer (Nat’l Alliance for Public Charter Schools) and others who focus their advocacy on high quality brick and mortar public charter schools managed by nonprofit entities that demonstrate a track record and a likelihood of improving student outcomes for underserved populations.
All states would benefit from charter authorization laws like West Virginia’s. Elected representatives understand the needs of the community far better than politicians that can be paid off to give private charters the green light. In many states local boards of education have no say at all, and a charter invasion is allowed to undermine the functioning of public schools.
” Schultz said. “As an authorizer, you’re not telling a school what to do or what policies to put in place. You’re overseeing their outcomes, and that’s just very different than what local school boards are traditionally set up to do.”
Who better than taxpayers can represent the interests of a community? The members of the board of education are stakeholders in the community, and public schools are a public asset. Taxpayers should have every right to have a say in such a decision.. If a local community has no need for a charter school, why should the public schools be forced to send public money out of the district if stakeholders find there is not need for the private service?
I don’t blame the West Virginia lawmakers for capitulating to the list of ed reform demands.
They hold up all public school funding until they get the schools they prefer. They do it in every state. Voucher lobbyists in Illinois were willing to hold funding for every public school student in the state up to give vouchers to 1%.
Public school students are the dead-last priority. They’re a bargaining chip for charter and voucher expansion. They get nothing but continued existence in these deals, and they’re told to be thankful for that. It would be nice if they had an actual advocate in state government. They really do deserve one.
They’ll be back next session and yet another legislative session will be completely hijacked by the needs, wants and desires of the “movement” and yet another year will go by where no puts any actual WORK into anything that benefits any public school student in the state. There is an upside for public schools though- they’re all so focused on charters and vouchers they have less time to experiment on our kids. In time they become completely irrelevant to the vast, vast majority of students, which isn’t all bad 🙂
Here’s a pic of Emily Schultz:
https://www.register-herald.com/news/charter-school-advocates-perturbed/article_57624bab-074f-59af-9482-993cf68262b4.html
Wow, what a great gig.
You do a two-year TFA teaching stint, then use that TFA connection to land a six-figure job with a charter school organization where your job is to privatize some state or city’s existing public school system, and simultaneously bust any existing teachers’ union in that same city or state, all so that you can enrich individuals in the private sector charter school industry,. while simultaneously turning teaching into a low-paid, low-skilled job akin to fast food or office temping, working in now-privately-managed schools that overwhelming and predictably do worse than the public schools that you’re out to replace.
It’s “Kids First,” though. Don’t ever forget that.
You saw her picture, Jack. She looks like one of my 11th graders.
An exorbitant salary for a kid like Emily Schultz only proves the maxim “kids first.”
When I saw Emily Schultz’a picture, I thought she was about 18. What chutzpah for such a young person to tell the state of West Virginia how to organize their school system.
To be fair, she seems to have graduated from Carleton College in 2005, so she is likely at least in her mid 30s. But she does seem to have spent her entire career working for some of the most reprehensible and greedy advocates of charters.
Interesting that she made her career working for so many people who were later shown to have very questionable ethics. First Michelle Rhee — who was caught out in that cheating scandal — and then Governor Brantley in Alabama who had to resign in disgrace.
You all seem very focused on Ms. Schultz’s looks. As NY public school parent noted, it’s clear from her bio that she’s likely in her late 30s – perhaps she has just aged well. You also seem to be using the Trump tactic of using alternative facts. For example, can you point me to any source that either shows or implies that Ms. Schultz either earns six figures or has advocated anywhere or at any time for private schools or for privatization of public schools?
Everyone who works at an organization that lobbies for private charter schools is by definition harming public schools and seeking to diminish their funding.
What in her experience qualifies her to tell the state of West Virginia how to organize their school system?
We’ll have to agree to disagree as to whether schools that are publicly authorized, publicly funded, tuition-free and open to all students should be considered by definition to be public schools or private schools, and we can certainly debate the relative merits of public charter schools vs traditional public schools – and you seem to acknowledge in at least some your writings and commentary that some types of public charter schools have demonstrated an ability to serve their students more effectively than traditional district schools – but your logic seems flawed in assuming that simply because someone advocates for charter schools, that “by definition” traditional public schools are harmed. In fact, in most states, because charter schools on average receive less public funding per pupil than traditional district schools, a student transferring from a traditional district school to a public charter school usually results in the traditional district schools actually receiving more funding on a per pupil basis.
As to what qualifies Ms. Schultz to provide advice to the WV Legislature as to how they should consider structuring their charter authorization law as one component of their state education policy toolbox, she has served as an inner city public school teacher, an urban public school system administrator, and a public school policymaker in a small, largely rural state with similar policy challenges, similar socioeconomic issues, and similar teachers union dynamics as WV, and she wrote the authorizing charter law in Alabama that has been rated as one of the most effective in the country, in large part because Alabama had the benefit of studying what worked and didn’t work in the 43 states that had authorized charter schools earlier than Alabama did.
You have not been reading this blog for very long.
Charters divert money from public schools.
Charters are not public schools. They are run by private, self-selected boards. They fight accountability and transparency.
Ms.Schultz taught for two years as a TFA recruit. She worked for the far-right governor of Alabama, who was thrown out of office for sexual improprieties. She was in charge of the charter sector in Alabama—a grand total of two schools.
I ask again, what are her credentials for telling the state of West Virginia how to organize its school system? TFA? Governor Bentley?
When you call yourself “public school parent,” I assume you are an employee of a charter organization pretending to be a public school parent, as charters pretend to be public schools, and TFA pretends to prepare teachers in five weeks.
Have never worked in charter sector and don’t plan to in future. I am a civic-minded parent of one child in a traditional district public school and of three younger children who are not yet elementary school age that I hope will also have the chance to attend quality traditional district public schools. You are correct that I only recently came across your blog, but I am familiar with your work. Read some of it in mid-90s while in graduate courses in public policy and later as a published education policy researcher in DC while you were at Brookings. While I respect your public service and some of your work in years past, in recent years you have become more careless with your facts and, while still obviously passionate about your research, far less objective. I would encourage you to exercise more diligence in gathering facts before demonstrating your lack of knowledge about topics relevant to your work (e.g., Alabama has more than two charter schools) and use more caution in making assumptions about your readers and commenters. Alabama is a far right state, that’s true. Many would count West Virginia as one too, judging by Trump’s margin of victory there. If one wants to work in public service in conservative states like Alabama or West Virginia, there aren’t exactly many meaningful opportunities at high levels of government that don’t somehow involve working with the far right, so I don’t fault Ms. Schultz for working for an Alabama governor. I applaud her for that. Given your experience working in a Republican administration in DC, I would expect you to have some appreciation for people who choose to enter the political arena to work on issues important to them even though they may not agree with all of the positions or actions of the administration they serve. Governor Bentley, while certainly an embarrassment to the state in his second term when he was caught having an extramarital affair and resigned from his position after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor campaign finance violation, was actually strikingly similar in many ways to the WV Governor, in the sense that neither appears or appeared to have any core governing principles, they both frequently shifted their positions based on shifting political winds, they usually catered their education policy positions more to the liking of the teachers union than the education reform community, and they demonstrated far more concern for what they thought would help them get reelected than for what was best for the state. Neither governor cared for or believed in charter schools. As for the value of Ms. Schultz’s credentials, I would engage further with you on that topic if you weren’t so fixated on her appearance, as evidenced by the fact that in addition to your first comment about her on this thread this week, you also commented on her appearance eight years ago when she was appointed by Governor Bentley to be his education policy advisor. I suspect if she agreed with your positions on education policy, you wouldn’t care so much about her appearance, but I’ll leave that to you to think about.
I do not care about Schultz’s appearance.
I do care about her inexperience, which disqualifies her from giving instruction to a state abut how to run their schools. She is TFA, she has never been a principal, district superintendent, or state superintendent.
So glad you admired my work when I was a conservative.
Are our young learning about PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUES being USED on them? What about their parents/guardians. We have not only a moral problem, but we also have a thinking problem as well.
Maybe there should be schools called “Down & Gritty.” That should sell … big time.
The invisible hand is designed to choke the common good.and squeeze value out of communities.
My reaction to perturbed charter school advocates: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rX7wtNOkuHo
“[D]istricts are unlikely to welcome entrepreneurs, amateurs, and corporate raiders to tap their resources and cherrypick the students they want” unless the district’s school board elections have been bought with millions of dollars by entrepreneurs, amateurs, and corporate raiders. Slightly off topic: Los Angeles board member Nick Melvoin has got to go; he is a corporate raider’s shill.
YES: On the one side, logic reigns. On the other side: UNLESS…
Charter school advocates are not perturbed, but they are disturbed.
& I mean that in the worst way possible.