While we are on the subject of the District of Columbia, here’s an interesting tidbit.
Despite the drumbeat about “waiting lists,” charter enrollment declined, and enrollment in public schools increased.
The numbers are not large but they seem to reflect a trend. Charter enrollment also declined in Michigan, DeVos’s domain.
Maybe parents are getting tired of schools that open and close like day lilies. There is something to be said for stability and experience.
At the same time, the traditional public school system experienced a 4 percent increase in enrollment, surpassing the 50,000-student threshold for the first time since 2006, figures from the Office of the State Superintendent of Education show.
Overall, enrollment in the District’s public schools — including charter and traditional public campuses — grew by 1.7 percent to 94,603 students in the 2019-2020 academic year, with the traditional system accounting for 54 percent of the city’s public school students…
The decline in charter school enrollment follows a rough year for the sector, with four campuses not reopening because of finances or poor academic performance. One of those schools, Democracy Prep Congress Heights, served 759 students.
A fifth school — AppleTree Early Learning in Southwest Washington — served 97 students and did not reopen because it could not secure a building.
And the D.C. Public Charter School Board, which is charged with overseeing the sector, said National Collegiate Preparatory Public Charter High must close at the end of the 2019-2020 academic year because of lackluster academic performance.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“The traditional system opened Bard High School Early College in Southeast Washington with more than 150 students this fall. The school system also opened an early college campus with Trinity Washington University on Calvin Coolidge Senior High’s campus in Northwest Washington, which led to a 40 percent enrollment increase at the school.”
It’s great that they’re still opening traditional schools. I wonder if that’s unusual in charter-centric districts.
You hear so little about traditional public schools in these places because of the exclusive ed reform focus on charters/vouchers. It’s like the charters open and the traditional schools (and students) just disappear. I notice it in both Indianapolis and Cleveland. I know some large percentage of students in those cities still attend public schools, but they’re never mentioned.
It’s consistent across ed reform, too, the “disappearing” of traditional schools and students. The US Department of Education holds these huge celebratory events to promote charters and private school vouchers, but there’s no similar events for public schools or public school students. It seems to me to be a clear ideological preference – one that is probably transmitted to the public. The public school kids are a kind of “default”- taken for granted. Ed reformers use language that reinforces this bias, too. They refer to students who are “still” in the traditional schools. DeVos goes even further and depicts public school students as “trapped”. It’s just blatantly biased towards the schools they prefer. It’s so rote in “the movement” I don’t think they’re even aware of it.
Here’s just one example of the ed reform echo chamber at the federal level.
https://blog.ed.gov/
That’s the USDOE “blog”. It’s mostly about student loans. Compare to their (publicly funded) effort to promote charters and vouchers- a whole dedicated section:
https://sites.ed.gov/freedom/?src=feature
If you were a visitor from another country and went to the US Department of Education, you would think every student in this country attends a charter or private school.
Traditional public schools simply don’t exist. The practical effect of this? 90% of US students also disappear, along with their schools. That’s a strong pro-charter and pro-voucher message from the federal government. The message is “these are the preferred schools and students”. Those other 90% of schools and students? Government, status quo schools. No one would willingly attend one.
I get why they’re doing it. What I don’t get is why we’re all paying for it.
The means to achieve the richest 0.1%’s goals changed with recognition that charter schools have insurmountable baggage. The plan for parallel schools to destroy public education is now in the form of vouchers for religious schools. As evidence, this year, Bellwether advised reformers to reach out to churches to achieve their objectives.
Taxpayers/voters will ultimately refuse to pay money to the parasitic remnants of K-12. Forced to make payment to unaccountable clergy will become a step too far.
Bill Gates provided as example of his taxation fear, losing $100 bil. He’d be left with only $7 bil. to shelter from taxation and to spend to destroy the common good.
Warren plan would not tax Gates $100 Billion. That is his scare tactic.
I think it’s scary that Warren’s plan doesn’t provide for (1) criminal charges against oligarchs (2) to forfeiture of all of an oligarch’s money except $60,000 a year (median family income) and, (3) to a lack of healthcare coverage for him and his family.
Re: prior CAP comment thread- Patrick Wolf’s co-author from Notre Dame received grants from the Walton family of $1,340,000, 2009-2015, $300,000, 2014-2017, $240,000, 2015- 2018. He was Director of Vanderbilt’s National Center on School Choice and, currently is a team member at Notre Dame’s CREO education center which doesn’t have a tab listing funders.
Nothing better than lackluster performance in the charter sector. I’d say the bloom is off the charter rose, but it’s more like the wool is off the public’s eyes — because the spotlight is off the snake-oil sideshow and instead on charter scams, on teachers strikes, and on Betsy D, who’s off the rocker. The charter Pitbull is no longer off the chain.
I just visited my cousin in Polk County Florida. Charters everywhere. They told me one guy started a charter and moved immediately into a part of town where the houses are all bringing a cool three quarters of a million.
yes, so many levels of “reform” going on across the nation: ridding one state or district of specific problems does not stop the disease from spreading elsewhere