On November 26, the New York Times published an article that had this headline: ‘Minority Voters Chafe As Democratic Candidates Abandon Charter Schools.’
The point of the article was that many black and Latino families are very disappointed that all the Democratic candidates have turned their backs on charter schools, excepting Cory Booker, currently polling around 1-2%. The article was especially critical of Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who have, as the article put it, “vowed to curb charter school growth.”
The article implied that the shift was due to the candidates’ pursuit of the support of the teachers’ unions, and charter schools are mostly non-union. Thus, if you want the union vote, you oppose non-union charters. (In my experience, neither the AFT nor the NEA is anti-charter, since they seek to organize charters to join their unions and have had some modest success; still, about 90% of charters are non-union.)
The article was prompted by an organized disruption of a speech in Atlanta by Elizabeth Warren, who was talking about a washerwomen’s strike in Atlanta in 1881, led by black women. The disruption was led by Howard Fuller, who, as the article notes, has received many millions from rightwing foundations, not only the Waltons but the Bradley Foundation in Milwaukee, to sell vouchers and charters to black families.
Not until paragraph 25 does the article mention that the national NAACP, the nation’s largest organization representing black families, called for a charter moratorium in 2016. That fact alone should raise the question of how representative the protestors are.
I wrote this post about the article. The gist of my complaint was that the Times’ article gave the impression that black and Latino families are clamoring for more charters, when in reality there are many cities in which black and Hispanic families are protesting the destruction of their public schools and the loss of democratic control of their schools.
I questioned why the article relied on a five-year-old press release from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools as evidence for its claim that the “wait list” for charter schools was in the “hundreds of thousands.” Actually, the 2014 press release from the charter advocacy group said the “wait list” topped one million students. My comment was that “wait lists” have never been audited or verified and that a claim by a lobbying group is not evidence.
I added to my post a commentary by Robert Kuttner, the editor of the American Prospect, who was also critical of the article.
Both Kuttner and I heard from a reporter from the New York Times. In the response posted below, he acknowledges he made an error in citing poll data in the article, without reading the underlying poll.
I heard from one of the writers of the Times article. She said my post had many inaccuracies. I invited her to write a response and promised I would post it in full. I pleaded with her to identify any inaccuracies in my post and said I would issue a correction. She did not send a response that I could post nor a list of my “inaccuracies.”
The Times posted an article last July about the growing backlash against charter schools. But I do not think the Times has exhausted the question of why the charter “movement” is in decline. It would surely be interesting if the Times wrote a story about why the NAACP took a strong stand against charter expansion, despite the funding behind charters. Or why Black Lives Matter opposes privatization and supports democratic control of schools. Or why black families in Little Rock, Chicago, Houston, and other cities are fighting charter expansion. None of those families are funded by the Waltons, Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Charles Koch, or Michael Bloomberg, so they don’t organize buses to take hundreds or thousands of people to demonstrations.
The Times should take note of the fact that white Southern Republicans have made the charter issue their own, and they are using it to recreate segregated schools. Indeed, the Republican party has made charter schools and vouchers the centerpiece of their education agenda, and Democrats in most state legislatures have resisted that agenda and support public schools. There is also the fact that DeVos and Trump are pushing charters and school choice even as they dismantle civil rights protections.
I wish the Times had noticed a court decision in Mississippi a few months ago that upheld the right of the state to take tax money away from the predominantly black public schools of Jackson, Mississippi (which are 96-97% black), and give it to charter schools authorized by the state, not the district. They might note that the sole black justice on the Mississippi Supreme Court, Justice Leslie King, dissented from that decision. The district, under black leadership, fought that decision and lost. The black parents of Jackson, Mississippi, are fighting for adequate funding of their public schools, while the white Republicans in state government are imposing charter schools.
In Justice Leslie King’s dissenting opinion, which Justice James Kitchens joined, he wrote “This Court should not be a rubber stamp for Legislative policies it agrees with when those policies are unconstitutional.”
Public school districts in Mississippi receive local funding from ad valorem tax receipts. When a student enrolls in a charter school, which is a free public school, money that would have gone to the district follows the student to the charter school instead.
My view is that we need a great public school in every neighborhood, with experienced teachers, a full curriculum, a vibrant arts program, a nurse, and all the resources they need for the students they enroll. I think that charter schools should be authorized by districts to meet their needs and supervised by district officials to be sure that there is full transparency and accountability for the academic program, the discipline policies, and the finances. Charter schools should complement public schools, not compete with them or supplant them.
Here is Robert Kuttner’s second commentary on the article:
DECEMBER 2, 2019
Kuttner on TAP
Charter Schools and the Times: a Correction and Further Reflections. I made an error in my On Tap post last week on the New York Times feature piece on black public opinion and charter schools.
My post criticized the Times for publishing a page-one story with an exaggerated headline, “Minority Voters Feel Betrayed Over Schools.”
The Times piece cited a poll showing black support for charter schools at 47 percent. My mistake was to infer from this figure that black support and opposition were about equally divided. As one of the story’s authors pointed out in an email, the actual poll showed support at 47 percent, opposition at 29 percent, and no opinion or similar for the rest.
That 29 percent opposed figure was not mentioned in the Times piece. Nonetheless, I should have pursued the underlying poll and reported it, and not just made assumptions. I regret the error.
That said, polling results vary widely depending on the wording and framing of the question, the sponsor of the poll, and the context. For instance, a poll by the Public Policy Institute of California, in a state that has more charters than any other, reverses the finding of the Education Next poll cited by the Times. In California, blacks, with just 36 percent support, were far less likely to support charters than whites.
One of the two polls that the Times linked to used the phrase “public charter schools.” Most charter schools are public only in their taxpayer funding; their actual accountability to public systems varies widely. Many are for-profit, or nominally nonprofit but managed by for-profit management companies.
Another poll, which my post cited, by Peter Hart Associates (for the American Federation of Teachers), finds that black parents are strongly opposed to the idea of reducing funds for public schools and redirecting them to charters, which is often the practical impact of increased spending on charters. As this study shows, the practical effect of charters, in a climate of fiscal scarcity, is often precisely to divert funds from public schools.
I owe our readers a much deeper look at the charter school controversy, as well as error-free reading of polls. Both will be forthcoming. ~ ROBERT KUTTNER
Robert Kuttner’s new book is The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American Democracy.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Great reporting and aggregation of relevant pieces, Diane, and so very, very important. Thank you for watching the watchdogs.
Charter schools that families don’t choose close. Full stop. Pretending these parents don’t exist or are duped or shills is at best putting the role of schools as employers over their role of educating children, and at worst racist. Please stop denying voice and agency to these parents, acknowledge they exist, and talk about why they’ve made that choice. Denying the problems that drive parents out of traditional public schools is hubris and very transparent.
What you are missing, John, is that many families choose failing charter schools, and the schools do not close,
John, maybe you could explain why the NAACP and Black Lives Matter oppose charter schools. The NAACP, like all philanthropic organizations, is in need of money, but the big money is on the charter side. Why did they take this risky stand? If you read their report, many African American parents testified at their hearings. Read it.
Insisting that parents “want” charter schools when their funders have done everything they can to undermine their local public school is racist. Notice that public schools that are “good” are far more popular than charters and tend to be incredibly overcrowded while charters have many empty seats.
If the right wing billionaires end Medicare and offer “free” public insurance for everyone that covers almost nothing, or “free” charter insurance for the healthiest seniors that covers some things, John would claim that the fact that the healthiest seniors are choosing the charter health insurance proves that underfunding and destroying Medicare was the right thing to do. ]
What a truly absurd argument that shows how desperate charter supporters have become to justify their racist beliefs that African-American parents prefer no excuses charters to excellent, well funded public schools like affluent white parents in the suburbs get.
That’s more complicated, too. Families choose charter schools not realizing that they harm public schools, draining their resources — some families have a kid in a charter school and a kid in the public school being drained of resources by the charter, without being aware of the harm the one kid’s school is doing to the other kid’s school. Families in charter schools often (if not usually) believe that the unfair, illegal practices by charter schools (such as handpicking students and requiring donated work hours by parents or financial donations) are a legitimate benefit of the school. So acting like voting with their feet is the only thing that matters is dishonest and unethical.
John could explain why students or their families chose the virtual ECOT in Ohio. Based on the number of absent students, an analysis of the reasons for enrollment is warranted. Ohio taxpayers understand why they lost so much money on ECOT. Charter operator donations to the state Republican Party appears to have been a, if not the, primary factor.
ECOT cost Ohio over $1 billion. It was a bad education program with low graduation rates, high dropout rates, poor academic performance. Yet thousands of parents “chose” this very bad “school.”
People also choose very bad and unhealthy food.
Democracy is the best choice.
Sorry if I’m being repetitive, but so readers don’t miss these points:
Regarding the so-called “long waiting lists”: Linking to a press release from the charter lobby as though it were a legitimate source is obviously a journalistic sin — what were they thinking? And a sin like that discredits ALL the reporting.
But also, even with a sincere effort to research the validity of waiting lists — this claim simply isn’t realistically verifiable. You’d have to contact every name on a list to learn whether the name was real, whether the parent legitimately signed onto the list (a friend who toured a charter school in San Francisco told me they put his name on the wait list even though he wasn’t interested in the school, he learned after he received mailings from the school) and whether the family was still waiting and interested in the school.
Regarding polls on opinions about charter schools: I know from real life that most people have no idea what a charter school even is. In that case, are opinions elicited by a poll legitimate in any case?
I liken this to polling here in California on Proposition 13: A top pollster told me most people they ask have no idea what Prop. 13 is. The pollster shows the pollee a prewritten paragraph explaining Prop. 13, and then registers an opinion on the spot based on zero prior knowledge, just the paragraph. That’s not a legitimate opinion and makes the poll bogus, in MY (legitimate) opinion.
I believe polling on charter schools is exactly the same — asking people who know nothing about the topic isn’t legitimate, valid or the basis for anything. It’s journalistic convention to treat these polls as legit, but it’s a wrongheaded convention.
Polls do not always reflect reality. There are some minority parents whose children attend a selective charter that are happy with the service, but far more minority students are shuffled into cheap charters. Helping a few is not a valid reason for destroying public education for all.
I worked with many Latino families for many years. The mothers are generally wonderful, but they are also very trusting making them easy targets for privatizers. The ELLs are very vulnerable because their needs are many. That is why the big charters tend to exclude them. Now I see The Mind Trust is “reaching out” to Latino families like a vampire reaches out to prey. They will monetize them and Not serve them well. Their clueless business people will sit them down in front of screens and call it a day. They need so much more than that.
excellent metaphor: like a vampire, reaching out to its prey
ooops, a simile 🙂
BTW the second video in this link shows an exchange between a Houston nurse and activist and Cory Booker. She confronts him about the charter scam. She is fighting for public education, and she does a good job.https://egbertowillies.com/2019/12/02/houston-activist-kandice-webber-breaks-down-the-fraud-that-is-charter-schools/
Exactly. The “polls” in Massachusetts in 2016 supposedly also showed huge support for charters by African-American voters, and yet I believe that every African-American community voted down that charter expansion and the only place it got votes was in a few largely white communities.
The only districts in MASS to support charter expansion were rich white communities that never expected to get a charter.
28% of Boston residents are black. 38.4% of Boston voters voted Yes.
The charter schools in Boston are 86% minority.
Calling this a loss by rich white communities is very misleading.
More like the tyranny of the majority to deny options to the minority community.
The charter referendum won only in affluent white towns. Can you name an urban school district that supported it?
“The charter referendum won only in affluent white towns. Can you name an urban school district that supported it?”
In Boston, the extremely popular mayor opposed the particular ballot question while supported a competing proposal to expand charter schools.
So you’d be incorrect to infer that a vote against the particular measure was necessarily a vote against charter school expansion more generally.
FWIW, it’s plausibly the case that the vote among parents of school age children in African-American communities here was considerably more favorable to the ballot question than among those without such a direct stake and well-informed opinion.
Mayor Walsh opposed the Massachusetts charter expansion referendum. So did EVERY civil rights group in the state. Including the NAACP.
John says “More like the tyranny of the majority to deny options to the minority community.”
Notice how John’s argument is that the only white people who care about what he calls “the minority community” are the white people who live in places that are almost all white and voted for charter expansion!
This is the same argument that John’s funders use when they claim that Trump and the right wing Republicans are the ones who really care about “the minority community” because they support expanding charters.
According to John, it is Betsy DeVos and Trump and the Republicans who support charters who really care about “the minority community”.
I can’t imagine why so many African-American parents don’t believe John when he tells them who really cares about them – Trump and DeVos and Mitch McConnell and the white Massachusetts voters who live in communities that are nearly all white because they support charters.
Got it, John! Keep up the great arguments!
Are you deliberately missing my point that there is not a high enough percentage of black voters in Boston to have a Yes vote even if 100% of them voted for it? So clearly, white voters in Boston voted to take away a choice that black families in Boston have made for their kids. This has nothing at all to do with the wealthy suburbs.
The only districts that approved the charter referendum in Massachusetts in 2016 were rich white districts.
John says: “This has nothing at all to do with the wealthy suburbs.”
John, you are the one who is insisting that white people who vote for charters are the only ones who care about African-American children, which tells us that you believe that Betsy DeVos, Mitch McConnell, and the Massachusetts residents who live in communities that have almost no African-American students are the ONLY ones who care.
And it tells me that you are now claiming that the NAACP does not care about African-American children the way DeVos, Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump, and the white voters who live in suburbs that have almost no African-American residents do.
Your equating “caring” as “voting to take money from public schools and give it to privately operated charters that are funded by right wing billionaires” is truly despicable, but typical of how far the charter movement has fallen.
Stephen Ronan seems obsessed with whether Boston residents voted for a pro-charter Mayor and believes that is very significant.
I would point out to Stephen Ronan that NYC voters twice — by some of the largest margins in history — voted for a Mayor that did not support charter schools.
I would point out to Stephen Ronan that Mayor de Blasio’s support was HIGHEST among African-American voters which Ronan clearly would interpret as a clear sign that African-American voters want to limit charter schools.
I don’t expect Ronan to address the hypocrisy that is the guiding force of those who spew pro-charter propaganda the way the Republicans spew pro-Trump propaganda.
Ronan is a really nice guy who happens to be obsessed with charter schools.
A decent guy, self-appointed to ed reform, would publicly oppose religious school chains for minority students. A chain of schools in inner cities which required students to return to the schools, the pay they receive from low level jobs with private companies (equivalent to one week a month), would anger and provoke to action, a decent person. If a religious denomination operated independent schools in the suburbs that were markedly more well-funded or different in quality than the inner city schools, a decent guy would see it as an offense against God.
I speculate that a Koch network guy, on the other hand, would rationalize the practice or turn a blind eye toward it.
For me the disconnect arises because ed reformers exclusively focus on charters and vouchers and that’s not how the the public (or Elizabeth Warren) see “public education”.
Warren is right. The exclusive focus on charters and vouchers is part of a very specific agenda promoting charters and vouchers, and is not “public education” as it exists. Warren’s plan was comprehensive. The vast majority of it concerned public schools. That all of reformworld focused exclusively on the small charter piece tells me all I need to know about how much they value public schools, and public school students.
Focusing on charters and vouchers is fine if you’re an advocate for those schools and students. But that isn’t the vast, vast majority of “public education”, which Warren and Sanders know and many other politicians have figured out. The bulk of their plans and programs are directed at existing public schools for a very good reason- that’s where the vast majority of the students are.
Warren’s increased federal funding of K-12 schools would have benefited every charter school student in the country along with every public school student. But that wasn’t enough for charter and voucher proponents. She has to be a full time cheerleader for the schools they promote and prefer – JUST those schools- or she’s rejected as a non-believer.
We see this again and again at the state level. They will happily hold up funding for every public school student in the state in order to get some special set-aside for charters and vouchers. It’s not a “public education” agenda. It’s a charter and voucher agenda. Public schools, and public school students, are the dead last priority in this “movement”, so much so that any education plan is analyzed strictly in terms of benefits to charter and private schools. It just isn’t accurate.
Chiara,
Reformers appreciate most of what’s in these plans, including increased spending on public education. But allowing school districts to determine whether charters get issued is a formula for ending charter schools. It is as reasonable for charter advocates to focus on this as it would be if a candidate was proposing shutting down traditional public schools.
You prefer no oversight? Free public money for grifters.
No, I think state oversight is appropriate. Charters should exist where parents demand them. Allowing districts to veto this means (for example) that a majority white district (or more frequently a majority minority district with a majority white school board) can deny this choice to families of color. It would eliminate charter schools as a method for getting districts to be more responsive to parents.
Will it stop the charters that are real estate scams? They lure unsuspecting families with hollow promises.
I’m all for strong state oversight, especially as it relates to self-dealing, etc. Do you think a school district is in a better position to make these judgments than a charter authorizor? Getting rid of scam operators is appropriately done by strengthening state laws and authorizors, not effectively banning charters.
Many charter authorizers are in the tank for the cut that they get from the top. Check out Michigan. Many authorizers, massive lack of oversight. If you don’t know a scandal when it is front of your nose, no one can help you.
“allowing school districts to determine whether charters get issued is a formula for ending charter schools…”
Wow, the racist implications of this comment are shocking.
Now charter advocates have been reduced to saying that we can’t let voters decide whether to open charters in their own communities because rich white billionaires who also support Betsy DeVos know what is best for them, and what they know is best is to privatize public education and give them only the choice that white right wing billionaires generously support.
John, why haven’t there been multiple charters generously funded by billionaires that are exactly like the private schools those billionaires send their own children to?
When you ask yourself that, you will see why the charter movement has lost luster. Your funders have made it clear that low-income non-white students need a different education than one their own white children get.
Again, why aren’t there multiple charters generously funded by right wing billionaires that are exactly like the private schools those billionaires send their own kids to?
Racists would claim that they already know that all African-American parents in charters would reject those kinds of private schools because they demand only no-excuses style schools for their kids. Letting white people speak for parents in charters and letting white people insist that all the parents there would reject the kind of education offered at top private schools that they want for their own kids is typical of the charter movement.
I’ll let my comment about Boston respond to your nonsense.
Charters should only exist if there is demonstrated need voiced by the local community that pays the bill. We must end the top down imposition of privatization by politicians that are on the payroll of the charter lobby. Adoption of charters should be about educational needs, not politics.
I agree. Demonstrated need is shown by families that enroll their children. Do you think school boards are not political entities?
Charters prey on the innocent. As P.T. Barnum allegedly said, “there’s a sucker born every minute.”
And a sharp operator ready to take his (the public’s) money.
“Demonstrated need is shown by families that enroll their children.”
In other words, if a group of white supremacists want a charter that teaches white supremacist, that demonstrates need since they will enroll their children in such a charter.
There is a far greater “demonstrated need” for good public schools as demonstrated by the families that enroll their children in the good ones. Still waiting for those right wing billionaires to fund them.
A lot of charter parents get impressed by the marketing. It does not always reflect need.
This is a convenient rationalization that makes self-reflection by traditional public schools completely unnecessary. Just pretend that people choose other schools because they are not very bright and you can absolve yourself of any concern or responsibility for their choices.
Actually, some so-called “reformers” speak out against more funding for schools — Michelle Rhee (onetime “reform” goddess now vanished into comfortable obscurity with the bucks she reaped from her most recent “reform” hustle) famously did, among others. Of COURSE school districts must determine whether charters get issued. It’s district administrators’ and the school board’s job to determine how many schools a district needs to serve the students in the district. The notion that schools should be forced on the district by outsiders against the will of those elected to run the district is outrageous.
If someone took the description of how charter schools work and applied it to a municipal bus system, city park system or police department — anyone at all who can get it together to submit an application (with the help of billionaire-funded operations) gets to take over a bus route or a park or a police station, and the public funding for it, and run it unfettered by burdensome bureaucratic regulation, unaccountable and unanswerable to anyone — the world would think it was absolutely bonkers, which would be correct. The entire notion is batsh*t.
John posits arguments as if he is ignorant that states are plutocracies.
ECOT-Fordham – Ohio
And why do parents like charters? Well, the parents of kids who are handpicked by charters often do. They may not like them as much if they have other kids who aren’t handpicked and who attend the public schools that are drained of resources by the charter.
(Or, in place of “handpicked,” those who make it over the hurdles charters are free to insert in their admission processes, which amounts to the same thing.)
And they like the benefits of having billionaires showering their charters with megabucks. I’m pretty sure most parents are innocently unaware of the reality that charters are harming public schools and the kids in those schools and that their practices like requiring parent work hours and/or financial donations are illegal and unfair and harm the most vulnerable children.
Not all parents are aware of the megabucks, of course, though they presumably appreciate the resources that provides for the school. I just had an online conversation with a KIPP parent who was unaware that billionaires are showering KIPP schools with money. This came up because the school was fundraising in the community — like those Walton/Fisher/Arnold-Enron/Gates bucks aren’t enough? Mom, you really don’t need to send your kid out selling candy bars.
Where are charters permitted to “handpick” students? And please share the 990 of the school that parent was from so we can see how many “megabucks” they are getting. These are stories, not data nor information.
Eva’s schools handpick families. Half the students who win her lottery never enroll. Most of those who do enroll don’t make it to graduation. That’s called selectivity.
The Hobgood charter school in NC is 87% white in a District that’s majority black. Coincidence?
It is called a “white flight” segregation academy, a private school that turned into a charter school so parents would no longer pay tuition for their white school.
I assume you would defend this too as another example of “choice.” Those poor white students, trapped in a majority black district. They needed public money to flee.
If I understand what John is saying, he demands that charters be foisted upon local school districts whose elected leaders don’t want them because if a group of parents want a racist or anti-LBGTQ charter school, then they should get the money to open one.
No wonder Betsy DeVos is the heroine of charter school supporters.
John, you can get away with that hooey with low-information types, but the posters here are savvy about education, so don’t waste your energy.
If you go to KIPP’s website there’s a button that shows you the long list of billionaire funders — it’s no secret and you don’t have to break a sweat researching 990s.
Robert Pondiscio’s book about Success Academy (which is highly readable and I strongly recommend it) is quite explicit about how Success handpicks — by imposing hurdle after hurdle — and it’s well known that KIPP schools operate in a similar way. I put an application for my own daughter in to KIPP San Francisco Bay Academy years ago to learn more about their hurdles — they contacted us to schedule her application test.
A young friend who teaches at the one of the Alliance charters in Los Angeles says they impose requirements on the parents (like mandatory work hours) that ensure that only children from higher-functioning, motivated, compliant, supportive families get in. In my own life I’ve encountered numerous parents who were pushed away from a charter because of a child with problems. This is well known and obvious; it’s utterly silly for charter advocates to bother to deny it.
Pondiscio heartily defends the many hurdles in the Success Academy admission process (which, again, he describes in detail) that ensure that only children of deserving families get in. The thing he doesn’t address is the vigorous, ongoing, shameless lying from charter advocates claiming that doesn’t happen. Excuse me for being so blunt, but JFC.
Donors to KIPP are not donors to KIPP schools. You mentioned a specific school and a 990 would show how much philanthropy they get. I’ll look it up if you provide the name. Then you could provide correct information to the parent you spoke with.
As Pondiscio’s book points out, SA is a pretty extreme example. In a city, like NYC, that can support selective admission traditional public schools, it seems reasonable for there to be some charter schools with extremely high expectations for parents who want that. If SA wasn’t offering something that parents wanted, they would have no enrollment. Certainly, people with means choose housing largely based on school districts, so why deny choice to those without?
Re the KIPP “application test”, I’m very skeptical. I assume any type of decision on enrollment based on a test is illegal in California as it is in most (all?) charter states.
If that school is doing such a thing, where are the lawsuits or news articles? Either would lend some credence to the allegations, but I haven’t seen it. Without that, it’s just a story. I know our local district lies repeatedly about charters because I have the data that refutes their statements (as do they; they just don’t provide it). In our area, these things (like “midyear dump”, “creaming”, etc.) are “well known and obvious”; they just happen to be 100% BS. Please provide more details about this “test” and what you were told.
If Success Academy admitted that it is a highly selective school, I would not be a critic.
But it claims to take the same children as public schools, which it doesn’t.
It presents itself as a model for all public schools.
That’s untrue.
That’s what gets my goat.
I see John making lots of comments and being a little rude about it in one, but I don’t see him addressing Diane’s direct question about the NAACP and Black Lives at the top of the comments section. I remember a white charter board member named John here, who refused to accept the NAACP call for a moratorium on charter schools when it was first made. Ignoring facts is what the Times article does; it’s what charter salesmen do.
I understand the NAACP decision, but it’s clear to me that it was influenced by unions (just look at who drafted it) and therefore reflects the view of schools as employers vs. as educators. That’s a perspective. Many black families consider their childrens’ interests to outweigh the interests of adults in the community. I think most ed reformers agree.
It’s shocking that you accuse the NAACP of being puppets. Shame on you. It’s resolution was debated for over a year. It held hearings in multiple cities, including NYC and Detroit. I have read the testimony. Obviously you haven’t. The billionaires buy organizations. You are shameful.
Don’t feel compelled to reply.
Kohn replied by sneering that “the unions” bought the NAACP, which shows his contempt for the NAACP.
John should also realize that many good public schools engage in reflection to continuously improve practice. Actually, the teachers have all met standards to become certified. The same cannot be said about charters. Privatization is not just an issue of “choice.” It has become a political Trojan Horse designed to move as much money as it can out of public education. I cannot believe that anyone would think that this in the best interests of children in public schools. Many charters are not “high quality.”
It’s worth mentioning that the labor movement and the civil rights movement are deeply connected. Dr. Martin Luther King gave his I Have a Dream oration at the March on Washington for labor rights. Attempts to divide the two rights movements are attempts to conquer both. Civil rights and labor rights are collective rights, not individual choices.
So, are you advocating for private parties to take over police departments, parks and bus systems too, John, in a completely reasonable comparison? Only because of massive billionaire-funded propaganda is it not considered completely and utterly insane to hand over public schools, and their funding, and the CHILDREN, to any old schlub who wants to run one.
Parents are the ones who “hand over” their children to charter schools because they feel they are a better option that their alternatives. It’s only traditional public schools that give parents no choice. I’m not a fan of privatization for privatization’s sake, and I absolutely think there are public trusts that should not be privatized, including water, public safety, etc. But having not-for-profits serve children under contracts with government when their parents prefer it is not privatization to me. Public libraries, many day cares, after school programs, health clinics, etc. work that way.
OK, details about the test. KIPP spokesman Steve Mancini admitted that they were giving applicants tests, so it seems silly to deny it. Read on.
I had already been researching KIPP schools’ eye-popping, well-documented attrition. We had a busy school parent listserve here in San Francisco, and a dad posted proudly that his daughter had “tested into” KIPP San Francisco Bay Academy. I replied to ask what he meant by “tested into” and he fell silent.
I was curious enough to visit the school with my daughter, who was then about to start 7th grade, and got an application (on paper, in that era) and sent it in. We got a letter in response asking me to contact them to schedule her test. My daughter didn’t think her acting skills were up to pretending to actually be interested in the school by going in to take a test, so we didn’t follow up.
I posted about all this on the same school parents’ listserve and informed the then-education reporter for our major daily newspaper. (I gave her the letter asking me to contact them to schedule my daughter’s test.)
An unhappy mom responded on the listserve to my post, describing applying at the city’s other KIPP school (KIPP Bayview Academy) for her son, who has autism. She had thought the school’s strict structure would be good for him. She said they gave him the test in a noisy, busy location in the school and he got very upset and started to fall apart, and she got angry with the administrators and was ordered out of the school.
That was sad and awful for various reasons, but the point here is that both KIPP schools were giving tests to applicants.
So, again, KIPP ADMITS that it gives the tests. I had an education blog at the time, so I asked the then-KIPP PR guy, Steve Mancini, about the tests, and he said the tests were just to determine what grade the applicant should be put in, if accepted — not to determine whether to accept the kid. Well, OK, and I have a big orange bridge to sell you…
Back to the press, they were not interested in the story. KIPP is untouchable. Other non-chain charters in the city also impose deliberate hurdles in their application processes, and the press isn’t interested in that either. They’ll cover really big charter scandals, but don’t consider this a big deal.
Regarding the test, just its existence is a significant hurdle. These KIPP schools are grades 5-8, so the kid is old enough to have free will and has to be willing to sit for the test. In the community, it’s believed to be a test the kid has to pass to get into the school (even if KIPP says it’s not), so families who don’t expect the kid will pass aren’t likely to even try. It’s just the kind of hurdle Pondiscio describes for Success Academy — something that self-selects for motivated, higher-functioning, confident, supportive, compliant families.
A 2011 article about KIPP, under pressure, abandoning placement tests in Baltimore:
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2011-04-05-bs-md-ci-kipp-entrance-exam-20110401-story.html
Thanks for sharing. Makes sense to me not to do it to avoid the appearance that it has anything to do with entrance and the potential barrier that could cause.
Replying to other parts of John’s post:
I don’t understand the claim that donors to KIPP aren’t donating to KIPP schools. The donors certainly believe they’re donating to KIPP schools. KIPP is funded by a long list of billionaires — where IS the money going if not to KIPP schools?
John: As Pondiscio’s book points out, SA is a pretty extreme example.
Caroline: SA did seem extreme, but every charter is free to impose hurdles of some kind, and all that I know of do so.
John: In our area, these things (like “midyear dump”, “creaming”, etc.) are “well known and obvious”; they just happen to be 100% BS.
Caroline: They are well known and obvious, and that’s not BS. I live in the world. I have friends and contacts who teach/have taught at charters, friends and contacts whose kids attend/have attended charters, friends and contacts in the schools that kids pushed out of the charters in the midyear dump land in. I have no motivation to make this up, as opposed to the army of people the charter/”reform” sector pays to deny and obfuscate reality.
What bugs me is the use of “free to impose hurdles of some kind”. They are not. If they ask for something and a parent refuses, they are still admitted as no charter law that I know of allows denial of admission based on such a thing. You stated clearly that KIPP had an admission test, but when asked for details, you acknowledge that you are assuming it was an admission test when there is no evidence that that is what it is.
We obviously live in different “worlds” as none of the charters that I know impose any hurdles. There are cases where a charter tell parents what is expected and parents may decide it’s not for them, but again acceptance cannot be denied. I’m not unaware of allegations that some schools effectively encourage students not to enroll or stay, but my experience is that’s the exception, not the rule. SA seems like an example. Was it Diane who said that a large percentage of lottery winners opt not to attend? I’d like to know more about that. Source?
I stand by my assertion: data, review by a journalist or a court, or it is most likely made up. I’m confident that you have heard lots of stories; I have too. They haven’t stood up to any actual inspection. Also, to infer that charters have an incentive to deny something without also acknowledging that school districts have an incentive to make things up is disingenuous.
Re KIPP, from what I know, they train school leaders, analyze data, do PD, run programs like DC internships, etc. But schools are independent 501c3s and not part of the KIPP Foundation. 990s show sources of income. Again, I’d be happy to look at the 990 of whatever school you were telling the parent not to raise money for.
Charter philanthropy is generally about startup or expansion and I think few charters get big $ philanthropy for operating. Some may get money for specific programs that they run that are outside of school (e.g. laundry services for families, advising for alumni, etc.). Of course, many district schools get philanthropy for similar programs.
John, if I’d offered data you’d have demanded anecdote and personal experience. If I’d offered both you’d come up with something else. One of us is shameless, and it isn’t me. (Stephen, thanks for the Baltimore article.)
Who looks at data and demands anecdotes? That makes no sense.
Human beings are inclined to believe stories that are aligned with their beliefs.
Without some facts, they’re just stories. Maybe worthy of investigation, but many times just not true.
John borrows ethics from the legal sphere which has training programs that codify self-justifications.
“If they ask for something and a parent refuses…”
John’s rationalization is “no harm, no foul”. Its parallel is the disclaimers businesses post as guise. The firms know they can’t offload the legal liability but hope the customer doesn’t know- as example, the sign, “we are not responsible…”.
John smugly trots out the classic, immoral, buyer beware excuse.
Actually, I’m not defending any barriers to acceptance. I’m pointing out that it’s not legal to condition acceptance on these things, so saying that’s what’s happening is making a specific allegation of illegality. Where deserved, that’s appropriate, but I haven’t seen clear cases of this (maybe they exist).
There are definitely cases where it’s not illegal, but shouldn’t be done to avoid the perception. The evaluation tests for grade level are a good example of this. Another example is something like a work requirement, which is an imposition for many parents. Even if they have the right to refuse, a parent could feel awkward and wonder if their child will be treated differently because o fit.
What I think is OK is when a charter school asks a parent to commit to having their child be at school every day and do their homework. I think both charter and traditional schools can and should do this. I acknowledge that parents probably know that they can ignore such things if they choose in a traditional public school and may not be certain that it is their right to do that in a charter public school as well. Anti-charter folks have to own some of this perception since they frequently tell people that charters are allowed to do this.
Here are two John quotes in the same thread:
Dec. 4, 11:44am: “In a city, like NYC, that can support selective admission traditional public schools, it seems reasonable for there to be some charter schools with extremely high expectations for parents who want that. ”
Dec. 5, 7:37am: “What bugs me is the use of “free to impose hurdles of some kind”. They are not. If they ask for something and a parent refuses, they are still admitted as no charter law that I know of allows denial of admission based on such a thing.”
John, charter schools have only kids who aren’t taught even basic literacy and every single one has been proven to steal money and abuse children. Also, charter schools are perfect and are run by saints who have taken an oath of poverty with all their salary donated back to the charter. Also, charter schools give financial bonuses to parents for enrolling their kids. Also charter schools require financial contributions from parents for enrolling their kids. I mean, since you are on this threat, apparently that means we just say whatever nonsense we want.
But your posts explain why charter schools are losing so much support. Voters now understand that those who embrace Betsy DeVos are not running charter schools because they care about kids. They are simply hacks who will say anything to get their “sale”.
“Demonstrated need is shown by families that enroll their children.”
Apparently, John would argue that there is a “demonstrated need” for a charter that discriminates against LGBTQ students because families enroll their children in a school.
John would argue that there is a “demonstrated need” for a charter that promotes the superiority of White Christian values because families enroll their children in such a charter.
There is a much bigger “demonstrated need” for more good public schools but I don’t see your rich billionaire funders giving them money to open them.
But again, since the pro-charter argument that John expresses is that as long as a parent wants a racist school, as long as parents want a school that teaches hate, then public money should go to fund it, nothing I write here matters because John’s right wing Republican funders will always be there to promote them.
^apologies for the double post
Because remember- charter schools are eligible for every bit of federal funding that public schools receive. However. Public schools may not share in the charter school funding. They can’t even apply.
Warren’s plan, unlike the ed reform plans, is actually agnostic as to funding of existing schools. It benefits all students, both public and charter. If you’re the parent of a kid in a charter school there’s no downside for you- you get increased funding along with the public school down the street.
If this were actually “agnostic” the federal charter program would allow special funding of public school systems opening new public schools. But ed reformers and DC politicians prefer charters, so they encourage them and discourage an expansion of improvement of existing public schools. It’s a preference.
Public Schools MATTER in healthy DEMOCRACY. We don’t have a “healthy” democracy in America. It’s “GRAB and GO” no matter who gets pushed out of the way.
VOTE like your life depended on it … because it does.
And the charter chains already have a huge market advantage over public schools which will become more and more important as privatization increases.
They are national, and public schools are not. I can’t open a Boston Public Schools franchise in Florida, and it doesn’t matter how good my particular Boston public school is.
The systems they have set up are designed to expand charters and shrink public schools. It is inevitable. If they got what they want- unlimited expansion- charters would expand and squeeze out local public schools not because they’re “better” but because this is the market they created. I think it’s MOST likely that they end up with 4 or 5 dominant national chains and PUBLIC schools as the smaller entity.
So the question for me then becomes “what happens to students in existing public schools when all of elite policy and politicians are focused on the privatized system they’re creating and not the public system that exists?”
Public school advocates and families are permitted to ask this question. They are allowed to have public school advocates, just like charters and vouchers have advocates.
If given the opportunity, they will push public schools over the brink. We already see signs of this in some states. Charters will never stop expanding. They are parasites that will consume the host.
If the billionaires are so dedicated to providing a private education to poor students, they should just write them a check and pay for it themselves. Then, it will truly be philanthropy instead of the current villainthropy. They should not be allowed to destroy a public institution for all to satisfy their agenda. The public should be able to have decent public schools in this country. That is why we pay taxes.
There’s huge public demonstrations in Chile. You know part of what they’re demanding? They want public schools back. They privatized all their schools and they want the public system back. The privatized system is more inequitable than the public system it replaced. The experiment failed. They have one of the most inequitable societies in Latin America and this is 25 years after they privatized everything.
Think they’ll get their public schools back? I don’t.
Neither will any of you. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. What if the ed reform privatization experiment fails? Then what? Do we get the public systems back?
https://time.com/5710268/chile-protests/
Neo-liberalism in South America has been a disaster, particularly in Chile. Unless we change course, we are headed to the same place. In addition to education, the elderly can barely survive. Pensions have been looted, and the privatized social security does not cover expenses. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chile-protests-pensions/chiles-fiery-anger-fueled-by-fears-of-poverty-in-old-age-idUSKBN1XB3U8
I think you are reading Nancy MacLean’s “Democracy in Chains.” She explains Milton Friedman’s malign influence in Chile.
You state that Booker “withdrew his longstanding support for charter schools in August” citing an article that actually says:
“Booker on Saturday didn’t distance himself from his charter school support, instead using it as an example of his focus on education in general.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cory-booker-charter-school-support_n_5d45c744e4b0acb57fcd4ebb
Stephen, you are right. Cory Booker was a strong pro-voucher ally of Betsy DeVos, who changed his tune. He wavered a bit on school choice a few months ago, but is back in the stable now, where his funders are.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/cory-booker-once-allied-himself-with-betsy-devos-on-school-choice-not-anymore/2019/09/19/484508fe-d0dc-11e9-9031-519885a08a86_story.html
Thank you to Stephen Ronan for pointing out that Booker is still a huge fan of Betsy DeVos. I agree with Stephen Ronan that if you support DeVos, Booker is a good choice for you.
Diane: “Stephen, you are right. Cory Booker was a strong pro-voucher ally of Betsy DeVos, who changed his tune. He wavered a bit on school choice a few months ago, but is back in the stable now, where his funders are.”
My impression is that Booker has consistently recognized that some charter schools are superb, some abysmal, and that an effective regulatory framework, within the public sector, is crucial to ensuring the best results.
If you have any evidence that his views have shifted at all on that score you have yet to present it.
There is no effective regulatory framework to my knowledge. Have you read the NPE report, “Asleep at the Wheel,” documenting the massive waste of federal money spent on charters that never open or lose soon after opening? Over $1 billion.
Diane: “There is no effective regulatory framework to my knowledge.”
One might start by limiting the number of authorizers in a state to a capable few, absent conflicts of interest, consistent with research findings…
Diane: “Have you read the NPE report, “Asleep at the Wheel,” documenting the massive waste of federal money spent on charters that never open or lose soon after opening? Over $1 billion.”
Not yet. I did skim through this
https://www.educationnext.org/writing-under-the-influence-critique-asleep-at-the-wheel-network-public-education-analysis/
And could keep my lachrymose glands in check should Ms. Burris attempt her “point-by-point rebuttal that would bore readers to tears.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/07/02/charter-school-advocates-didnt-like-this-report-co-author-explains-where-they-are-right-very-wrong/
Tangentially, wouldn’t charter schools be likely to gain rather more in funding if Elizabeth Warren’s Title I funding expansion were implemented than they would lose if, at the same time, the separate charter grant program were terminated?
Why don’t you read the report itself instead of reading a critique in a rightwing publication?
Carol Burris and Kevin Welner wrote a post saying that charter schools would be greatly enriched by Warren’s proposed increases to Title 1 and special ed, whereas existing charters lose nothing if the inept federal Charter Schools Program were eliminated.
Like, cry me a River.
Diane: “Why don’t you read the report itself”
I have looked at it a bit, read many of your references to it, grasped the gist and, like the Obama administration’s support for solar energy companies, I’m sure there’s room for improvement in program administration.
I pledge to read it thoroughly when and if President Warren asks me to overhaul the program, rendering it worthy of a fraction of a penny from each billionaire-derived dollar.
And thanks for letting me know about the Welner/Burris article perrtaining to Warren’s plans, Title I funding, and charter schools, which I find here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/11/22/um-thats-not-what-warren-actually-said-about-charter-schools/
A helpful analysis.
Charter schools should be cheering for the Warren plan.
“My impression is that Booker has consistently recognized that some charter schools are superb, some abysmal, and that an effective regulatory framework, within the public sector, is crucial to ensuring the best results.”
Yes, that is the viewpoint of Betsy DeVos, too. I can see why those who are big fans of DeVos should be voting for Booker.
Clearly, Booker’s definition of “an effective regulatory framework” is much closer to DeVos’ view than it is to Warren’s, which is why he is so upset at Warren.
Louisiana’s (and DFER’s) Mary Landrieu hasn’t changed her tune- New Orleans is where the citizens had no vote when disaster capitalism arrived to close the public schools. The current COO of New America (the abomination linked to Eric Schmidt- Google) was part of that wave.
Last year, didn’t New America fire its employees (Barry Lynn’s group) when they warned about the threat that tech companies posed to a democratic nation?
Yes.
The districts targeted for state takeover are always majority black. The legislature of course is majority white.
“The Times posted an article last July about the growing backlash against charter schools….”
Eliza Shapiro, co-writer of the recent NYT pro-charter article that this post is about, has defensively claimed that she is unbiased by citing that article she wrote back in July.
So I looked closely at it and instead of proving Shapiro is unbiased, that July article provides clear and convincing evidence that Eliza Shapiro and the NY Times are completely in the tank for the charter industry. I encourage everyone to read the article for themselves to see how Eliza Shapiro reports this “backlash”.
NY Times, July 5, 2019 “Why Some of the Country’s Best Urban Schools Are Facing a Reckoning”
Notice the headline: “Some of the Country’s BEST Urban schools…” So this July 5 article that Eliza Shapiro cites as how unbiased she is begins with the premise that charter schools are the BEST urban schools. Remember, this is the article that Shapiro explains is “critical” of charters.
And this supposedly “critical of charters” July article that Shapiro claims is the epitome of her unbiased reporting interviews these people:
Richard Buery from KIPP Charter
Steven Wilson, the chief executive Ascend Charter
Doug McCurry, a chief executive at Achievement First
Ann Powell, a spokeswoman for Eva Moskowitz at Success Academy
Brandi Vardiman, the principal of KIPP STAR, a Harlem elementary school
Lauren Rhim, the director of the National Center for Special Education in Charter Schools
And in the “fair and balanced” way of Fox News and Eliza Shapiro, her July article has a single quote from one person critical of charters: State Senator Brad Hoylman, a Manhattan Democrat
Writing a fawning article about charters in which a lot of pro-charter voices talk about how their “best urban schools” are doing things to be even better is what Eliza Shapiro considers “presenting the other view”.
In other words, the only people that Elia Shapiro believes are worthy enough to hear from in both articles are pro-charter voices.
And remember, Shapiro truly believes that her July article which presents all those pro-charter voices is a balance to this article, which also presents all pro-charter voices!!
Read it for yourself. Shapiro’s perspective is, as always, that African-American parents who do not like charters do not exist for her. The July article she cites as being “critical” of charters has virtually only the voices of charter leaders and advocates! That is Eliza Shapiro’s definition of charter criticism. Criticism of charters is what the charter leaders themselves decide is criticism, and the African-American voices who are opposed to charters are blatantly missing.
Eliza Shapiro’s July article simply lets the leaders of what she portrays as clearly superior charters address the criticism in the most self-serving way!
Talk about the Fox News definition of fair and balanced. That is Eliza Shapiro’s reporting on charters. I hope everyone reads what Shapiro believes is her “fair and balanced” July article and imagines if she had used that kind of “fair and balanced” reporting to write the article about the pro-charter protests at the Elizabeth Warren rally.
It would have been an article that included no voices of the parents at the protest, no pro-charter voices, but merely allowed Warren and Bernie and multiple people who do not support the expansion of charters the entire article to explain their views.
^^Imagine this report on Fox News:
“Why the Country’s Best Political Party Is Facing a Reckoning”
And the entire report was about how a few moderate but rabid
Republicans were mildly critical of some of the racist things that their “best” political party was doing while making it clear how wonderful the Republican party is overall.
Imagine Fox News saying “we’re fair and balanced, look at how we wrote this article that was so ‘critical’ of Republicans back in July, so why is anyone complaining about our coverage of the impeachment hearings using only right wing Republican talking points?”
Eliza Shapiro, I hope you will take another look at the July article and do some personal reckoning about which voices you always use to frame the discussion. Writing a supposedly “critical” article that focuses exclusively on the great things the charter industry is doing to combat the criticism is a poor excuse for journalism.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops self identify as strong advocates for parental school choice and, they claim they have been, since the beginning of the political campaign.
The results from polling of Catholics (2017) is therefore significant in understanding underlying issues in privatization of public schools. 86% of black Protestants reported perceiving “a lot” of discrimination against black people in America. Only 47% of white Catholics perceived it similarly (and, even fewer white evangelicals, 36%, do).
This year, Bellwether advised ed reformers to reach out to churches. An anticipated consequence of black students attending the schools of white-dominated religious denominations is, isolation or disagreement in perception about racial fairness in America.
In contrast to Catholics, 67% of the religiously unaffiliated reported perceiving “a lot” of discrimination against black people. The religiously unaffiliated are 43% more likely to have greater alignment in perception with black people than white Catholics are (and, as compared to white evangelicals, the religiously unaffiliated are 83% more likely to have commonality).
The data can lead to a conclusion that when students are enrolled in religious schools, instead of public schools, the racial divide in America is worsened.
Unfortunately, the Jackson Public School District can no longer support its neighborhood schools. It was announced this week that two middle schools and an elementary school will be closed. Additionally, the plan is to re-purpose the school where I have served for the last twenty-eight years, a landmark of historical significance whose closing has been rumored and fought for years. I was hoping to be able to retire there, but that is looking unlikely. I have to choose between retiring early or having to start all over again at another school.
It is striking that the district is blaming the teachers for the students’ poor attendance, saying that they don’t come to school because the teachers don’t care. This despite the city being listed on the top twenty most dangerous cities in the nation, and during a crime-riddled week-end with 17 people shot so far in a city half the size it was a generation ago. I read in another post on this blog that rather than blame teachers, district officials should be glad that we’ve been able to hold things together as well as we have. It’s not just the district that is losing population–it is the whole city, which is being hollowed out as black residents have followed white emigrés to the surrounding suburbs.
What was once the only high school in Mississippi for black students now faces a grim future that no one can clearly see. A once-proud community will lose its anchor, and the school’s namesake will fade into obscurity. I hate to see what is next..