The Center for American Progress is identified by the mainstream media as a “liberal think tank” and as the think tank of the Democratic establishment. It protects the Obama legacy, including the toxic legacy of Arne Duncan’s failed Race to the Top. Billions were squandered for a program that was built on the foundation of George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind. Twenty years have been wasted by investing in high-stakes testing and charter schools. CAP refuses to acknowledge this education disaster and continues to peddle the same tired Bush-Obama remedies.
Our reader Laura Chapman writes here about CAP’s May 27 event, featuring charter school leaders, even the executive director of the hedge funders’ charter advocacy lobby, DFER.
Please read! Take her advice and send in your questions. Ask them why they support the DeVos agenda. Let’s hope that CAP and its neonservative allies do not influence Joe Biden.
Laura writes:
“DeVos has a long and notorious record of using agency guidance and regulatory action to undermine equity.”
Yes. And this power is why, in addition to getting rid of Trump and DeVos, voters who care about public education must pay attention to Biden and who he is courting for advice. We need to let him know that more attention must be paid to public schools, not charter schools
Charter schools have a non-stop campaign for money, with a major pitch that they are the only schools that care about black and brown children. That is non-sense. Charter schools originated in and perpetuate racially segregated schools.
Here is an example of that campaign pitch, from Center for American Progress, founded by Hillary Clinton’s John Podesta, and an outfit that also gets money from both teacher unions. It is not a supporter of public schools. It is an apologist and promoter of them,
If you have nothing better to do, submit some questions for CAP’s May 27 event, staged with speakers who love charter schools. The title is “Beyond the Talking Points: Charter School Policy and Equity. Ensuring a Quality Education for Every Child Web Series.”
Here is the pitch
“Charter schools have been the source of some contentious debates in the education policy space, often centered on the growth of charters and their impact on traditional public school systems. Yet beyond these debates are a number of issues and policy choices that have deep impacts on the equity effects of charter schools.”
“This interactive conversation will cover a range of issues, with a focus on less commonly discussed topics in charter school policy such as
–enrollment issues around student backfill policies,
–lottery systems, and
–the perceived notion that charters are able to self-select students for attendance.”(This in not merely a perception. )
“Additionally, the discussion will explore operations issues that affect equity in charter schools, such as
–transportation for students to and from school,
–participation in meal programs, and
–how schools receive and use funding for facilities and resources.
(Operations issues are those wherein charter schools want to raid public schools fund even though they are supported by billionaires and have been gifted special federal funds from ten-yacht Betsy DeVos).
Finally, the panelists will discuss the ability of charters to serve all populations of students, particularly those who need additional services such as students with disabilities, English learners, and foster or homeless youth.” (This is just shy of an admission that charter schools, unlike public schools, may choose not to serve students with special needs).
“Please join the Center for American Progress to discuss charter policy in a broader context than the often debated talking points. This discussion aims to step back and examine the current state of the charter debate and where we might go from here, with an emphasis on how equity can be infused more holistically into charter policy.
“We would love to hear your questions.
Please submit any questions you have for our panelists using the hashtag #QualityEdChat on Twitter or via email to CAPeventquestions@americanprogress.org.
There certainly are issues with charter schools, a whole bunch. The CAP sponsors seem to think those listed above are “less commonly discussed.” If so, the sponsors are too much involved in cheerleading for charters and repeating talking points from the billionaire-funded 74Million news. They may also be indifferent to scholarship about charter schools especially the evidence-based criticisms in Diane Ravitch’s latest book Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America’s Public Schools, or her earlier Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement, the Danger to America’s Public Schools, and then another, The Death and Life of the Great American School System.
The discussants in this affair are cheerleaders for charter schools who seem to have some mental inventory of criticisms of charter schools, are floundering, and also pondering “how equity can be infused more holistically into charter policy.” Informed critics will see through this promotional exercise with participants who claim to be MORE concerned with “equity” and in greater measure than supporters of traditional public schools.
Panelists:
Sharhonda Bossier. Deputy Director, Education Leaders of Color (EdLoc), prior work with Education Cities, a national promoter of charter schools
Laina Cox. Principal, Capital City Public Charter Middle School (for about 8 years). Holds a Master in Education in Teaching and Curriculum from Harvard University.
Shavar Jeffries. National President, Democrats for Education Reform, a PAC that promotes charter schools and stricter teacher evaluations. Lawyer, board member fro KIPP, ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Newark, NJ.
Joshua P. Starr. CEO of PDK International former Superintendent of Schools in Montgomery County, MD; Stamford CN. Also worked briefly for NYC Department of Education, served one month on Board of Directors, Center for Teacher Quality.
Moderator:
Neil Campbell, Director of Innovation, K-12 Education Policy, Center for American Progress, former director of Jeb Bush’s FEE–Foundation for Excellence in Education, Broad resident 2009-2011 while serving as Education Program Analyst with USDE.
https://www.americanprogress.org/events/2020/04/29/484224/charter-school-policy-equity/
I hope that readers of this blog will submit a generous supply of questions. I will submit one: Why is there so much documented fraud, waste, and abuse in the charter school industry?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Do we still think a potential Biden Administration would be anything but a doubling down on the Obama/Duncan educational legacy?
The Democrats and Republicans essentially coexist on the same land re. education policy. The difference is only in tone and inflection. The republicans tend to be frank and flagrant about privatizing and diverting funds to faith-based, whereas the democrats tend to flood the scene with Ivy and tech pseudo-geniuses, work to make education a field of technocrats with accompanying corporate-professional language, and divert funds to those who are awash in the deity of “efficiency.” At the end, organized working teachers and public education as we know it are the meal regardless of party. I wonder if this time around most of our labor leaders will work had for a place at that table to help guide the butchering?
The Democrats, when it comes to education, are actually the more dangerous of the two parties because of their slickness and ability to make it technocratic with healthy doses of Ivy thrown in. Until the pandemic, my actual job was most existentially threatened under Obama. A Biden administration will be the same, but worse because they’ve learned their lessons well.
and the Dem. party is extremely dangerous because it is the party loudly endorsed by national teachers’ union leadership: I was threatened and harassed and ultimately pushed out of my work by Obama era policies, but it could not have happened without national union leadership complicity
The national union leadership has failed to lead in pushing the Democrats away from their horrible policies. It’s as if they have no principles, no lines in the sand; no policy or idea bad enough to say, stop right there. If it comes from a Democratic party insider we must accept it – it’s the best we can do. As one insider put it, the base has nowhere else to go.
Another thing, the worse people in the Democratic party never go away.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/election-2020/ct-rahm-emanuel-joe-biden-campaign-economic-policy-20200522-ujxsorrlona7zittfbylv5cyhe-story.html
“Rahm Emanuel is having regular conversations with presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his top advisers about economic policy, the selection of a running mate and the political machinations of taking on President Donald Trump.”
yes; what hurts many of us the most is the zero culpability for those who have done the most personal harm
Thank you for your fine research, Laura. Liberal indeed!
Very well put!
As a general rule, an organization or “project” that includes the words American and/or Progress in their name is most probably a propaganda organization.
Other examples: American Enterprise Institute, Project for a New American Century, Think Progress.
It’s actually somewhat humorous that Center for American Progress uses both American and Progress in their name. Usually it’s the right wing think tank wankers that use American to sound patriotic, while the left wing wankers use “Progress” or “Progressive” to sound progressive.
But Center for American Progress has gone for the double play! (On words)
Maybe a triple play, cuz they also use “Center” to make themselves seem “centrist” (whatever that means)
They have all the bases — right, left and center — covered!
Add to the list, New America, the spin tank of Eric Schmidt (Google). N.A.’s COO is a school privatizer who was in New Orleans.
Speaking is Charter Schools, the Contract for the Gulog school in Buffalo was denied by the NYS oversight committee. This despite the fact that their scores are one of the top in the city, just below City Honors and Olmsted Gifted and Talented Schools. No explanation was given, but the way funding was distributed to the detriment of the Buffalo Public Schools was mentioned. Perhaps they realized that this is a Turkish school, not an American one. They will, of course, use the court system to remain open, hopefully for only another year.
I would love to see their stats to determine why their scores are so high. Forgive me for considering that some cheating is involved.
My question: Why are Gulog Schools allowed in the US when they are run to the benefit of the Turkish people but funded by our country? Please edit.
Speaking is Charter Schools, the Contract for the Gulen school in Buffalo was denied by the NYS oversight committee. This despite the fact that their scores are one of the top in the city, just below City Honors and Olmsted Gifted and Talented Schools. No explanation was given, but the way funding was distributed to the detriment of the Buffalo Public Schools was mentioned. Perhaps they realized that this is a Turkish school, not an American one. They will, of course, use the court system to remain open, hopefully for only another year.
I would love to see their stats to determine why their scores are so high. Forgive me for considering that some cheating is involved.
My question: Why are Gulen Schools allowed in the US when they are run to the benefit of the Turkish people but funded by our country? Please edit.
While CAP may have the term “progress” in its title, it is essentially a regressive organization representing the interests of Wall St. and hedge funds. CAP is also a generous donor to Democratic candidates which is why many of the Democrats continue to support privatization.
While Biden’s platform for education is much more progressive than Obama’s, we all know that “money talks.” I cannot imagine that Biden is unaware of the wealthy forces behind privatization. His wife, Dr. Jill Biden, holds a Ed.D. from the University of Delaware. She has taught in secondary schools and community colleges which are also under attack from wealthy interests. I find it hard to believe that Joe Biden is oblivious to the issues surrounding education.
Oh I’m sure that he and his campaign and their legion advisors are not oblivious at all. I’d argue that they will be fairly sophisticated, as are Dems re. education policy. Right now Biden’s “platform” on education sounds more progressive than Obama’s. Securing the teachers union/Randi requires the right words up front. Once elected the true colors will fly. There is little doubt.
BTW Biden’s brother owns a charter school.https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2019/04/28/frank-biden-his-for-profit-charter-chain-mavericks-in-education-and-more/
retired teacher,
Well that about wraps it up doesn’t it! Anybody thinking that a Biden Admin will be in any way less threatening to the commons of public education and to organized teachers is practicing a very crass brand WISHFUL THINKING!
Obviously we have to vote for Biden for the broader existential crisis of American democracy, but let’s not make fools of ourselves thinking that he and whatever his administration looks like will be good to public education.
All we can do is organize, resist, and organize and resist more. If we do the Obama/Duncan-era thing of trying to get a “seat at the table” with privatizing forces and their policy wonks, our doom will be written boldly. Someone mind Randi if Biden wins the election. She won’t be helpful.
Laura Chapman: bless you
I am extremely grateful to people like Laura Chapman whose tireless work enlightening us about these issues is so important. Thank you to Laura Chapman.
While I consider myself quite progressive on economic terms, I am someone who would rather support a so-called “neoliberal” who is a strong supporter of public schools than a so-called “progressive” who is a strong supporter of charters and a DFER favorite. Maybe that makes me the odd man out among some progressives and I don’t begrudge anyone for their own political priorities.
But, in my opinion, reducing the discussion to “CAP supports the DeVos agenda” is not the way to change hearts and minds of anyone who isn’t already poised to see CAP as some great evil. There are so many important criticisms to make about the powerful democratic think tanks that support charters, but it isn’t about how they support the DeVos agenda, which most of the public can distinguish from DFER’s pro-charter position.
But the very fact that this conference is about the non-profit charter movement defending itself against their critics — rather than do what they did during the entire Obama era and simply ignore their critics — shows how the conversation and mainstream Democrat view of charters has moved away from blanket support of charters while the DeVos agenda has moved closer and closer to complete privatization.
I really don’t care whether a politician is supported by CAP or not. I care whether they are supported by DFER because they are pushing pro-charter policies! And that is NOT the same thing.
If I didn’t understand that difference, I would now be certain that Joshua Starr — one of the panelists – is a corrupt tool of corporate interests who mouths support of public schools while secretly working to legitimize CAP’s agenda and Betsy DeVos’ agenda. I would say that Starr should not be trusted because he may pretend to support public schools, but we all know he is lying to us and his true goal is to support DeVos’ agenda.
It is so important to criticize those Democrats who still rabidly support charters and challenge them to defend their positions. But nuance is also important and so is a recognition that politicians’ support of charters change and becomes more nuanced (like Bernie’s and Warren’s has changed just this year!).
I did not write the headline on this post, but it is not entirely wrong. Also, this is no time for nuance if you are thinking that CAP and DFER are radically different on the matter of charters and choice.
CAP is a huge supporter of charter schools, choice, and it has been a paid shill for the Common Core. I have the evidence from a data base on who supports CAP, citations for many of CAP’s pro-charter articles, and notes on specific funds sent to CAP for the promotion of charters–money from the Walton Foundation.
If there is a difference between CAP and DFER it certainly is not on the matter of charter schools and choice and money follows the student schemes or defending the worst of “reforms” from the last several decades–standards, tests and the rest.
Thank you for your research — and your additional comment below was incredibly informative. I know you are correct that CAP has been supportive of the worst education reform schemes and I really appreciate all the documentation you did below of the awful policies CAP supports.
You are also right about CAP and DFER having the same positions on ed reform and I didn’t intend to imply that they didn’t.
I should have been better at clarifying my point, and the nuance I meant, which was a reaction to some of the replies.
CAP has a lot of positions on a variety of issues that I find reprehensible, but there are democrats that are immediately condemned as associated with CAP even though a more nuanced look is that they support the CAP position on one issue but not another one. Corey Booker’s positions on charters are the same as the pro-charter CAP position and so are his positions on other economic issues, but his support for Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All is not. Ralph Northam’s position on economic issues seems to be the CAP ideal, but his support for public schools is the antithesis of the CAP agenda. On the other hand, progressive Tom Perriello supports economic ideas that are an anathema to CAP, but his support for the education reform agenda made him a favorite of DFER.
You didn’t do this, but some of the comments in reply were already condemning Joe Biden and Randi Weingarten as corrupt tools of the CAP agenda, and it felt wrong to condemn them as dishonest tools of CAP’s ed reform agenda based only on guilt by association.
On the other hand, I feel like DFER is entirely about promoting the education reform agenda and any politician who is part of DFER is clearly embracing their ed reform agenda.
Thank you again for all the extensive research and reporting you do.
I find it fascinating that CAP is actually now acknowledging the critics of ed reform. I know that this conference will be full of people defending ed reform, but I do think even having to defend ed reform is a big change from the past, where the purveyors of ed reform were enabled to simply ignore their critics.
There are even Republicans who aren’t happy with the DeVos agenda but I don’t think any Republican think tanks will even acknowledge that everything DeVos does is not beloved and perfect.
” Let’s hope that CAP and its neonservative allies do not influence Joe Biden.”
Oh, they will because Ol’ Joe knows who butters his bread.
New York Teacher and others.
First. I did not write the headline for this post, but it is not entirely wrong. I think also there is a place for subtlety in thinking, but it is a mistake to think that CAP is not a strong supporter of charter schools and other failed policies, many from the Obama Administration. Here is some of the evidence.
On July 2, 2019, CAP published: A Quality Education for Every Child: A New Agenda for Education Policy.” The press release asserted: “The Next President’s Education Agenda Must Center Racial Disparities in Educational Opportunity.”
I have been studying this report. It is highly critical of K-12 education. It is also calculated to mislead casual readers. The authors claim the report is “a bold and comprehensive approach to K-12 education.” I think not. Many of CAP’s favored policies endorse two decades of federal demands for accountability.
The Introduction to CAP’s report claims that a bipartisan consensus exists on key elements of education reform—standards-based accountability; teacher evaluations that include test scores of students; and school choice. The authors then say that these three reforms are not the problem. The real problem is that improvements have not been made “at the pace needed to give every student a fair shot at success in college and career.” CAP elaborates on all of these claims in five policy priorities for a new administration. Here are a few highlights.
“Applying An Explicit Race Equity Lens To Policy Development” CAP calls for $200 billion to modernize school buildings; a program to promote “culturally responsive pedagogy;” state audits of schools and districts for “disparate educational opportunity,” and USDE guidance to state legislatures on equitable funding.”
Equitable funding means “filling the annual $23 billion gap in funding between predominantly white and predominantly nonwhite school districts.” I found the source of this estimate. It is EdBuild. CAP is a financial supporter of EdBuild. EdBuild promotes “a weighted student funding formula” so that money goes to the school a student attends, aiding school choice, including charters and vouchers.
“Preparing All Students For College And The Future Workforce.” CAP dwells on the economic return on investment from college and high-value work credentials. The report calls for states with “college-and career-ready academic content standards” (aka the Common Core) to make sure a K-12 ladder prepares students for careers “in the new economy. Districts should make sure that families with children in kindergarten know requirements ‘for the future of work.'”
The future of work is not known, least of all families with kindergarteners. The US Department of Labor never makes labor market projections more than a decade ahead. CAP’s thinking about career and technical education (CTE) programs are vintage 1990s workforce training proposals from the National Center for Education and the Economy. They ignore the civic mission of schools and what life may offer and require of students beyond getting a job. http://www.ncee.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Americas-Choice-High-Skills-or-Low-Wages.pdf
“Modernizing And Elevating The Teaching Profession.” Here is the major claim: “If states and school districts raised teacher pay to match that of other professions, provided training to help teachers meet the needs of the changing student population, and increased the selectivity of the teaching profession, the national narrative about and respect for the teaching profession would shift.”
There are specific recommendations but there is nothing new about them. The puffed-up “elevating” language comes from the Obama/Duncan 2012 RESPECT program conjured by McKinsey & Company. Some of the same points appear in CAP’s 2015 report “Smart, Skilled, and Striving: Transforming and Elevating the Teaching Profession.” Here is a scathing review of this warmed-over Obama scheme from the National Education Policy Center. https://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-tprep
4, “Dramatically Increasing Investments And Improving The Equity Of Existing Investments In Public Schools.” CAP proposes federal “public education opportunity grants” as a way to address inequities. This is not a new idea. Such grants are available under Title I, Part A Improving Basic Programs Operated by Local Educational Agencies. The grants are for schools with a high proportion of students from low-income families. In 2018, these grants were funded at $15,759,802,000. (CAP does not seem to have ideas on state and local funding other than money follows the student).
“Bringing A Balanced Approach To Charter School Policy.” To its credit, CAP does not support for-profit on-line charter schools. It also urges the next administration to “include strong authorizing and accountability policies for charter schools as well as efforts to proactively address the shortfalls of the sector.” Not a single endnote refers to well-documented and rampant corruption in charter schools. Not one.
According to CAP, charter schools represent a solution to racial and economic inequities in education. “A strong charter sector is a critical component to expanding the number of good public-school seats, and high-quality charter schools are a valuable strategy to address that problem.” CAP refuses to acknowledge that charter schools are not legally equivalent to public schools and that they are now, and historically have been, a means to further segregation. “Seats” is shorthand for a calculation used to market charter schools in any community where schools are ranked A-F or in league tables. The enrollments in all schools not rated A or B (or an equivalent) are positioned as “seats” that should be replaced by the imagined “high quality seats” offered by charter schools.
There is more.
CAP’s 2017 “The Progressive Case for Charter Schools,” also offers praise for Teach for America and Relay Graduate School of Education. CAP’s 2018 “Charters and the Common Good: Spillover Effects of Charter Schools in New York City” includes this claim: ”There is suggestive evidence that spillover effects (from co-location) are larger if the charter school appears to be of high quality, (defined) as either having high average scores on annual 4th-grade math and reading exams or being operated by an established, respected charter management organization such as KIPP, Success Academy, or Uncommon Schools.”
CAP’s eagerness to endorse school choice and charter school growth is not just in accord with Trump/Betsy DeVos’ policies. It also responds to the wishes of key funders of CAP. For example, the Walton Family Foundation has sent CAP $1,228,705 in three grants for K-12 education, with a 2017 ”special projects” grant of $453,705 for work on “Supporting High-Quality Charter Schools” and “Implementing the Every Student Succeeds Act.”
CAP’s report is designed to promote charter school growth and double down on every misguided policy of the last two decades. I have left a ton of references and rants on the cutting floor. By the way, all five of the authors of this Report once had staff positions on the Hill and four worked in Obama’s Department of Education. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-k-12/reports/2019/07/02/471511/quality-education-every-child/
I have followed CAP for years.
They are indistinguishable from Republicans except for vouchers.
They cheered every bad idea Duncan announced.
Laura Chapman,
This is an incredible documentation of all of CAP’s very problematic positions on education. CAP has a lot to answer for. Very important. Thank you very much.
CAP has often held joint conferences with rightwing groups like Thomas B. Fordham and the American Enterprise Institute. What does CAP stand for?