Peter Greene reviews a new charter school study from the Brookings Institution that exhibits near total ignorance of the perils of privatization. Any time that a study rests its case on DFER data, its a clue that it should not be taken seriously. DFER (Democrats for Education Reform) is an organization created by hedge fund managers to lobby for charter schools. Their “studies” and polling data supply talking points to advance their cause. Similarly, when a study cites Albert Shanker’s initial advocacy for charter schools but fails to acknowledge that he abandoned charters and concluded they were indistinguishable from vouchers, the author has done a slipshod job.
Charter schools began thirty years ago. The research on them has repeatedly demonstrated that some get higher test scores, some get lower test scores, but on average they have produced no amazing innovations, no secret sauce. The Brookings author doesn’t know that. She seems to think that charters have discovered remarkable innovations and those innovations should be replicated by public schools.
Her grand notion that charters will teach public schools how to succeed, he argues, is absurd.
He writes:
Since the [charter] movement is largely premised on the notion of unleashing free market forces–well, in that context, this proposal makes as much sense as telling MacDonald’s that they have to show Wendy’s how to make fries.
And:
There is zero reason to think that the charter world, populated primarily by education amateurs, knows anything that public school systems don’t already know. Charter success rests primarily on creaming student population (and the families thereof), pushing out students who won’t comply or are too hard to educate, extending school hours, drilling tests like crazy, having teachers work 80 hour weeks, and generally finding ways to keep out students with special needs that they don’t want to deal with. None of these ideas represent new approaches that folks in public education haven’t thought of.
And:
If charters were pioneering super-effective new strategies, we would already know. There is a well-developed grapevine in the public education world. If there were a charter that was accomplishing edu-miracles, teachers all over would be talking about it. Teachers who left that charter would take the secret sauce recipe with them, and pretty soon it would be being shared across the country. After decades of existence, charters do not have a reputation in the education world for being awesome–and there’s a reason for that. Puff pieces and PR pushes may work on the general public and provide fine marketing, but that’s not what sells other teachers.
Short answer– if charters knew something really awesome and impressive, public school teachers would already know and already be copying it.
Maybe the author of this paper should meet with Andre Perry, who led charters in New Orleans and left disillusioned. He is also at Brookings.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
So-called “think tanks” like the Brookings Institute are actually propaganda operations themselves (the very term think tank is propaganda). So its supposed “studies” are the same as the propaganda produced by Democrats for Education Reform — as you say, Diane: “Their “studies” and polling data supply talking points to advance their cause.”
The author didn’t err in failing to cover Albert Shankar honestly or in failing to talk to Andre Perry — she did her job, promoting charters by any means necessary.
Inadvertence or ignorance?
IGNORANCE. It shows in her full professional vita. She has never taught in any school. She is a policy wonk with not a clue about anything she is writing about.
Gaah
Diane Here’s Mitch McConnell at his best at taking advantage of conflicts of interest:
HEAD OF USPS GOV. BOARD IS ALSO DIRECTOR OF MCCONNELL SUPER PAC
“A new corporate filing Monday revealed that the chairman of the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors is also listed as a director of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s $130 million super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund.
“The revelation about Chairman Robert ‘Mike’ Duncan comes as Democrats are accusing President Donald Trump, the postmaster general, and Republicans of sabotaging the Postal Service in an attempt to suppress mail-in voting, supposedly to tip the election in Trump’s favor.” [HuffPost 09-01-20] CBK
as much can be seen in who the reformers WON’T talk to as in who they do choose to interview and quote
carolinesf,
I agree. Part of “promoting” means that these studies must never address cherry picking in urban charters. Not only are high attrition rates intentionally ignored, but they also depend on the false narrative that nearly 100% of the African American and Latinx students in urban public schools are abject failures, despite that not being true.
In 2018-2019, over 15,000 African American and Latinx 4th graders in NYC public schools were proficient on the state math exam
In 2018-2019, fewer than 1,600 African American and Latinx 4th graders in the large NYC Success Academy Charter network were proficient on the state math exam.
Ed reform does not acknowledge the 15,000 African American and Latinx 4th graders in NYC public schools that do well – those students are invisible to ed reformers. Their very existence must not be acknowledged because to do so would ruin the narrative that charters turn abject failures into high performing scholars and cherry picking is absolutely, positively impossible. (And truly gullible education reporters in NYC don’t need anything but the word of an ed reformer to be absolutely positively certain that cherry picking is virtually impossible — which should be a firing offense and would be a firing offense if they were science reporters.)
And this is all so blatantly racist. If there were 15,000 proficient white students in NYC public schools and a large charter network taught fewer than 1,600 white students, would anyone — including the white education reporters so enamored of charters — be saying that charters had discovered a secret sauce to turn failing white students into high performing scholars? Would those white students doing well in public schools be as invisible to education reporters as the 15,000 African American and Latinx 4th graders in NYC public schools are invisible to them?
The think tank wankers are paid to write “white papers” which are nothing more than opinion pieces masquerading as scholarship and meant to advance an ideology.
The really sad part is that the wankers ( financed by billionaires like Gates and working to advance ideology) have also invaded and taken up residence in our universities (eg, Harvard)
Oops, spelling error. It’s “Her grand notion [is] that charters will teach public schools how to $u¢¢€€d.”
“As the charter school movement evolved over time, charter school advocates prioritized charter school growth with little attention to how charter schools might benefit traditional public schools, especially low-performing traditional public schools. (By low-performing schools, I mean schools with the lowest student performance in a state or nationwide.”
This understates what happened to the point that it is dishonest.While charter and voucher advocates were “prioritizing” the schools they support public schools were grossly neglected.
They have not delivered anything to public schools other than standardized testing. They have not put any effort or attention or support into our schools AT ALL and they have so captured lawmakers and policy people that we can’t get anyone else to pay any attention to our schools either.
If this were just a situation where the “ed reform movement” promoted charters and vouchers and marketed them incessantly that would be one thing, but it goes much further than that. They have harmed students in existing public schools either thru neglect or thru actual efforts to weaken public schools.
Go try to compile a list of what ed reform has contributed to public schools over the last twenty years- there’s one thing on it- testing. They simply do not serve public school students and families. That’s a problem in a country where that’s 90% of students.
It’s how the ed reform echo chamber works. Study by ed reform anti-public school group, policy derived from study by anti-public school ed reform group.
That’s why public schools and students never benefit from ed reform policy. It’s written by people who are opposed to their schools. That’s a problem for the students, because they are IN the schools ed reformers oppose.
Insular non-peer reviewed ‘research’ is more likely to yield the type of information that special interest groups want it to reveal particularly when it is played on a continuous loop by members of the echo chamber. Charter school amateurs have no ground breaking findings that can shared with actual professional teachers in public schools.
It is really amazing how it is IMPOSSIBLE to get an ed reformer to propose something that is focused on public school students. They won’t do it.
Public schools are seen as only in relation to charters, and are only valuable to the extent that they may or may not benefit charters.
We are always, always, an afterthought in this “movement”. If our kids happen to benefit from ed reform policy it will only be accidental- as some incidental benefit that comes out of a singular focus on charter schools.
They have no “public school policy”. They have charter and voucher policy that sometimes reluctantly and grudingly admits that public school students exist.
Why don’t public school students deserve advocates? Ed reform advocates for charter and voucher students. Why can’t our kids have the same thing?
What a great idea! After 8 years of the Bush Administration neglecting public schools, and then 8 years of the Obama Administration neglecting public schools, and then 4 years of the Trump Administration not just neglecting public schools but actively attacking them, the next administration should come in and work exclusively on…charter schools.
Maybe they’re trying for 50 years of not contributing anything at all to the schools 90% of people use. Let’s keep this decades long streak going!
At what point does ed reform get around to “improving public schools”? When does that work start?
It’s like the Ohio legislature. They haven’t gotten anything done in this state for public school students since ed reformers hit the scene. They’re either drafting and funding charter and voucher laws or changing charter and voucher laws. Session after session after session. Nothing for public school students.
Chiara “Why don’t public school students deserve advocates? Ed reform advocates for charter and voucher students. Why can’t our kids have the same thing?”
Reformers would counter that public schools have the advantage of NOT COMPETING in a marketplace situation (duh). From THAT distorted view, public schools as a PUBLIC SERVICE (like the USPO) are not “playing fair.” <–again, speaks of a massive misunderstanding of the import and meaning of PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS.
Also, Diane’s question about “inadvertence or ignorance” also speaks to an educational background that, for whatever cause, didn’t inform them of their own political roots (democracy) or how those roots differ from other political roots . . . and how a democracy is NOT an equivalent of market-based capitalism. As I see it, too many people in our culture really don’t understand that difference.
The moral aspect is when those folks consciously embrace class and other kinds of bias as a “reason” for their arrogance.
But the whole movement of political ignorance is rooted in our 50-year movement to emphasize tech/math/science and to DE-emphasize history, political and social sciences, the arts and humanities. In my view, we are paying for that huge oversight as we speak.
Some of these people (like in my own family) cannot understand the distinction between issues of health (mask-wearing) and issues of political manipulation. That’s someone who hasn’t thought one-bit about their freedoms or the political ground that the walk on. CBK
“…how those roots differ from other political roots . . . and how a democracy is NOT an equivalent of market-based capitalism. “
The thinking that there is an equivalent relationship between personal and economic freedom is very deeply ingrained in the American thought process. Oddly enough, we have never been too keen on the enlightenment idea that one person has freedom that extends until it infringes on the freedom of another. That belief would get in the way of success, which is sacrosanct.
Roy “The thinking that there is an equivalent relationship between personal and economic freedom is very deeply ingrained in the American thought process.”
As is, it’s not the problem. The foundational problem is that economics and markets are viewed as the ONLY thing; and so holders of this view cannot even think that there might be a place for public service, much less that such service is ALREADY at the core of an authentic capitalism.
And so they end up, in fact, shooting themselves in the foot. Kill democracy=Kill the freedoms associated with economic/capitalism. Unless, of course, we think oligarchy and authoritarianism will preserve economic freedoms for all . . . .? Good luck with that. CBK
Peter Greene failed to mention the most powerful attribute of charters and vouchers: discrimination!
I don’t want my kids going to school with ______. Just fill in the group you want the public to pay for your kids to be segregated.
Housing segregation sets the table for American segregated schools and “choice” policies of districts reinforces segregated status quo and increases the segregation due to suburban and urban housing segregation.
Richard Rothstein’s book labels the cause of American school segregation by class and color, as not accident but government policies that are by design discriminate.
The title of his important book is “The Color of Law”.
Thanks to Greene for exposing Brookings. One day, intellectual prostitutes
and their soul (less) mates, lobbyists, may be made to understand justice.
The Brookings author was formerly a “research” analyst at Stanford –a place that is a think tank with students or a university?
Small world.
Stanford is home to Hanushek (associated with libertarian Hoover Institute) and, his wife who is Credo’s director, an organization funded by Walton heirs.
Stanford is also home to the Hoover Institute, which houses “stable geniuses” like the fellow advocating that the US adopt a “herd immunity” strategy for the coronavirus.
The fellow , whom Trump wants to put in charge, has zero background in infections diseases but nonetheless believes he is an expert.
Actual experts warn that adopting such a strategy would probably kill millions of Americans.
Hoover is a crackpot institute.
Stable genius
Cruel, “crackpot” policy positions are the tactics necessary to feed their greed.
It’s as true at harvard’s Dept. of Ed as it is at Hoover.
Remember Roland Fryer’s prescription, testing everyday for the poor kids and Shakespeare for the kinds like his in affluent suburbs.
So that’s what Current White House Occupant meant when he said he was a stable genius. Now it makes sense. He meant he can talk like Mr Ed. I wonder if his handlers have to put peanut butter in his mouth before the State of the Union Address.
Why are people still writing crap like this?
Here’s Brookings’ reason for publishing Vakilifathi’s rehashed not-news: “How Democrats can compromise on charter schools to benefit all students.” Gaah.
I do not think this study was written by an ignorant person that doesn’t know what they were talking about.
I think it was deliberate.
I think it was propaganda designed to mislead to sell a toxic product called charter schools.
When Trump won the White House with his endless lies and lots of help from Russia, that wasn’t the first time someone with money and power lied to get what they wanted.
This study is just another example of how toxic the United States has become since President Ray-Gun and the first burning Bush got rid of the Fairness Doctrine that opened the door to alternative facts (lies marketed at the truth).
Trump wasn’t the one that built this dystopian world we now live in. He is a byproduct of it. The evidence is how much time he spends watching the liars and hate merchants like Hannity, Limbaugh, Alex Jones, et al.
If the Fairness Doctrine had survived, this wouldn’t be happening now.
I’m probably banging my head against a wall with the following topic, but I’ll write it anyway. My district is obsessed with SEL. They added an extra class to the online schedule to have us teach SEL. SEL is promoted by think tanks like Brookings with funding from Zuckerberg and Gates, among other billionaires and wealthy banking and tech corporations. They have a mountain of research supporting SEL, except that it’s not university research; it’s corporate R&D. With SEL, we’re teaching a generation to have warm, fuzzy feelings while using Competency Based Education apps. Thrilling. Are there no independently minded academic scholars in this country?