Tom Torkelson, former leader of the free-spending IDEA Network, has landed in San Antonio, where he hopes to flood the city and its surrounding districts with charter schools and obliterate public schools that belong to the community. Torkelson hopes to place 150,000 students in charters, draining funding from public schools.
Not long ago, the IDEA corporate chain bought out Torkelson’s contract for $900,000. Torkrlson will be the new CEO of a local group called Choose to Succeed. “Choose to Succeed backs a portfolio of charter operators they deem high-performing including IDEA, KIPP Texas, Great Hearts Academies, and BASIS Schools.”
Torkelson will grow the charter sector and crush the local public schools, which will be nothing more than dumping grounds for the kids who can’t meet the demands of the “high-performing” charter schools that have such requirements as passing AP exams.
IDEA, you may recall, wanted to lease a private jet for its executives (but backed off because of bad publicity), treated them to firs-class air travel, spent $400,000 a year for premium seats at professional basketball games, was gifted with nearly $250 million by Betsy DeVos from the federal Charter Schools Program. IDEA picked up nearly $5 million from the Walton Family Foundation. Money, money, money!
As the largest charter school network in Texas fights to keep its momentum to open new campuses amid backlash caused by its controversial spending decisions, its ex-CEO has landed in San Antonio.
Tom Torkelson, who co-founded IDEA Public Schools and led the network for two decades before stepping down in April, is now CEO of Choose to Succeed, a nonprofit organization that since 2011 has been a driving force and relentless cheerleader for charter expansion here.
The group has helped raise more than $100 million to recruit high-performing charter networks to plant schools in San Antonio. Its initial focus — creating educational alternatives in the city’s low-income areas — soon widened to include every part of the city. Leaders of traditional public school districts have pushed back with increasing vigor in recent years, arguing against the need for new charters but unable to slow their growth.
Will public education survive in San Antonio? It’s doubtful.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I wonder who runs the newspapers and other news outlets in San Antonio? CBK
The 990 form for Choose to Succeed in San Antonio shows that “Choose to Succeed, Inc.” is a supporting organization of the San Antonio Area Foundation, who has approval power of certain decisions taken by supporting organizations. The San Antonio Area Foundation, acting through its board of directors, appoints the majority of Choose to Succeed ‘s directors. The 2018 IRS Form 990, also shows that the San Antonio Area Foundation paid the salaries of Choose to Succeed’s officers.
So, the intended proliferation of charters by the high flying and greedy Torkelson is not likely to make news without the approval of Chose to Succeed and the San Antonio Area Foundation.
This is deeply disturbing news that the students in minority majority communities can wear monetization targets on the backs because the wealthy can afford to invade a community and destroy its public schools, particularly since there has been no real evidence that students and communities derive benefit from the destruction of their common good. This is an economic attack on poor minority communities. I keep waiting for a significant civil rights case to emerge from such a deleterious system. The civil rights project describes the impact on poor minority students. What we know from the failure of the Achievement School District is that mass privatization is hugely disruptive and remains largely unsuccessful. It is choice without equity.
“We know that choice programs can either offer quality educational options with racially and economically diverse schooling to children who otherwise have few opportunities, or choice programs can actually increase stratification and inequality depending on how they are designed. The charter effort, which has largely ignored the segregation issue, has been justified by claims about superior educational performance, which simply are not sustained by the research. Though there are some remarkable and diverse charter schools, most are neither. “https://www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/integration-and-diversity/choice-without-equity-2009-report
“relentless cheerleader for charter expansion”
Finally. An accurate description of the ed reform movement. Add “vouchers” and that’s the whole thing.
And they utterly dominate all public education policy, to the exclusion of anyone who supports public schools.
and oh, they are so relentless
What happens to the public school students and families while national ed reformers transition to their preferred privatized system?
Let me guess- no one knows or cares. Gotta break some eggs to realize your ideological goals! Public school students go under the ed reform bus, again.
How un-American it is that wealthy individuals and companies can walk into minority majority cities and stuff black and brown children’s education into their portfoilio while destroying public schools. It is colonialism at its worst. It is undemocratic to use public money and tax breaks to incentivize such inequitable policy.
Here’s today’s edition of one of the echo chamber’s mouthpieces:
https://www.the74million.org/
Every single article about public schools is either neutral or negative, and every single article about charters is positive.
An echo chamber, and it’s where all “public education policy” comes from.