If you subscribe to Peter Greene’s blog Curmudgucation, as you should, you know that Peter can toss off one or two or three fresh, smart posts a day without breaking a sweat. Here is another excellent post, on the subject of Biden’s plans for holding charter schools accountable and why the charter industry finds his plans offensive.
I was in Washington, D.C., in the early 1990s when the charter idea took off. Its advocates (and I was one at the time) said that charter schools would be more accountable and more innovative than public schools. And, even sweeter, they would cost less than public schools. We now know, thirty years later, that none of that turned out to be true. The charter industry believes fervently in deregulation and hates any efforts by states to hold them accountable. They are not more innovative than public schools, unless you consider a “no-excuses” regime of strict rules and rigid enforcement to be “innovative.” The charter industry continually complains that they are not given as much money as public schools, even when they are given more, so cost-efficiency is not one of their strong points.
Greene explains here that the charter industry is angry that Biden wants to hold them accountable. They are furious that Biden might want them to be supervised by an elected board. The same accountability that public schools experience is anathema to charter advocates. They would be “hamstrung” and “paralyzed” by oversight and supervision.
Shouldn’t public money be accompanied by public accountability? If not, why not?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Well, the Fordham Institute is wary of Biden, so that’s a very, very good sign:
https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/how-charter-supporters-can-win-over-joe-biden
Thanks for the link. The Fordham Institute discussion seems to say that charter schools are a lifeline for Black families. In other words these segregated schools are GREAT !!
Shades of George Wallace, also Trumpism.
Fordham has for some time now been making the argument that Black students do better in schools with lots of Black teachers. That’s their way of responding to the issue that charters tend to be highly segregated.
I’ve found the Fordham folks to be an interesting predictor of what the Deformers are going to do next.
That’s because these folks at Fordham are as plugged in to the Deformer cabal as anyone in the country.
Thanks for the link to this interesting article, most of which I disagree with.
And I agree about Greene’s site. He’s a delight to read. Thanks, Peter!
The vast majority of WI charter schools are authorized by school boards. Milwaukee is obviously a different story, but after years of fighting for charters, even the Howard Fuller’s of the world admitted a $15 minimum wage would be more beneficial to our children than charter schools (i.e. stop blaming teachers and look at the root cause and effects of poverty). Republicans always tout local control; however, in WI that means not many charter schools have opened because locally elected boards don’t see the value (they value their neighborhood schools), when they do authorize charters they often do so with “Shanker-like” intention (not a corporate money-grab intention), and local control hasn’t been popular with Republicans as local referendums are passing at the highest rates ever, even after they Republicans put revenue caps on schools. It’s the age-old political game of a PR push that results in people questioning public education at the national level, while results at the local level show huge support for local public schools.
Much of the charter movement is about gaining unfettered access to lots of public money at the expense of public education. Capitalist privatizers do not want Biden to disturb the system that fleeces public schools. With over a billion federal dollars spent on charter schools that never opened or that closed shortly after they opened, the more logical question to ask is why we are spending so much money for so little return? Charter schools are not more innovative than public schools, and unless they hand pick their students, they get no better results. Charter schools are our opaque white elephant that undermines public schools and wastes public dollars. With rampant waste and fraud, charter schools are long overdue for accountability measures. I hope Biden makes good on his promises.
“I hope Biden makes good on his promises.”
Yeah, we had that hopey changey thingy in the administration in which Biden was VP. How much good did that do for public education? (Hint: none, but caused lasting harm to many students, teachers and the teaching and learning process.)