This is a fascinating article written by Paul Peterson of Harvard University about the origin of the charter school idea.
Many people credit the idea to Al Shanker and Ray Budde of the University of Massachusetts, but Peterson sets them straight.
Peterson is the foremost proponent of school choice, charters and vouchers, in the academic world. He has trained many of the other prominent academics who support school choice, such as Jay Greene and Patrick Wolf, both at the University of Arkansas’ Department of Educational Reform (sic).
Peterson writes about the original proposals by Budde and Shanker but then notes that their ideas were fundamentally transformed by Minnesota reformers Ted Kolderie and Joe Nathan. Budde and Shanker wanted the charters to be district-controlled and friendly to unions.
Peterson writes:
Even though it is fashionable enough to credit Shanker for jump-starting the charter movement that even the Wall Street Journal is joining in, there is only a glimmer of truth to that urban legend. In actuality, Shanker did more to block charters than to advance the idea.
When putting together an account of the origins of charter schools for my book, Saving Schools From Horace Mann to Virtual Learning, I had the opportunity to sort out what Shanker did and did not do for charters. It’s true that Shanker, when first teaching in East Harlem, came to despise administrators who he felt were crushing the spirits of young teachers. So when he first encountered the charter idea advanced by Roy Budde, an unknown professor of education from upstate New York, Shanker, recalling life in East Harlem, gave charters his endorsement: “One of the things that discourages people from bringing about change in schools is the experience of having that effort stopped for no good reason,” he opined. So the Wall Street Journal story is not technically in error.
But charters only took off because others radicalized the charter concept Budde had devised. Reading Shanker’s column, Joe Nathan and Ted Kolderie, at work on educational reform in Minnesota, saw potential in the charter idea. Delighted that the powerful Al Shanker had given it his blessing, they invited him to the Twin Cities to help peddle it to Governor Rudy Perpich and the state’s legislature.
But as they worked on the legislation that was eventually passed in 1991, Nathan and Kolderie fundamentally altered the charter concept. According to the Budde model, charters were to be authorized by school districts and run by teachers. Central office administrators were to be pushed aside, but charter schools would still operate within collective bargaining arrangements negotiated between districts and unions.
Nathan and Kolderie instead proposed that schools be authorized by statewide agencies that were separate and apart from local district control. That opened charter doors not only to teachers but also to outside entrepreneurs. Competition between charters and districts was to be encouraged. All of a sudden, charter schools were free of the constraints imposed by collective bargaining contracts districts negotiated with unions.
At this point, Shanker signed off, calling charters a “gimmick,” and teacher unions ever since have done their best to slow the movement down, insisting that charters be authorized only if local districts agree, as well as burdening charters with numerous regulations, including a requirement that they be subject to collective bargaining. For Shanker and his heirs, the collective bargaining agreement always came first.
Thanks to Kolderie and Nathan, the charter idea was immediately embraced by rightwing foundations who really wanted vouchers, but realized that charters were an easier sell.
Thanks to them, more than 90% of charters today are non-union, are under-regulated, and have virtually no oversight.
Thanks to them, charters have drawn the support of not only right-wingers like Betsy DeVos and Charles Koch as a battering ram to use against public schools, but are a magnet for entrepreneurs, real estate speculators, corporate charter chains, and grifters.
Of course, they are some mom-and-pop or teacher-led charters trying to revive the original idea. But the industry far outweighs their efforts.
When I first heard the idea of charters I was excited. It was my understanding that teachers would have more input and control over the education in their schools. The actuality was the opposite with the focus on controlling what and how the teachers could teach including scripted lessons and walk throughs by teams of administrators to make sure you were following the lesson plans as written (and posted outside your classroom door). No creative activities, just ELA and Math – drilling the kids. It took a really creative teacher to instill the joy of discovery and learning into this mess.
My experience as well
Diane is being modest. This is, of course, basically the story that Diane tells in her books, of a great idea perverted.
Harvard invented lying
Harvard invented lying
Got a patent for it
Really no denying
Harvard does employ it
Great teachers love the chance
Though some look askance
To create a new school that carries out their visions
Despite some who respond with derision.
Some charters are teacher run
Which is lots of work and lots of fun
Some charters are really bad
Which is sad
Glad some have been closed up tight
That’s as it should be, that is right.
Chartering & empowering educators are powerful tools
Sadly sometimes they are used by fools.
Idea of chartering goes back to 1968 in & Kenneth Clark
Who urged new public schools outside bd control to make a mark
https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/opinion-five-myths-of-the-charter-public-school-movement/2015/01
Some districts like Boston & LA responded in positive way;
To that I say “hooray”
Some poems are really bad
Which is sad
Agreed, some poems aren’t first rate.
Others are great.
People don’t always agree
Nice to have many that people can see.
The ed reform response to the pandemic is exactly the same as the ed reform response prior to the pandemic: close more public schools and open more charter schools!
“74 Interview: Progressive Policy Institute’s David Osborne on Creating New Innovation Schools Guide at a Moment of Crisis”
Nothing practical or useful to existing public schools, students or families- just repackaging the opinion pieces they churned out daily prior to the pandemic and putting “crisis!” in the headline.
This is why I don’t understand why they’re all promoting testing this spring- the ed reform agenda doesn’t change at all as a result of testing. It’s “charters and vouchers” prior to testing and it will be “charters and vouchers” after testing.
Will test results change these plans? They’ll suddenly come up with a new idea that is different than “privatization” if we test all the public school students this spring?
Once again the image of the monolithic teacher’s union is created to promote the growth of schools that do not have to teach children. Like the creation of the image of monolithic communism that has been repeatedly misused in American political discourse, the image of a powerful, monolithic teacher’s union is a mythology created to create power where it might otherwise be exercised by communities. Be afraid, and we will save you. Same fascist playbook.
The distinction between Shankar and subsequent charter proponents is well worth highlighting. However, both–in my view–suffer from an in-common flaw: non-systemic /work-around solutions to the systemic and structural problem of rigid top-down bureaucracies rather then flexible learning organizations. In addition, it avoids the thorny issue of the criteria by which new ideas are vetted for spread, no matter the originator.
Cell phone is a “Work around” traditional bell phone.
Very glad Boston Teachers Union proposed district Pilot Schools as a work around to large traditional schools. Glad Boston School Committee responded positively to this after charter law passed.
Like chartering, Piloting in Boston & LA has mixed results.
Post Secondary Options in Mn empowered high school students and helped convince more high schools to offer more College in the Schools courses.
There’s no single solution.
This article squares with my knowledge of the matter, which I discussed with Shanker at an NEA convention. In Columbus, we took “experimental schools” to the bargaining table and established schools that worked–at least for a period of years–within the master agreement between the union and the district. Our innovative schools were called “Developmental Learning Centers,” a vague, but politically acceptable.
Jack, glad you did this. What happened to the DLC’s?
Here’s good news relevant to this issue for anyone working with, or who has, high school students in their family. Some district & charter high school students in Mn, working on a school project, successfully challenged the state of Minnesota. Their victory means millions of dollars in cash to high school students who lost jobs due to COVID 19, initially in Minnesota. But because the students used a federal law, the benefits they fought for (and won, are available to high school students all over the country.
Here’s a portion of a column about this that I wrote for a number of Minnesota newspapers
https://www.hometownsource.com/morrison_county_record/free/persistence-courage-help-students-win-big-battles/article_3275a7bc-3bc1-11eb-b13a-4f777243b6aa.html
Here’s good news for Minnesota students and families in an update of several topics discussed earlier this year.
First, on Dec. 1, the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled that Minnesota high school students ARE eligible for federal unemployment insurance if they lost their jobs because of COVID-19. Minnesota high school students, Youthprise (a statewide nonprofit) and others had been telling Department of Employment and Economic Development and legislators this for months. DEED disagreed.
The court overruled DEED.
Referring to DEED’s unemployment law judge (ULJ) and a high school student (the “relator”), judges unanimously concluded: “Based on our careful review of the parties submissions and arguments, and the relevant legal authorities, we hold that the ULJ erred by determining that relator is not a ‘covered individual’ under section 2102(a)(3) of the CARES Act. We therefore reverse the ULJ’s decision determining relator ineligible for PUA (Pandemic Unemployment Assistance) benefits.”
The decision is here: http://www.bit.ly/37C0xRF.
Jen Gates of DEED responded on Dec. 3: “DEED has reviewed yesterday’s order from the Minnesota Court of Appeals. We are awaiting the final opinion from the court.”
So will DEED Commissioner Steve Grove finally send money to students? Or will he stall? What will Gov. Tim Walz do to ensure students receive funds the court agrees they earned?
Cole Stevens, of Bloomington, one of the students who spoke with legislators and helped with the court case, explained: “We’re all sick and tired of being sick and tired of injustice and the powers that be. But this just goes to show that anyone can activate change on a large scale with teamwork and dedication. You don’t need lobbyists or a bunch of money!”
High school students who lost jobs during the pandemic should immediately apply for unemployment insurance. Youthprise urges students to do this by Dec. 25 or risk not receiving funds. Here’s how to apply: http://www.bit.ly/36FcBlP.
Wokie Weah, Youthprise president, told me: “This case is an example of what young people can achieve when adults recognize and support their leadership. Many partners played a huge role in this success. We would like to offer special thanks to the Attorney General as well as Greg Merz from Lathrop GPM for his exceptional pro bono legal support.”
Attorney General Keith Ellison wrote: “I’m happy this ruling means young people can now get the unemployment they need and deserve to support their families. The court’s ruling will make it easier for all Minnesotans to afford their lives and live with dignity and respect.”
There’s more good news. Cole and Hayat Muse attended district public schools. Co-student leaders Walter Cortina and Lincoln Bacal attended charters. They modeled what many Minnesotans voted for: constructive, collaborative action.
For Ted Kolderie’s perspective, see https://www.educationevolving.org/pdf/Ray-Budde-Origins-Of-Chartering.pdf.
Shanker saw that free market charter schools were a scam. Diane figured out that test and punish and privatization were all part of the scam. Transferring public money to private entities enriches the already rich. While the poor mostly black and brown students wind up in separate and unequal schools. Separate is never equal.
You can say that again: Separate is never equal.
So are you saying families should have NO choices among public schools? Are you saying it’s ok for wealthy whites to create and live in exclusive suburban public schools where the price of the admission is the ability to buy and maintain an expensive home and property taxes?
Joe Nathan: So you are saying families should have NO choices among where to live? Are you saying it’s okay for wealthy whites to create and live in exclusive suburban neighborhoods where the price of admission is the ability to buy and maintain an expensive home and property taxes?
Yes, I’m saying many low income families are NOT able to attend affluent, mostly white suburban district schools. It’s a myth that “public schools are open to all.”
LCT are you are current or retired teacher?
I am a currently practicing teacher. I warn you, however, not to address me as too many do with any sentences that begin, “Is that what you teach your students…” I don’t like it.
What I was trying to point out is that you are turning a winking eye to segregation: redlining, nimby housing, white flight… Charter schools accept segregation as a given, do nothing to change the situation, compound the problem by allowing parents to self-segregate in schools even when they live in multicultural communities, and take resources away from the vast majority of the victims of wealth inequality. If you cared about civil rights — you do not, but if you did — you would not accept the fact that there are segregated communities in the first place. You would not pretend that by attending charter schools children can overcome the system; you would work to change the system. You would work to get more funding into non-privatized, fully regulated public services.
FYI Like many involved with public school choice, I’ve spent decades working to increase funding for public education. This column, published in Mn’s largest daily newspaper, may interest folks. The co-author, was the first African American elected to the St Paul, Mn City Council. He was the first elected president and later was named by a Democratic Governor as Mn Commissioner of Human Rights.
https://www.startribune.com/in-minnesota-we-must-think-broadly-about-school-integration/363960211/
In Minnesota, we must think broadly about school integration
The face of Minnesota is changing, and so must our integration policy.
By Robert Wedl and Bill Wilson DECEMBER 31, 2015
Following Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, the method to ensure that children of color would attend better schools was to transport them to schools that white children attended. Why? Because the white schools had better curriculum, better teachers, better facilities and better everything. Courts ordered schools to integrate, to eliminate intentional discrimination based on race but also so that black students could attend the better schools.
Minnesota districts, including Minneapolis, intentionally discriminated against black children. But intentionally segregating students by race is far different from our current situation, in which students of color are the predominant population at numerous schools because of demographics and/or parental choice. Minnesota will not tolerate intentional racial segregation, and no credible evidence exists that either district or charter schools are doing so.
Let us be clear. Both of us support integrated communities. However, where people live is driven largely by policies addressing housing, transportation and jobs, and adults have chosen not to comprehensively address those matters.
The world is moving to Minnesota, and those arriving are primarily persons of color. Between 2000 and 2010, people of color comprised 86 percent of the state’s growth. The numbers of Asian and black children tripled, and the number of Hispanic children quadrupled. By 2050, the state will not have a racial majority.
This pace has been accelerated in our schools. The St. Paul district has 78 percent students of color; Minneapolis, 67 percent; Brooklyn Center, 84 percent; Columbia Heights, 76 percent; Richfield, 65 percent; and Robbinsdale, 54 percent. Districts in Greater Minnesota also are experiencing major demographic changes.
Of greater significance, perhaps, is the difference in the cultures and values of our new immigrants, as many of these parents are intentionally choosing schools predominantly with students of color. Given these demographic changes, integrating schools, as sought by recent litigation filed against the state, would require huge movement of students over wide geographic areas. That would not be fair to our children, many of whom are attending schools their parents chose based on the student’s needs and aspirations.
The real question today must be how to achieve better learning for all, regardless of a school’s racial composition. Charter schools and some districts in the metro are creating schools and programs with a wide range of models, so learning becomes more personalized. But the recent litigation would both require increased transport of students and erode parental rights to choose. We believe parents ought not be told where they must send their children to school because of the color of their skin.
While the plaintiffs in the litigation suggest that an adequate education can be provided only in a school that has racial balance, there is no consensus among sociologists who study the issue whether integration improves learning and closes achievement gaps. While there are some schools where it has indeed occurred, numerous charter schools in Minnesota and elsewhere with predominantly students of color are doing exceptionally well. We would suggest that when students are learning, it is primarily because teachers are competently providing instruction and motivation and, of course, where parents are making sure that students attend school daily.
We must try new approaches and improve our current efforts.
• First, we must accelerate Minnesota’s commitment to early childhood education, both with scholarships for low-income children and Gov. Mark Dayton’s preschool for 4-year-olds program.
• Second, we must personalize learning so each student is motivated to learn. We should use methods such as MTSS (Multi-Tiered System of Supports), based on gold-standard research but not present in Minnesota’s urban schools.
• Third, we must redesign and innovate — for instance, empowering professional teachers to make the learning decisions at the school or merging grades 11-14 to increase postsecondary success and work-readiness.
• Fourth, we should have students experience the rich cultures around them by providing interschool, multicultural activities, including using the digital platform with which students are expert to link them around the world in learning activities.
• Fifth, we must emphasize Minnesota’s commitment to a culture that values learning. Re-create the “Brainpower State” in Technicolor!
How to proceed with improving learning for all students must be the key question for policymakers. The future of this nation depends on us doing that — now.
Robert Wedl was commissioner of education for Gov. Arne Carlson, deputy commissioner for Gov. Rudy Perpich, and is now a senior associate with Education | Evolving. Bill Wilson was commissioner of human rights for Gov. Wendell Anderson, a member of the St. Paul City Council and is founding director of Higher Ground Academy charter school in St. Paul.
It has been repeatedly document by the UCLA Center on Civil Rights that charter schools are more segregated than the public schools in the same district.
Minnesota has one of the most segregated charter sectors in the nation.
Shanker also got lots of heat from some union leaders & members did NOT like the idea of allowing some district teachers to create new public schools.
He wrote, quite accurately, that people who tried to create new options in a district were sometimes “treated like traitors or outlaws for moving beyond the lockstep….If they somehow succeeded (in creating a new district option), they could look forward to insecurity, obscurity and outright hostility.”
As a young teacher who worked with families & other educators to create and work in a K-12 public option, I experienced this constantly – as did other alternative district school educators all over the nation.
It is always very annoying to see people invoke Al Shanker’s name as the creator of charter schools, since that appears to give the sanction of teachers’ unions to them. Shanker turned into an outspoken critic of charter schools in 1994, as he saw corporate chains and entrepreneurs and evangelicals embracing the idea. When he saw that right-wingers had hijacked his idea of teacher-led schools that had unions, he warned the public against charters. He said that charters and vouchers were indistinguishable, and he wrote several columns denouncing both forms of privatization before his death in 1997.
What? Joe Nathan has not shown up here to tell us how great charter schools are, and that he loves public schools and sent his own kids to them? Hard to believe! Maybe he has COVID…
More likely he has been driven off. All hail the silo!
No, not driven off. Spent day talking with Mn district & charter students and families about how they are going to receive what they deserve from the state of Mn.
Is anyone on this board working with high school students in states other Mn who have lost their jobs? The decision here can be hugely helpful for kids all over the nation.
Why do charter schools deserve 6 times as much CARES Act funding as public schools?
Have you seen research done by a journalist or researcher not paid by either a pro or anti-charter group that looks at the total amount district & chartered public schools have received in federal CARES act funds? This would include both the funds you are mentioning, other funds from Congress, and other funds distributed by state governments.
Personally, I’m in favor of providing larger per pupil $ and what is called “compensatory aid” in Minnesota to district & charters that serve high percentage of students from low income families and families that don’t speak English as their first language.
Do you agree with this?
Are you with research of the kind described above?
Joe
The research was done by neither a journalist nor a pro- or anti-charter group.
They are facts.
Academica, a for-profit charter chain, collected $28 million.
Buckingham, Browne & Nichols in Cambridge, an elite private school, collected millions.
So did thousands of private and religious schools.
The dollars paid out in PPP funds to charter schools, religious schools, and private schools is about $6 billions.
A question for you, Joe:
Public schools were not permitted to apply for PPP funds. Why did 1,200 charter schools apply and get funded by PPP? Are they private schools?
As mentioned, I asked about the overall federal support that went to district & chartered public schools.
Why not ask the questions – overall – how much did district & chartered public schools receive from federal pandemic relief funds? How does that fit into state funding patterns?
100,000 public schools received $13.2 billion in CARES Act funds, which they shared with charter schools.
The PPP was $669 billion. Public schools were not allowed to apply, but charter schools were (are they private schools?). Over 1200 charter schools received PPP forgivable loans, some in the millions. Thousands of religious and private schools also received large PPP forgivable loans. The elite Buckingham Browne & Nichols in Cambridge, Mass, with an endowment of $75 million, won a PPP “loan” of $5-10 millions. The average public school collected $134,500. The total funding for charters, private, and religious schools was more than $6 billion, almost half of what the entire public school sector received.
Wishful thinking. I wish every charter school vulture would be driven off to somewhere far enough away from public schools that they wouldn’t be able to steal any more from the young people in the public schools. Maybe Betsy DeVos would be willing to take you away on one of her ten frickin yachts to get stranded in the Arctic Sea. You should go ask.
LeftCoastTeacher, I think Teachingeconomist was speaking tongue in cheek, because of personal perceptions of having been driven off to the silo himself after repeatedly promoting the glories of charter schools on this blog in the past.
And I spoke too soon. I guess Joe needed a little more time to find his way & toot his own horn again here…