I recently received a letter from a teacher in Chester-Upland, Pennsylvania. I have written about this district many times, as a large charter company owned by a Philadelphia lawyer is draining it of resources and students for his low-performing charter school. The district is like a lamb led to slaughter, with rapacious wolves ready to gobble it up. See here and here and here and here. See Carol Burris on the takeover of the district here. See Peter Greene on the evisceration of the Chester-Upland schools here (also posted on the blog here).
In case you think that Chester Community Charter School is “helping save poor students from failing public schools,” consider that only 7% of the charter’s students were proficient in math, compared to a state average of 45%, and only 17% of its students were proficient in reading/language arts, compared to a state average of 63%.
Why would state and county officials permit a failing for-profit charter school to take over an entire public school district? Is it because the district is overwhelmingly low-income and black and no one cares?
The teacher asked to remain anonymous for obvious reasons.
He wrote:
My name is XXXXXXXXXX, and I’m a teacher in the Chester Upland School District, which is located in Chester, Pa. Chester is a predominately black, low income, high crime area. We have had 3 students murdered this year, and several others shot. Even though it is a dangerous area, I wouldn’t want to work anywhere else because I love the kids, and I want them to succeed. But our leaders are greedy, and our district is going to be sold off to charter schools if we don’t receive some sort of help.
Here is an overview of what has been taking place:
The city and school district are in a financial crisis. Because of the financial situation, the owner of a for-profit charter school in Chester asked a judge to give his charter, Chester Community Charter, permission to take over all of the elementary schools in the district. Here is the article: https://www.inquirer.com/education/chester-upland-charter-schools-expansion-community-gureghian-20191118.html
The judge denied the request, but this past spring the Republican judge approved outside management for all grades in the district. Here is the article: https://www.delcotimes.com/news/chester-upland-ordered-to-open-its-doors-to-charters/article_70e92906-9707-11ea-b5f8-3383e996854a.html
It seems that the entire district is going to be run by one or several different charter schools which would dissolve all public schools in the city. Besides New Orleans, this is almost unheard of in our country.
A few months ago, the district hired a new superintendent with a checkered past. She was recently fired from her position in New Haven, Conn., which you can read about here:
https://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/superintendent_birks_buyout/
It seems that it is quite a coincidence that Dr. Birks is also a supporter of charter schools. She also became one of the highest paid superintendents in the state which is surprising considering her history and the financial state of the district.
Our school board is being paid by charter schools; there doesn’t seem to be any other explanation. One school board member put out a flyer last December, recruiting community members to come to the courthouse to support the charter schools. Those community members that agreed to show up were provided dinner afterwards, and had their names put into a raffle to receive free TV’s and other devices. It’s hard to see this as anything other than a conflict of interest.
On January 14th, 2021 RFP’s (Request for Proposals) will be held for charter schools to show why they should take over schools in the district. Unfortunately the review board for the RFs is filled with charter school supporters. The community hasn’t had any input about this process. Here are the board members:
Anthony Johnson the board president, receiver Dr. Juan Baughn, Fred Green (who is a board member that rarely attend meetings, and charter advocate for CCCS), Lamont Popley (during the board meeting on December 17th, Baughn said Mr. Lamont Popley was a member of the review board, he’s the principal at Toby Farms. His staff members asked him about this and he said this was the first he heard about being on the review board. He said he hadn’t spoken to Baughn since the spring), 2 other board members, plus Leroy Nunery (former consultant for the school district of Philadelphia’s charter school office), and Jack Pund (he sits on the board of several charter schools, including Agora.)
This would not happen in a white school district. This is racially motivated. This poor community is being taken advantage of, and being sold to the highest bidder, and no one cares. If this community wasn’t poor, and black, people would be outraged with what is going on. But no one is helping. We need help.
Thank you.
Dr. Birks was like this when she was supt of New Haven Public Schools in CONN. Why did your town hire her? She is a nice smart lady but she has her priorities. Who missed this??
The teachers understand the politics behind the destruction of the Chester Upland School District, This story should be a model of what not to do. Pennsylvania has an overly generous reimbursement for charter schools including failing cyber schools that are cheap to operate. It also has a state legislature whose members include those that are invested in charter schools. The democratic governor and conservative legislature have been feuding for years so any change is seemingly impossible.
What is happening with the Chester Upland Public Schools should be considered the civil rights issue of our time. When a wealthy, well-connected private citizen can drive the dismantling of a public school system, we are not in a democracy. We are in an autocracy. This isn’t school choice. It is corruption. Why should poor, black and brown students be forced into failing privatized schools? Civil rights groups should file a lawsuit as these students are being denied the opportunity to attend a legitimate public school. This is a miscarriage of justice imposed on a poor, mostly minority community with little agency.
You are right. Business types saw solid ROI $$$ in the PA charter laws, created by the pro-biz GOP politicos, including Chester charter school owner, Gureghian, a high income, pay-to play campaign donor, attorney!and associate of then GOP governor Tom Corbett. 12 years later Gureghian owns two (2) 30 million estates. He fought public info. and release of his charter school’s financial records to the PA Supreme Court.
And similarly, why should any students be forced into failing public schools?
I think politicians do this because they don’t want to deal with public schools and contracting the whole thing out absolves them of any responsibility and accountability for public education.
Ed reform has been absolutely wonderful if you’re a politician who doesn’t much like to deal with the public and schools. Issue a payment to a contractor every year and wash your hands of the whole thing.
Hey if you don’t like the school take it up with the charter school company. It’s no longer the job of elected leaders, which make elected leaders very happy.
This is just the beginning for ed reform. The ultimate goal is to just issue each family a low value voucher as an education subsidy. Then our political leaders can just spend all their time fundraising and campaigning and they won’t have to work at all.
Privatization is a state’s abrogation of its duty to educate its young people.
It’s also amusing to me how much cherry picking ed reformers do of these privatized districts.
Go right now and try to find anything about Chester-Upland on any of the charter cheerleading outlets.
They omit their failures and market their successes.
They’re all promoting a “portfolio” approach, where various charter companies purchase public schools. Cleveland was one of the first “portfolio” cities, heavily promoted and marketed by the Obama Administration.
Why don’t we hear about Cleveland anymore? I guess it wasn’t turning in the test scores ed reformers hoped to advertise so it’s disappeared from the marketing campaigns.
Ed reformers solved the problem of charters that don’t outperform public schools.
When the charters underperform they switch the privatization argument and insist it’s no longer about “quality” but instead about “choice”.
They moved their own goalposts to accommodate their ideological objections to public entities and labor unions. Now charters don’t have to be better. They just have to be charters.
Neat trick but arguably really deceptive to the public, who were told ed reform would “improve” schools, not just pass them out to politically connected contractors.
yes, move the goalposts to accommodate their opportunism — over and over and over
It’s amazing how the playbook to disrupt and destroy marginalized communities of color never changes. First, select the target. Next, a takeover of the district because of financial distress. Allow more charters to open. Watch district enrollment fall. Now, a perfect time to blow the budget wide open and overspend on personnel you don’t need, resulting in further destabilization and collapse. If these are elected board members, I wonder who is funding their elections. There appears to be little in the way of political capital to elect board members who support authentic public education.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_Upland_School_District#:~:text=Chester%2DUpland%20School%20District%20is%20governed%20by%20nine%20individually%20elected,and%20the%20Pennsylvania%20General%20Assembly.&text=The%20Superintendent%20and%20Business%20Manager%20are%20appointed%20by%20the%20school%20board.
Cherchez La Moolah …
You can bet the lyin’s share of it is ending up in some pols’ coffers …
The Philadelphia lawyer who owns the charter reaps millions of dollars every year from it by supplying all goods and services.
That’s the forward pay. But the scam depends on him kicking back a share of his ill-gotten gains to the politicians who enable him to run it.
Nailed it, Jon.
The inevitable result of putting public money into private hands.
Do you have any comments from parents of children in these charter schools? What is their opinion?