Fiorina Rodov wanted to teach, and, as she writes, she believed the glowing claims about charter schools as beacons of hope for the neediest students. She saw “Waiting for ‘Superman'” and cheered for the kids who wanted to get into a charter. She believed the movie’s hype about the magic of charters. So she got in 2016 a job teaching in a charter school in Los Angeles.
There she learned the truth about charter schools, or at least the one where she was teaching.
The school was non-union. Teacher turnover was high every year. Student attrition was high.
But the chasm between the hype and reality became evident to me immediately upon starting work. There were high attrition rates of students and teachers. Over the summer, more than half the faculty resigned and were replaced by new teachers. About three-quarters of the students hadn’t returned either, and though new kids had registered, the enrollment wasn’t anywhere near what was needed in order to be fiscally stable, because funding was tied to enrollment. There were legal violations: The special education teacher had 43 students, though the law capped class sizes at 28. The overage made him fall behind on students’ individualized education plans (IEPs), making the school noncompliant on special education requirements.
Rodov also learned about the big-money forces promoting the charter myth. She was in L.A. for the election campaign between charter skeptic Steve Zimmer (chair of the LAUSD school board and former TFA) and charter zealot Nick Melvoin. The charter leaders across the city strongly supported Melvoin, of course.
I learned that billionaires fund local school board elections across America in order to accelerate charter school growth. In District 4 in Los Angeles, Steve Zimmer was financed by teachers’ unions while Nick Melvoin was reportedly bankrolled by California billionaires Eli Broad, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, and Gap clothing company co-founder Doris Fisher, as well as out-of-towners like former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Walmart heirs and siblings Jim and Alice Walton, and others in an expensive race...
Furthermore, CCSA [California Charter Schools Association] Advocates donated to an organization called Speak UP, which was a “strong opponent” of Zimmer, according to the Los Angeles Times, and whose co-founder and CEO Katie Braude resides in the Pacific Palisades, where the median home price is about $3.4 million. Braude helped launch the Palisades Charter School Complex, which sought to serve “all students in an ethnically and economically diverse student body,” according to her bio on the Speak UP website. But at Palisades Charter High School, “[w]hite students are 2.8 times as likely to be enrolled in at least one AP class as Black students,” while “Black students are 7 times as likely to be suspended as [w]hite students,” according to ProPublica. In 2016 and 2017, Black students were victims of hate crimes at Palisades Charter High School, and in 2020, a Black teacher sued the school for racial discrimination, wrongful termination, harassment and “intentional infliction of emotional distress.” According to the Pacific Palisades Patch, Pamela Magee, the school’s executive director and principal, responded to the teacher’s allegations via email, “PCHS is an equal opportunity employer, and we take allegations of discrimination seriously…”
Melvoin’s list of individual donations, according to the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission, is filled with some of the same moguls who donated to CCSA Advocates, such as Eli Broad and Reed Hastings. It also includes then-co-chairman of Walt Disney Studios Alan F. Horn, president of the Emerson Collective Laurene Powell Jobs, and Martha L. Karsh and her husband Bruce Karsh, who at the time of the election was the chair of the Tribune Media Company, which then owned the Los Angeles Times. (Bruce Karsh stepped down from the Tribune in October 2017, five months after the school board election.)
The billionaires who fund school board races across the country also finance education reporting. The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, which was partly behind a $490 million plan reported in 2015 to enroll half of LAUSD’s students in charters by 2023, funded the Los Angeles Times’ reporting initiative Education Matters with the Baxter Family Foundation and the Wasserman Foundation, which also support charters. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Amazon (whose founder and former CEO—now executive chairman—Jeff Bezos also owns the Washington Post) fund the Seattle Times’ Education Lab. The Bezos Family Foundation, the Gates Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, founded by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, fund Chalkbeat. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Gates Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation fund Education Week and The 74, which owns the LA School Report. The Gates Foundation finances the Solutions Journalism Network (SJN), whose “Fixes” column in the New York Times covers education and other issues. And Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective owns the Atlantic, which has a robust education section.
The infusion of billionaire cash and media ownership helps to explain why the mainstream media seldom reports on the failures of charter schools or expose their lies and propaganda.
Rodov goes on to explain that her school was finally closed, but no one in the mainstream media in Los Angeles bothered to interview teachers about “the climate of terror at the school.”
She ends with the hope that Biden’s election will mean an end to favoritism towards charter schools and a beginning of focus on public schools, which are a vital democratic institution.
Those of us who are sick of charter school lies and propaganda share her hope. We will know in time whether Biden will keep his promise to cut off federal funding of for-profit charters, whether he will eliminate the $440 million federal Charter Schools Program (which Betsy DeVos used as her private slush fund), and whether he will make the strengthening of public schools his top education priority. Six percent of America’s students attend charter schools, and they are the darling of billionaires like Bill Gates, Reed Hastings, Laurene Powell Jobs, Charles Koch, Michael Bloomberg, and many more (I wrote a chapter in my recent book Slaying Goliath naming the billionaires and corporations that pour money into charter schools). Let the billionaires pay for them.
I just think there should be more truth in advertising in ed reform. If the public wants to expand charters and vouchers and phase out public schools they should vote for or hire ed reformers. If they want people who value and support public schools and public school students they should not elect or hire ed reformers because ed reform offers nothing of practical or productive value to students and families who attend public schools.
Over 20 years of watching ed reform work in my state, Ohio, they have contributed absolutely nothing to public schools other than testing schemes. They have expanded and funded more and more charters and vouchers and they launch one or another political attack on public schools every election cycle- it’s the only work they perform.
There’s nothing for public school students in ed reform so if your goal is to strengthen or improve public schools you should look elsewhere.
It’s unfair to public school students and families to continue to portray this “movement” as about public education. It isn’t. It’s about expanding and funding and marketing charter schools and vouchers. They do no other work.
If your state is dominated by the ed reform echo chamber, as my state is, you can see this for yourself. Go look at the legislative record on education. You will find bill after bill promoting and funding charters and vouchers and NOTHING accomplished that is even relevant to public school students.
Session after session in Ohio, a state where 90% of students and families use public schools, no one gets anything done for them. They’re wholly consumed with meeting the latest list of ed reform demands on charters and vouchers.
It’s ludicrous. It’s “public education policy” that excludes 90% of students and families because they attend the public schools ed reformers are ideologically opposed to.
You can’t PAY state employees in Ohio to perform any work on behalf of students in public schools- they’re simply not interested. They contribute nothing and we’re paying hundreds of them.
I almost fell off my chair when I saw the Biden Administration invited public schools to the school reopening summit. Bravo. The 20 year ban on public school advocates in the US Department of Education appears to have ended. There must be an entire generation of US Department of Education employees who have never heard anything positive from or about a public school. One could have had a whole career in that place under anti-public school adminisitrations, because Bush was 8 years, and then Obama for 8, then Trump for 4. That’s 20 years of Jeb Bush dictating US education policy.
Out of curiosity I took a look at the Great Schools website to get an idea of what they had to say about my old district. In the latest reinvention of the site, my integrated school system is ranked lower. I think they may have revised their algorithm. I looked at the other integrated districts, and they were also ranked lower. The updated Great Schools includes much more information on demographics. It also has the following “parent tip” in the test score section. “One key way the best schools help all students learn is by giving them voice and choice.” It not only rates and ranks, Great Schools is now overtly endorsing school choice,.
FYI- Mother Jones looks at the biased rankings of Great Schools. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/09/greatschools-testing-segregation/
Great Schools is a fraud. It is funded by Billionaires and people who can pay for boosted ratings. Zillow is a major user/ pusher of Great Schools rankings…pay to play.
Laura, as usual, is correct. This, the hoovering of data, is the reason for the push to reopen schools – and to let the testing commence. Commerce wants the data.
So much wasted money…. and so many missed opportunities for sustainable projects. If only more followed the LeBron James model – and chose a public school initiative to invest in. Or better yet, if only they paid their fare share of taxes to contribute to a better system for all.
fair
” . . . whether he (Biden) will make the strengthening of public schools his top education priority.” CBK
A lot will depend on whether Cardona and Marten will stand up to all charter lobbyists working in the DOE. We know the office is stacked with former Gates and other pro-privatization members. Cardona should have the final say on the direction the department takes so we will have to wait and see what happens.
Cardona is currently not coming off well where standardized testing is concerned: his latest argument is that scores must be gathered so that his office will know HOW to address problems aggressively
I thought Cardona wants to compare states. Or, he wants to know which kids are in need of extra resources. Or something else.
That is a naive response, IMO.
According to a report from EdSurge, someone in President Biden’s transition office made no less than 47 appointments to the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) before Dr. Michael Cardona was confirmed on March 1. These appointments were announced in three press releases with a brief description of the qualifications for each appointee. I have been analyzing these qualifications, adding information gleaned from other sources including LinkedIn and key-word searches on the Internet.
I have also plotted how these appointees populate specific offices at USDE as of 2021. For that exercise, I used the current administrative structure of USDE, available as an infographic at https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/or/index.html and the list version at https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/index.html.
The lines of responsibility, job titles, and hierarchies of responsibility are a maze. Perhaps that is why so many appointees are legacies from the Obama administration. Thee are still many “open positions.”
Laura,
Who chose the 47 people appointed to the Department of Education before Cardona was confirmed? My hunch: Carmel Martin.
Good guess. Carmel Martin is one of at least four former Center for American Progress “experts” who have key positions. At least twenty-two had positions in Obama’ Education Department.
Diane, thank you so much for sharing my writing here, on Twitter, and on NPE’s blog. I also want to thank your readers for reading and sharing my work. Happy Passover to everyone who celebrates!
Thank you, Florina, for speaking out. I have been following your work for a while.