Bruce Baker is a school finance expert at Rutgers. For years, he has been concerned about the lack of transparency and accountability in the charter industry. In this post, he foresees the possibility or likelihood that recent Supreme Court decisions pave the way for charter schools to become religious schools and he suggests a model that would protect the charter concept from being corrupted.
https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2021/07/16/charter-schooling-in-the-post-espinoza-fulton-era/
He writes:
Charter schooling is at a critical juncture and the future of charter schooling across US states can take either of two vastly different paths. On the one hand, charter schooling could become increasingly private, more overtly religious, openly discriminatory and decreasingly transparent to voters, taxpayers and the general public. On the other hand, charter schooling could be made more public and transparent and be shielded from religious intrusion and all that comes with it. We recommend a policy framework which advances the latter and protects against the former.
Maryland, he suggests, has a model for charters that other states should emulate.
Maryland provides one example which is sufficiently tight in this regard. Charter schools are authorized by, governed by and financed through their host county school districts. Further, while private management companies may be hired to “operate” the schools, employees of the schools are under county district contracts. That is, teachers and other certified staff in Maryland charter schools are public employees and themselves “state actors,” even when they work under the direction of a private management company.
This model provides for increased public transparency, and at the same time, minimizes potential for religious intrusion on the charter sector. A truly public governing board (like the district board of education, appointed or elected) would not be able to exclude from management contracts, firms with religious ties or origins on that basis alone. But, given that instruction is provided by public employees and the school governed by public officials, the school would be bound by constitutional requirements regarding discrimination and the provision of religious curriculum (here, the establishment clause prohibits advancement or promotion of religion).
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Easy.
Eliminate them.
What could be more transparent than a school that does not exist?
Agreed. And that would put an end to the diversion of funds away from public schools.
Why pay for that extra layer of management?
SomeDAM Poet,
AGREE totally … “Eliminate them.”
Charters are BAD.
Transparent, See?
Transparency is easy
With wrecking ball as tool
To make it clear and breezy
Where once there was a school
Making Charters Accontable
Accounting’s easy too
When school does not exist
The books are all in view
With such a school as this!
Baker us making things far more complicated than they need to be, missing the Forest Gump for the thieves, so to speak.
I interviewed with a New York City charter chain last week. Word fail me, really, in attempting to summarize the shortcomings of this institution. But here’s one fun fact: the principal of the school made a point of telling me, during the interview, that she didn’t have a background in education. She communicated this fact not as though it was a deficit to be overcome, but rather a virtue to be celebrated. I wrote them the next morning informing them I wasn’t interested in pursuing it. In the case of this chain, it is clearly a business, not an educational institution.
Next thing you know, they will be telling you they don’t have a background in humanity — that they are robots.
I’ve been to a lot of interviews in the past several months, SomeDAM. One thing I can tell you is that the teaching profession seems to have been taken over by clerks. It’s very disappointing. Also, there appears to be an inverse relationship between how much I myself learn about teaching and learning, and work to integrate it into practice, and how desirable I am as a member of a faculty. I have not worked since March of 2020, so I have had a very long run of self-directed professional development. I feel like I have a bunch of shiny new instruments in the toolbox of my pedagogical practice and nowhere to use them.
That’s very sad.
From what I have read from you and others here, it seems like the privatizers don’t even need to lift a finger at this point because the system is destroying itself from the inside.
You’re right, SomeDAM, that is exactly what it is: sad. I’m thinking of taking a job (I’m serious about this) in a local artisanal cheese factory. Can I get anyone some fresh mozzarella for a nice Caprese salad?
So true. The ultimate, profit producing scheme is failing cyber instruction. More money is made by eliminating any human contact. Just ask Michael Milken! Milken has so much money from K-12, he bought a pardon from Trump.
The Ideal Principal
Limited I ain’t
By silly human trait
A robot’s what I am
Emotion’s in the can
I’m rational and quick
Persistent as a tick
A data driven bloke
Without the human yoke
Also, there appears to be an inverse relationship between how much I myself learn about teaching and learning, and work to integrate it into practice, and how desirable I am as a member of a faculty.
This pretty much sums up the state of teaching today. Schools have become so authoritarian, so micro-managed, that administrators don’t want an extremely competent person. They want an unsure neophyte whom they can easily boss around–someone who won’t be taking initiative and having ideas, which are causes for termination.
Well, that pretty much sums it up. I’ll go apply at the cheese factory tomorrow.
I was shocked. Mark, when I decided to go back into teaching, and I ran into this. I figured that with my pretty amazing resume in education, I would be shoe-in–that people would take one glance (“You write this famous book on writing the research paper used in millions of schools?”) and snap me right up. Well, wrong. I looked and looked and looked until I finally landed a position, and I saw recent graduates of pseudo-universities get jobs ahead of me. It was really weird. I had never had this experience in publishing. There, almost always, when I went for the interview, I got the job.
This is in fact my experience at the moment. It’s demoralizing—even degrading. I’m a disciplined, even compulsive autodidact. I’ve worked steadily and ardently (sometimes I wonder if I’m compensating for not finishing my doctorate) to become the kind of teacher I think inner-city kids deserve. Last week I attended a three-day professional development event on debate-centered instruction. All of this, apparently, is now liability in the educational labor market. What I’m left wondering is how the hell did this happen? Of course that’s something of a fatuous question, since by my observation of and occasionally my participation in these fora I have had a front-row seat to this depredation and devaluing of the teaching profession. And, Bob? I deeply appreciate your insight into this and remarks on it. Because I’m right in the middle of this, I possess little perspective on it. Yours is invaluable to me.
Mark: send me some Gorgonzoa.
Hahahahaha! I’ll see if they make it at Maplebrook (that’s the name of the company).
Mark, perhaps the best publishing manager I ever had was a brilliant, deeply cultured fellow named Bill Grace, who once said to the rest of us, in a meeting, “You all might be wondering about the secret to my success. It’s pretty simple: I hire people who know a h— of a lot more than I do and then get out of their way.”
What happened to all the people like Bill Grace?
The truth was that Bill was being generous. One would be sorely pressed to find folks who knew a helluva lot more than did Bill.
Ugh! Typos. Here are corrections: “a shoe-in,” “You wrote”
Someone like you, Mark, scares TF out of these administrators who don’t really have a clue what they are doing. They are afraid you will show them up.
Thanks for saying so, Bob. I wondered about that, but discounted it because of my own doubts about my abilities. Your peer review helps a lot.
Mark, I am very familiar with your superb website, MarksTextTerminal. I know how incredibly competent you are. Your experience demonstrates just how insane things have become. Schools should be clamoring for you.
When I first started looking for a teaching job, I would haul to the interview with me a big stack of the literature, composition, grammar, and research paper books I had written or edited. The idea was to establish myself as a learned person with authoritative, relevant knowledge. The stable geniuses who interviewed me weren’t interested. Rather, they were intimidated or thought I was overqualified for what they consider a low-level, bottom-of-the-rung occupation.
Teaching. That’s how they view teaching, the profession of Jesus and the Buddha.
Nice! Thanks Bob.
Utterly bizarrely, we have come to such a pass in U.S. K-12 education that WHAT YOU KNOW is considered irrelevant by the folks who hire teachers.
Teachers. Those in charge of passing on to future generations what we of our generation know.
All I can say about that is that Puck nailed it: A Midsummer Nights Dream, Act III, scene ii, ll. 110–115
irrelevant or even a liability
I do think it’s a liability. For the reasons you stated…. there are admins who don’t want to be found out and like to hire brand new teachers who look only to them. And experienced teachers are expensive.
Fifteen years ago we hired a teacher who was 50 and had 20 years experience – out of a really large pool of candidates. The team hired the best fit and who they thought was most qualified. The principal was a seasoned teacher/professional who valued experience.
That would never happen today.
It’s totally bizarre, BeachTeach, but true. Businesses don’t work this way, and neither did schools, as you say, in the past.
Thanks to Bob and markstextterminal and beachteach for making so many good observations. I hope that with the extra money from the pandemic, schools will see the value in hiring more experienced teachers to help the students who have had their learning impacted by COVID.
Just one quibble, however. Bob said “Businesses don’t work this way…”
I would argue they do. Ask any 45 year old who gets laid off from a job in almost any field (and in some fields being over 40 is a problem!) Ask any 50 year old who gets laid off from a business. Unfortunately, being older, more experienced, and more expensive makes finding a job much harder. I don’t know if some fields are exempt – like medicine. There seem to always be jobs for experienced doctors and nurses, although perhaps the specifics of that also make it harder for the older ones. I can think of a few other careers where older and experienced folks seem to thrive when they job hunt, but not too many.
NYC PSP, yes, you are right. In general, in publishing, I have seen experience and expertise rewarded. However, I know of one situation in which the new, young leader of the house basically found reason to get rid of everyone over fifty and replace each one with someone in his or her 20s with an Ivy League degree. This was, of course, disastrous for the business.
But please, I think this really, really important–this is NOT, emphatically not, just garden-variety ageism in U.S. K-12 education. There is also, demonstrably, a strain of anti-intellectualism and disrespect for subject matter expertise among K-12 administrators. After decades of know-nothing, top-down “accountability,” it has become par for the course, in my experience, for K-12 administrators to think they know better than do history teachers how to teach history, better than English teachers how to teach English, better than math teachers how to teach math, better than foreign language teachers how to teach foreign languages. I remember a time when this was not so. I have this to say to such administrations: Respect your teachers, you xxx-ing fools!
Hmm… from what I can tell (2nd-hand), there’s a different take at the NYS hisch [1400 enrollment] where my sis is in admin. Opposite, really. Now I’m beginning to wonder if it’s due to their admin structure & how they staff it. They like most have had a revolving door of mediocre younger principals with little teaching experience. But they have 4 asst principals, the majority of whom stick around & are recruited from experienced teaching force. Among other duties, they are the folks who supervise teachers, & interview/ recommend new hires…
“There is also, demonstrably, a strain of anti-intellectualism and disrespect for subject matter expertise among K-12 administrators.”
Truth doesn’t seem to matter, respect and kindness fall by the wayside, experience and expertise doesn’t matter…..
Sometimes it seems that all that matters to certain politicians… and some admins who are political and have an agenda.. . . . is how to spin something to my advantage… so I am in charge and get what I need.
“he suggests a model that would protect the charter concept from being corrupted.”
Is that like a model that would protect Bernie Madoff from being corrupted?
a model that would prevent Donald Trump from being corrupted? John Gotti?
When it comes to models, i bet Trump is only interested in one thing: “Corrupt me, honey”
Exactly, someDAM. Trump is a crook who has, for MANY decades, headed a criminal organization. He is in the BUSINESS of corruption. If ever there were a group that ought to be brought up under RICO charges, his is such.
Add the traitorous relationship with Moscow, and you have a level if criminality rarely seen in the history of the world.
And yet he continues to slither away, the Teflon Don 2.0. It’s a great indictment of our justice system that he continues to get away with it.
The described charter model wouldn’t satisfy a “Christian statesman” like former Michigan state senator, Patrick Colbeck, who is credited with expansion of school choice legislation in Mich.
Colbeck who attended a Catholic high school is in the news at Daily Beast today. The article describes a June 2021 rally in Lansing that called for an audit of the Mich. 2020 election. Reportedly, Colbeck referred to the event as a “spiritual battle” and he compared the 2020 election to the persecution of Christ. For libertarians, there is no bar too low for them to use to get support.
At the Michigan School Choice site readers find the statement, “One of the greatest mistakes in Am. history was allowing government to educate our children”. The site criticizes CRT. It posts a link to a Colbeck speech. Presumably, if students were educated at private schools like Georgetown University they could expect the continuation of a 230 year history of male presidents.
Colbeck is also interviewed at Extraordinary God. Readers can find a link to the speech at the site of the Holy Spirit Catholic Church.
We can infer that Colbeck wants men like Trump, who are racist and sexist, in power. He wants authoritarianism not democracy. Colbeck shames Christ by invoking his name in defense of the indefensible.
The Michigan School Choice Facebook site asked readers to call the chair of the Michigan Senate Appropriations Committee to oppose the pay that Dr. Curtis Ivery receives as Chancellor of Wayne Co. Community College. The request includes a photo of Dr. Ivery who is Black.
Maybe I’m whistling in the wind, but I am opposed to all public funding for any type of charter school. We don’t need a dual track school system which will inevitably shortchange some at the expense of others. That’s the fight.
Agree, as a taxpayer I don’t want to pay for oversight of dual systems, especially when one of the two has been plagued with financial corruption. Nor, should the public be forced to rely on after-the-fact enforcement of crimes when it is too late to recover money already spent for the lavish lifestyles of privateers.
Secondarily, the public should expect to have the right to democratically elect school boards.
You are clearly whistling Dixie.
The issue has already been “framed.” (Isn’t that great?)
It’s a matter of fixing the charters, not eliminating them (or at least yanking public funding)
I agree. But, as a public school teacher, I also see the need for other avenues to break free of the siloed (sped, reg ed, etc), bureaucracy that is being part of a public school system.
The plus of some (not for profit) charter schools is they allow us to try out different models. This is hard to do in a big system with a variety of decision makers who have conflicting interests and aren’t all on the same page.
Starting a fresh school – with a small group that is on the same page, and have the same vision – can allow for innovation. It could support creative solutions and new approaches.
A few “mom and pop” charters may be doing it for the right reasons. Most of the charter sector is in the business to generate profit at the expense of public schools. BTW, charters have been around now for almost thirty years, where are all those innovations?
The question is, I think, how to build ability to build ability to try new things into public systems and how to transform them from hide bound bureaucracies into learning organizations with flexibility. Hard but vital.
@Arthur Camins. I agree with this.
Exactly right, Arthur!
I have more questions than answers. In Maryland are the teachers members of a union? Are their salaries and benefits on par with teachers in public schools? If the public owns the real estate why not simply have another public school, assuming there is a need? Are the surrounding public schools required to lose money as a result of this arrangement?
I agree with Arthur. Why does the public need another private school that will make the existing public schools less efficient? If the charter is for a specialized program, the public already has specialized magnet schools to serve specific needs. I don’t see how this plan is substantially less “murky,” other than there would be some level of fiscal accountability.
Retired,
I think that one possible answer to your question is that parents of children of color might wish to escape the systematic racism of public education.
What? Public schools are not systemically racist. There is more segregation in private schools and charter schools than in public schools.
If disparate outcomes among racial groups in policing are evidence of systemic racism in law enforcement, why are disparate outcomes among racial groups in K-12 not evidence of systemic racism in K-12?
Of course, the systemic racism in the US is reflected in our public schools. However, charter schools exacerbate rather than mediate that systemic problem.
What about the systematic racism of charter schools, private schools, home schooling and religious schools? The real public schools accept whoever walks through the door. Does the systemic racism that exists in our society find its way into our schools, public, charter and otherwise? Probably, to varying degrees, but the real public schools work hard to overcome any systemic racism that may exist in the school setting.
“The real public schools accept whoever walks through the door.”
Not unless you live in the catchment. Otherwise it’s hit the bricks, pal.
“Not unless you live in the catchment. Otherwise it’s hit the bricks, pal.”
I should have added that you have to be a resident of the school district. Anyone who lives in the school district can enroll their kids in the REAL public schools of that district. I thought that would be an obvious given. I’m sure you can dig up some other exception that I’m not thinking about now. Nit pick away. Oh yeah, they have to be earthlings and featherless bipeds.
I wouldn’t call it a nit. One of the reasons charters appeal to many parents is because they aren’t satisfied with their zoned public schools for various reasons.
FLERP! says: “Not unless you live in the catchment”.
Comparing living in a catchment restrictions to being able to pick and choose students is disingenuous.
Public schools are RESPONSIBLE for all students who live in the catchment whether they attend that public school or not. If a child who lives in a catchment area attends a private school or a charter school that ceremoniously dumps them mid-year, the catchment public school must take them immediately or find a suitable education alternative, even if it means paying $80,000/year for a private school for students with severe special needs.
What greedy and unethical charter promoter wouldn’t want to push the false narrative that charters are comparable to public schools because there is no difference between being responsible for the education of all students in a catchment area, and picking and choosing the students you want to teach and being incentivized to dump the ones you don’t because all you need to do to absolve your school of any responsibility to the student is to put then on a got to go list and make sure they go.
Of course, when there is no accountability or transparency, no one knows exactly how many kids are put on the equivalent of got to go lists.
Tell it to charter school parents. I know all the policy arguments, as does everyone in this comment thread.
“One of the reasons charters appeal to many parents is because they aren’t satisfied with their zoned public schools for various reasons.”
“Various reasons” all boil down to “because the zoned public schools have to teach ALL students”.
One of the reasons that charters dump the children of many of those parents who “weren’t satisfied with their zoned public schools” and thought charters were more appealing is that those parents didn’t realize that the choice ultimately was not theirs but the charter school’s choice.
If a charter isn’t satisfied with a child “for various reasons”, they have no reason to teach that child except for the integrity of the people running the charter. And unfortunately, as we see by their false claims and their reprehensible demonizing of the very youngest students if their parents dare to speak out, there is almost no integrity in the charter movement. At best, their are some complicit charter operators who avoid the very worst practices but who remain silent because they benefit from people believing the false narratives presented by others.
A lot of parents were very dissatisfied with their zoned schools long, long before charter schools existed. It’s a problem that many public school parents (not you) face and it would be interesting if this blog discussed that problem 1% of the time it spent repeating that charter schools are bad.
Please respond with 10,000 words, thx.
FLERP!,
Tell it to the parents whose kids were demonized and dumped from charters.
Or don’t those kids matter?
False narratives don’t help the parents in charters who like it. They could still be in charters even if charters explained up front that they have no interest in teaching any students who don’t help the charter financially or in their marketing and PR efforts.
The lies only help those who run and promote charters, not the students they allow to remain in their schools on the condition that they don’t hurt a charter’s bragging rights or cost them too much money.
FLERP!,
By the way, your ridiculous argument “tell it to the charter school parents” can be made about parents who choose schools that teach white supremacy.
We all assume that people who say “tell it to the parents” condone all schools as long as the parents like being in them.
When someone says “the policy issues are already known so let’s ignore them and focus on whether or not parents like their school”, it is clear that they support vouchers, white supremacist and for-profit schools all paid for by tax dollars taken from public school budgets. After all, parents like those schools and discussing “policy arguments” is irrelevant.
“Tell it to the parents” is the guiding mantra for people who reject all policy arguments and say that all that matters is that the parents who choose that school (and are allowed to remain) are happy.
Fortunately, when southern whites started their own segregated schools, comments like FLERP!’s “tell it to the parents” were roundly rejected even though many people felt that a segregated school was fine if the parents were happy.
“Tell it to the parents” is nasty. A real conversation would be to think about what it is that draws parents to some schools and see if it makes better sense to establish public schools that offer that.
I hope FLERP! would agree that just because some parents want a white supremacy curriculum does not mean that the public school system should establish schools to teach that. Or would FLERP! post “tell it to the parents” and advocate for more of that?
But if parents in high poverty areas want schools that are only for the most motivated families and exclude students who struggle academically or behaviorally, then that is the conversation that should be had. It certainly makes no sense to give that very profitable franchise to a private organization instead of establishing more of those schools.
Curious, why do you consistently use the third person to refer to people whose comments you’re responding to? I assume it’s because you want to talk about the commenter, rather than to the commenter.
So have that conversation. Because that’s what a lot of public school parents want. Particularly with respect to behavior—bullying, violence, constant classroom disruption. People can still talk about how charter schools are evil if they want. But it would be interesting to see people here discuss how to solve the quandary faced by a lot of public school parents, especially in high-poverty areas.
Arthur,
I think the public school system does not just reflect the racism in society, the public school system is essential in maintaining the racism in society. Given the importance of education to society, how else could a racist society maintain itself?
This comment is wacky. Public schools accept all students. Private and religious schools are highly segregated.
Jersey Joe,
After listening to Nicole Hanna Jones reporting about the Normandy Public School District (https://www.thisamericanlife.org/562/transcript and https://www.thisamericanlife.org/563/transcript ) and explain why African American parents should happily let the “real” public school system of Missouri make choices on behalf of their children.
I look forward to your response.
FLERP!,
I honestly can’t keep up with all the restrictions you demand when you police my posts for supposed “style offenses” instead of addressing the substance of my post. I try not to respond to any of your comments with a question, as I know that bothers you although you certainly do it yourself. I suspect if I said “you” too much, you’d probably attack that, too. Whatever.
You say “So have that conversation”.
Why don’t you have that conversation?
I have seen no evidence you want to have any kind of discussion except snark. I respond to your posts when they are disingenuous. I hope to have that discussion with beachteach below, while you post snarky remarks and refuse to actually offer your own opinion about anything except how offended you are with my posts — you are always happy to offer an opinion about that. Just not public schools.
You say “it would be interesting to see people here discuss how to solve the quandary faced by a lot of public school parents, especially in high-poverty areas.”
Why don’t you discuss it truthfully instead of posting useless comments like “tell it to the parents”. That remark does nothing to solve the quandary faced by public school parents, especially in high-poverty areas. But it does solve the problem of pro-charter advocates who don’t want to address their lies. “Parents want it”.
If you stopped being so disingenuous and demonstrated some desire yourself to respond to comments with real discussion, you would be part of a real conversation. No doubt you prefer to style police this comment instead.
Flerp
Re: Comment at 10-17
When apples and oranges are compared, researchers generate the conclusions they want.
Flerp
As long as we’re doing apples and oranges- in Italy in the 1920’s, Mussolini claimed he’d get the trains running on time. Possibly, on some occasions, some people were able to ride the trains on time because of Mussolini’s efforts. Was Fascist leadership worth the price even to those who arrived at their destination at the time they wanted?
There is no systemic racism in public education. Outcomes, if one insists on continuing to misuse that word as if a human is just a computer with simple inputs and outputs, are caused by a number of factors: historical, environmental, and organic. Every person’s life is unique and complex.
Systemic racism is caused by law, not by law enforcement. Individual incidents of racism are caused by law enforcement. For racism to be systemic, it must be caused by a system, not by enforcement of a system. Three strikes laws, minimum sentencing laws, various drug laws, stop and frisk… are examples of our system of oppression. The murder of George Floyd, on the other hand, was caused by a racist individual — not systemic.
Systemic racism in education also is caused by law, not by schools or teachers. Individual incidents of racism are caused by individual racists in private, private charter, and public schools. The allowance of disparate funding, the allowance of Teach for America and of charter schools that hire the least experienced teachers to save for executive salaries and related third party contracts and sweeps contracts, the allowance of charter segregation academies, annual standardized testing, the closing of public schools because of test scores, the banning of CRT, the very creation in the first place of a private system that would one day operate alongside a public system…are examples of our system of oppression. Stop blaming teachers for everything and take a closer look at our laws. The law is the system in the phrase ‘systemic racism’.
And a big part of systemic racism in education is the lack of transparency and accountability among charter companies.
Leftcoastteacher,
You say there is no systemic racism in public education, emphasizing it with capitals, then you go on to explain the systemic racism in public education, say that it is caused by law and list some examples. I would also add the laws that give the majority the right to construct school districts and catchment areas.
I find those two parts of your post contrectory. Do you think there is systemic racism in public education or not?
Please clarify your question.
Leftcoastteacher,
You said “there is no systemic racism in public education” and you also said “Systemic racism in education also is caused by law” in the same post.
Is there, or is there not, systemic racism in public education?
There is systemic racism in the way state legislatures take funding away from Black students with testing, charters, and TfA. The racism is in the halls of the legislatures that push privatization, not in the halls of the public schools.
Leftcoastteacher,
I have to side with Bob Shepard on the definition of systematic racism he gives in a post a couple of days ago. (see https://dianeravitch.net/2021/07/21/paul-butler-uncs-treatment-of-nikole-hannah-jones-was-a-demonstration-of-crt/#comment-3275388 ). I do not think you are using it in the standard way.
I will make the same suggestion to you that I made to Jersey Joe: listen to or read Nikole Hannah-Jones reporting on the Normandy School District ( here https://www.thisamericanlife.org/563/transcript and here https://www.thisamericanlife.org/563/transcript ). None of the things you mention as systematic racism are present in the reporting, but I think it is a fine example of systemic racism in public education. I would be interested to hear you argue that it is not an example of systemic racism.
On a side note, for a bunch of folks who support Nikole Hannah-Jones 1000%, the reluctance to think about and discuss her reporting on education is disappointing.
I have read Hannah-Jones on education. Many carefully researched and well-written articles. She was the keynote speaker at the Network for Public Education’s annual conference when it met in Oakland. I haven’t read everything she ever wrote but I did read her essay in The 1619 Project. Have you? I thought it was brilliant.
Economist, you posted a link to one of Bob’s comments as an example of what is right, and the comment after Bob’s in the link is you saying you disagree with him. You do not sense make, dude.
There does need to be an avenue for students in hard hit city areas, with lots of violence, and a level of toxic stress that has even been documented to create emotional and cognitive disabilities…. there has to be an way for students to be removed from that toxic stress – that is carried into the schools in those areas.
I don’t know what the ultimate perfect solution is, but those who are in a place to focus on academics need a safe school immediately. And I can see why some parents would turn to a charter school.
The most promising model is well funded community based public schools with wrap around services. Some urban schools have supports for homeless students where they can do homework at the school, or they can do their laundry at school so students will have clean clothes. In my opinion public schools stand the best chance of helping these types of students because they are operated by trained professional with experience with deeply poor, vulnerable students that have faced trauma. Some schools now are dealing with Covid orphans! It would make more sense to put money directly into student services than wasting unaccountable money on wealthy amateurs in privatization
I agree. I am on your side on this. I am pro-public school.
But I have worked in areas where a chunk of students are left in a very well funded…. but dysfunctional (for these students) environment. and My point is that I completely understand why their parents would choose the charter option.
The dream use of resources – and set up that we all wish for – is not happening in many areas and parents don’t want to wait for this utopian school to be built. They think they have found it in the charter school.
When some urban schools become so underfunded, the safety of students may decline. As a result, parents may opt for a safer school with smaller class sizes. If schools were fairly funded, this would be less of an issue. Large urban school districts are often seriously underfunded.
True. It is also true that it is more expensive to educate students who are at-risk with behavioral, social and emotional issues. I am trying to dance around an issue – but mainstreaming these students and holding a teacher “accountable” for their behavior – in order to save money – can create a difficult situation for all involved.
I agree that if schools were well funded….. and the money was used to lower class sizes and create well developed programs within a school including programs to provide intensive therapeutic settings for students who need it – etc. – this would be a beautiful thing.
In the meantime….. parents are going to do what they think is safest and best for their child. They don’t have the time or luxury to wait for politicians to do what is right and fund our schools at the level needed and take away harmful mandates.
You’ve written some thoughtful comments in this thread, beachteach.
beachteach,
Your thoughtful discussion is impossible to have in this country because of the false narratives pushed by charter school advocates. In that false narrative, all that is needed is for all public schools to get less money, have newly minted recent college graduates replacing experienced teachers, and use a “no excuses” discipline.
If the false narratives — the lies — of charter schools didn’t proliferate, there could be a real discussion of whether the urban public school system itself needs to have two kinds of public schools in the most poverty stricken urban neighborhoods. One kind of public school would be for the families that want a “safe school immediately” that focuses on academics and would exclude all students that interfere with the process of providing a “safe school” that focuses on academics.
If that was the discussion, there might be lots more public schools in the poorest neighborhoods that excluded students the way charters do, but the difference would be that the students in them were taught by experienced, competent teachers and that students would have behavioral expectations similar to those in affluent suburban public schools. And there would be no false narratives.
No excuses is a sham – a racist sham – that depends on the same implicit racism that racist policing like stop and frisk does. Given the high number of students who disappear from no-excuses charters, it is highly likely that the students who remain would have thrived in public schools that didn’t have no-excuses. “No excuses” is just an excuse to target and humiliate kids who struggle academically or behaviorally. By setting near impossible standards that middle class white 5 year olds aren’t expected to meet — sitting quietly, hands folded and eyes tracking the teacher at all times — those schools manufacture the perfect excuse to humiliate and punish students they don’t want to teach. I suspect nearly every student who remains could have learned in an environment that treated those students like middle class white students instead of like criminals. The fact that charter advocates keep insisting that isn’t possible is appalling in its racist undertones — and the charter advocates sound just like the people saying that it was impossible to end stop and frisk because those neighborhoods “needed” harsh police tactics.
Of course, if the public school system did establish more public schools in poverty stricken urban neighborhoods that excluded all students with academic or behavioral problems, the big question would be what happens to the rest of the students. And that SHOULD be the question. It should be discussed with honesty. Because right now, it is being discussed with the lies of charters — “no excuses works miracles” — being accepted as if they were true.
Charters push this false narrative that prevents real solutions for how to help the students who do struggle to learn. Charters push the false narrative that any student can become a high performing scholar just by attending their no excuses charter. If those charters had been run by people with an ounce of integrity, that wouldn’t be the narrative. But the charter movement has been taken over by people who justify the false narratives they push that are so financially rewarding to them personally by claiming they are doing it for the kids. They aren’t. They are doing it for themselves, and only the students whose presence helps them matter.
But the students who actually benefit from charters that exclude so many other students can be helped by establishing schools that aren’t run by greedy folks with no moral compass. The public school system would be much better off if people who believe in honesty were listened to. It’s a shame that education reporters prefer to treat people with no integrity as if they had any interest in an honest discussion.
@ NYC public school parent
I completely agree with you. I was just empathizing with families who are backed in a corner and need a different option. They are desperate.
beachteach,
I also empathize with those parents — it’s why I once supported charters before I understood what they were. And once I realized how dishonest those charters’ practices were, I ALSO empathized with all the parents who were backed into a corner and were desperate for a different option and thought they had found it in a charter, only to learn that the charter didn’t care how desperate they were, they only cared about whether their kid would help the charter’s dishonest and disingenuous PR efforts to undermine public schools by promoting the false narrative that they could turn any student into a higher performing scholar.
Those families who were desperate but the charter didn’t want to teach their kid also deserve empathy, but people forget about them because they have internalized the constantly repeated false narrative promoted by the ed reform industry that if a charter says those kids are unworthy, then those kids are unworthy. No wonder there is so little political will to help those kids — remember the brilliant people who have “proved” they can turn every kid from failing schools into a high performing scholar have already said there is something really wrong with those kids and they simply can’t be helped, period. If they could, the charter certainly wouldn’t be dumping them, right?
I’m not so sure about public schools being well funded in low income neighborhoods. I think charter parents want to escape from under-funded schools. I’ve taught at schools serving housing projects, middle-ish income, and high end income, all in the same school district. The school serving housing projects had exposed asbestos in the classrooms. The school serving high income students had money to build tennis courts.
I worked on the school site council overseeing the budget in all three schools. The school in the low income neighborhood had just enough to buy a copy machine. The schools in middle and high income neighborhoods both had much more. It’s simple. The wealthy schools have a history of spending more money. The allotment is based on prior spending. When the site council at the wealthy school runs out of necessities to buy, we buy things we don’t need to keep the annual funding level going. Inequality is baked in.
@NYC public school parent: Like I said below – “leeches”
Although…. I would like to think that some of the smaller operations were naive enough to think they could do what they promised and did have the children’s best interest at heart when they started.
Yes!
The more charters undermine public schools, the more parents will look for “better” alternatives like charters. I supported charters until I realized that they weren’t simply interested in teaching students whose parents wanted them there, they were interested in undermining public schools and if pushing out students helped them do it, they would (and lie about it).
It has become so bad that I really do wonder if the only solution is for public school systems to establish their own schools that exclude for the most motivated parents whose kids have no serious learning or behavioral issues. It would drive charters out of business because they really have little interest in teaching the other students, and I believe most motivated parents with higher performing kids would prefer their 5 year old has a kindergarten experience similar to affluent students in good suburban public schools or private schools than to experience “no excuses” regimented learning where their child is punished for not tracking teacher at all times and is forced to blow mouth bubbles to “teach” them how to properly behave.
retired teacher: The MSEA is the MD branch of NEA. Wiki says it has 75k members incl prim & sec sch teachers, admin, support professionals & specialists [MD has 58k pubsch teachers]. I found one 7yo MSEA article that confirmed MD charter teachers are protected by collective bargaining agreements – so I guess that’s a yes!
Hogan has tried twice to convert MD charters into state-funded privates with reduced oversight: 2015 proposal was reduced to a few tweaks; 2017 re-intro “plus” was defeated in the General Assembly. MSEA came out 100% against both proposals.
MD charter arrgt looks ideal to me: the local school board authorizes and runs them; they’re part of the district budget. All jurisdictions except Baltimore have locally-elected board members [Baltimore is adding 2 elected members next yr, w/plans to expand). And MD school districts represent their counties, not individual towns, so there would be public discussions/ voting around the cost of charters & the distribution of funds among the county’s town schools.
So, I don’t think it would matter whether they’re called/ run as magnets or something else. The accountability/ cost/ transparency is in place.
@ retired teacher…. I live in MD. Yes, the teachers are union. I believe (?) that a certain % of the teaching staff needs to have a legitimate teaching degree but that they can supplement with TA. Charter schools in MD have been confined mostly to Baltimore City and PG County (the outskirts of DC). Some of the other counties have Magnet schools (public). It’s been a peaceful co-existence for the most part but not without some problems along the way.
Thanks for the information. I have to ask myself why the Black students in Baltimore deserve schools that are separate and unequal to the schools in the rest of the state? Separate is never equal. Why do Black students deserve teaching temps from TFA? A big criticism of urban public schools was the fact that many of the teachers had less experience than suburban counterparts. Irony?
Hmmm….. I wonder why experienced, teachers are not flocking to schools where they are blamed for things that are really more related to the cycle of poverty.
Did Lisa mean TFA or teacher’s aides?
nces stats show MD charters as teacher’s certif reqd, but a site called teacherscertificate.com– under Baltimore schools– says it’s up to the charter whether they require them or not– but then again– National Alliance for Public Charter Schools says “Maryland law does not exempt charter schools from state teacher certification requirements.” Further evidence: Hogan’s proposed 2017 Charter Schools Act included deleting reqt for state-certfied teachers– the act was defeated.
I think we know what the ed reform governance plan for privatized K-12 education will look like, because they’ve shown us.
They write these charter laws and they lobby for them until they’re put in place.
They’re showing us everyday what “reimagining schools” looks like. It mostly looks like unregulated charter schools with little or no transparency, redefining public to mean “publicly funded”, and nothing of value added for existing public schools or public school students.
What will vouchers look like under the ed reform vision of “choice”? Exactly like vouchers in Florida look like right now. They’re thrilled with the privatized systems they’ve created. They don’t analyze them at all. If it says “voucher” it gets the echo chamber seal of approval- no dissenters.
You got it, and Florida has a PR machine that praises charters and vouchers. The trick is they never look for reality except when the NAEP reveal lackluster results. Even then, they try to spin it and hope nobody looks up the NAEP results.
The biggest trick that Florida plays is to hold back third grade students who are poor readers. This elevates their fourth grade reading scores on NAEP.
@ FLERP. I can understand why parents want their child in a charter school and still not think charter schools are the answer.
I don’t know what the answer is….. but it certainly is not to create a charter system that is based on “free market” principles. The change needs to be major (major in the way Race to the Top/NCLB was) and needs to come from the top and involve funding amazing programs – not layers of administration and consultants and over the top technology use.
What would be truly nefarious is if the same people who work to dismantle public education – by not fully funding it so that we can properly support those most expensive students (who are vital to reach and support) – and by passing legislation for ridiculous mandates that lead to moral distress in the teaching field and take away time from rich learning experiences.
If those same forces that are tearing down public schools are at the same time benefitting from public $$ at charter management companies or with their own private enterprises that takes public school $$….. that is really, really and truly awful and even immoral.
And I think the posts on this blog, as well as the discussions below the posts, have proven that this is the reality of the situation.
Some charters are taking advantage of a sad situation.
My post was just that I empathize with families from some areas who are fleeing to charter schools. It’s not because the teachers are better, or the lessons are better….. I just empathize with them and understand their choice.
Thank you, beachteach.
I find it really objectionable when the only discussion that is allowed is “parents want this”. When the other side answers all the important issues you bring up with “parents want this”, they aren’t interested in a discussion. They are interested in a rationale for charters.
Charters are even more objectionable because they exacerbate the situation with their false narratives in a way that private schools never did. I recall the CEO of Success Academy lobbying AGAINST smaller class sizes for the most vulnerable at-risk kids — after all, her charters supposedly “proved” that we could spend less money and get better results with large class sizes. She denies cherry picking kids and she denies any effort to exclude struggling students, always blaming others even though those others had been highly valued in her system for the “results” that those exclusionary practices got. That CEO also gets a huge bully pulpit in major media which don’t ever bother to factcheck her false narratives about how violent the children who win her lottery are and their violent natures is the only reason that 18% of the 5 and 6 year olds are given out of school suspensions because it has nothing to do with the school’s reprehensible practices and inexperienced teachers. It reinforces racist beliefs when white charter leaders imply that lots of their lottery winning 5 year olds act out violently in charters with almost no white students.
When charters push ugly lies that endorse the idea that more money and small class sizes and more resources is a waste of time — “no excuses” discipline costs nothing — they make things much worse. Things will never improve until those lies are called out.
Like you said above…. it’s ridiculous that the reporting on this is so shallow.
But the longer I teacher…. the more I see that education is more complex and harder to understand by outsiders than you would think. If people aren’t directly involved in a public school to the degree that they understand the discussions we are having……
If you don’t know much about much…. it’s easy to believe narratives like “class size doesn’t matter…. just good discipline” – from people who seem like they know what they are talking about.
I’m probably less forgiving than you of the shallowness of the journalism as I think it is inexcusable, especially when someone is on the education beat.
How can any decent reporter not understand that public education is complex? Believing it is simple should be disqualifying, in my opinion.
Most parents can see the complexities. Even with issues like “class size matters”, they see it. So why don’t journalists? Small class sizes are better, but the circumstances also matter. In a magnet high school exclusively for high performing and motivated students, class sizes matter a lot less than in a high poverty school with the most vulnerable at-risk kids dealing with serious issues. Money (and even the experience of teachers) always matters, but it matters a lot less in a charter school exclusively for the kids with highly motivated parents that simply drums out students who don’t learn the one rote way teachers are trained to teach using their script. When those charters push false narratives that the students and families are exactly the same, but it is the inexperienced young teachers, administrators and harsh discipline that makes a difference, it isn’t helping those students in their charters one bit. So why push that false narrative? It is hurting the kids in public schools but if one’s agenda is to undermine those public schools, why not lie? What is crazy is that journalists haven’t called it out. Their willful ignorance speaks volumes. And I can’t help thinking that implicit racism has a lot to do with it. There is a reason that charters can’t get away with the same false narratives in mostly white suburban communities.
Vulnerable students need smaller classes. I’ve taught many poor, vulnerable ELLs. I am eternally grateful to the district in which I taught for understanding this and for giving me the resources to really make a difference. It was still was a big challenge, but a smaller class allowed me to build a better relationship with students. Vulnerable students do better when they can trust the teacher and know that the teacher has their best interest at heart.
“vulnerable students need smaller classes”
Exactly. But charters push false narratives and “prove” that the supposedly same “vulnerable” students are turning into high performing scholars with harsh discipline instead of small class sizes. That lie doesn’t do anything for the students in charters, but it does a lot for the people who are financially rewarded from promoting that lie.
Baker’s post, while possibly well-intentioned, reflects the distraction that the libertarians and Christian nationalists want.
Project Blitz, now called “Freedom for All”, is a continuation of Paul Weyrich’s goals financed by Charles Koch. Weyrich’s training manual calls for parallel schools to destroy public schools.
School choice legislation has been achieved by state Catholic Conferences and by men like former Mich. Sen. Patrick Colbeck whose rhetoric is focused on spiritual battles and Christ’s persecution.
Raw Story reported, 7-24-2021, about Salon’s research into Project Blitz, “The Christian Nationalist Assault on Democracy.”
Salon found papers showing Project Blitz’s plans to make the U.S. a Christian nation. The organization’s goal has 3 tiers. (1) “imparting a Christian nationalist worldview into public schools” e.g. replacing E Pluribus Unum with In God We Trust. (2) “making government a partner in Christianizing America” e.g. promoting bogus historical narratives, funding religious schools (3) introducing laws that “protect” religion but, are intended to benefit bigotry.
One strategy is to create a narrative that it is “secular humanists” operating alone to fight off implementation of a theocratic state.
One attempt by Project’s Blitz was the Parental Oversight of Public Libraries Act.
Frederick Clarkson described it as, “feigning a democratic method to achieve anti-democratic results.
Wow! Very scary! Democracy unraveling.
Fear of tribalist response from the religious enables the religion/power-driven right wing to inflict the agenda of a minority on the majority.
The religious right wingers who speak from the Fox platform (they are not protestant evangelicals) fuel the anti-democracy and anti-progress
political landscape.