Two leaders of the New Bedford Coalition to Save Our Schools—Cynthia Roy and Roberto Rosa—are outraged that the state is about to plunk a new charter school into their district.
They expect the state will approve the “Innovators Charter School,” and they know that parents will condemn the decision.
They wrote in a local newspaper:
One of the most morally disturbing aspects of the Innovators Charter School proposal for New Bedford and Fall River is the joining of considerable political and economic power to withdraw resources from public education systems that have been historically underfunded. What is appalling is the deliberate indifference to the impact on our public school systems in New Bedford and Fall River which, together, serve 22,563 students. As students and families are seduced to exit their public schools, the operating costs in these schools remain the same. This proposal is just more of the same looting of the public school system that we have seen with charter schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It is refreshing to read a post that actually supports well funded public education while it refutes charter school’s claims. Roy and Rosa understand that the main objective is to make a profit for private companies at the expense of the New Bedford Public Schools.
In a community with a significant ELL population privatization is no benefit. Charter schools make money by offering education on the cheap. It is doubtful the charter school will hire professional ESL/ENL and/or bilingual teachers that are trained to serve newcomers.
I was an elementary ESL teacher for many years, and I hold a master’s degree in the discipline. BTW, I always worked around students’ specials since specials are often the highlight of a newcomer’s day. They can relax in art, music or PE, and they can often excel. It is important for these struggling students to feel competent at something in which their limited English does not interfere with their interests or talents.
That is so essentially stated: “It is important for these struggling students to feel competent at something in which their limited English does not interfere with their interests or talents.”
Info about the “new” charter school model is that it’s marketed to families for their kids to take college level courses while in school and get an associates degree for “free”. This type of charter college-before-college model is nothing more than cherry-picking at its finest. AKA find the easiest-to-educate populations and sell them the same school offerings that many other schools, including my own son’s public high school, are already doing. Innovation?Nothing to see here, move along…
CR, RR:
“Virtually every “innovation” that charter
schools utilize to decorate their proposals
was born in public schools.
The greatest innovation that charter schools
have engendered is that they are very
seductive with their false narratives of
“failing public schools.”
The “seductive” tag, on playing catch
with the “failing school” ball, escapes me.
“The reality is that charters are the
failing schools, if you go by state metrics.”
A REALITY based on
“standardized testing measures”???
Perhaps, those associated with a
test based reality, evaluate the
consistency of their arguments.
Living in a test score “glass house”
while throwing failure “stones”,
doesn’t change a thing…
Yes, charters “drain” funding.
TESTING drains MORE funding.
Demonizing charters has yet to stop
the testing drain impact on
public school systems.
It’s past time to stop the testimentation
of Public School students.
Would you let it “ride” if a charter
servant quipped???
Got a family to feed.
Got bills to pay.
Just following orders.
If it’s good for the goose…
Is there a law firm like Baker Donelson handling the “drafting of legislation and policy and lobbying at the local and state levels”? The Daschle Group is an advisory of Baker Donelson.
Tom Daschle gave campaign funds to Sen. Sinema. He’s a former chair and current board member of the pseudo left, Center for American Progress. He also founded the BiPartisan Policy Center which held education seminars hosted by Bill Gates and John Arnold.
ProPublica posts about “lobbying engagement”. ProPublica posted about Stride Inc. F/K/A K12 Inc..The Daschle Group is listed with the date, Aug. 15, 2020 to present…agencies lobbied, U.S. Senate, House of Reps, Executive Office of the President.
LegiStorm, a different site, posted info about the Daschle Group, identifying a Daschle employee under the heading, “Revolving door lobbyists, most recent employment, Senate Democratic Conference.”
Thanks for the sleuthing. We cannot have a functioning democracy when everything is for sale.
I was shocked at Daschle’s brazenness given that Randi (AFT) and CAP were so in sync for Hillary’s campaign….but, I shouldn’t have been surprised about any of it.
Excellent no-punches-pulled piece. “What this [charter] proposal does is suggest that improved academic performance and access can be accomplished, not through economic investment, but rather through a deregulation of public education.” “It is a zero-sum game of resource allocation.”
Of course they target poor communities. “Failing schools” are determined by comparing test scores among schools; test scores correlate precisely to SES; all they have to do is market snake oil for ‘curing’ low test scores.
As No Brick notes, however: public schools hand charter orgs a pearl handle for marketing– stds/ aligned high-stakes assessment “accountability” systems! A nice big broom with which to sweep low-scorers into the for-profit-ed bin…
Since poor Black and brown students are often “low scorers,” privatization is also a tool designed to resegregate these students by placing them in separate and unequal schools.
Typical “analysis” of charter schools that comes out of the ed reform echo chamber:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/11/02/school-choice-covid-parents-chose-charter/6231122001/
100% cheerleading, marketing and promotion.
It’s all like this. You will not find a single critical word about any charter school on any ed reform site but you will find REAMS of 100% negative commentary on public schools.
Elite public education policy is completely captured by people who are opposed to public schools. It’s nuts and it’s so much the norm in the echo chamber it is never even mentioned.
What are the odds every single charter and private school is superior to every public school? Not likely, right? Yet if one were to read exclusively within the ed reform echo chamber that is what one would have to conclude.
A baked-in bias against public schools. It informs and permeates everything they do.It never varies either, because it’s just one ed reformer after another, playing musical chairs with employment. They hop from one anti-public school org to another, for entire (lucrative) careers.
It seems apparent that one of the terminal cancers in the United States known as publicly funded private schools is still spreading.
The Innovators? Cute. The only innovation charters can and do claim is firing teachers before they can get paid. Charters create in society an inno-crater. Their private, secretive boards are made up of inno-haters. If there are a positive Force and a Dark Side in the universe, charter schools are inno-Vaders. There we go, the proposed school is called The In-vaders. Perfect! Stupid name problem solved. The Invaders can innovate my left (coast) foot.
Whatever happened to naming schools after great heroes of people?