Jack Ross of California-based Capital & Main posed the question: Will Alberto Carvalho, who was recently hired away from Miami-Dade public schools to become the new superintendent of the Los Angeles public schools, expand the number of charter schools in L.A.?
At Carvalho’s first press conference, the first question to him was about where he stood on charter schools. This issue has prompted billionaires like the late Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg, and Reed Hastings of Netflix to pour millions into school board races. The current board has a 4-3 pro-charter majority.
Ross wrote:
So where does Carvalho stand? During his 13 year tenure in the Sunshine State, the number of charter schools in the south Florida district rose from 65 to 145 (while more than 30 charter schools also closed). More campuses were converted into magnet programs offering specialized education in subjects like robotics, computer science or performing arts: In 2010, around 41,000 Miami students attended magnets, and by 2019 that number had risen to more than 72,000. The Miami magnets, however, are operated by the school district and not by private owners. “I have always been a proponent, and dramatically expanded, publicly offered, accountable choice in Miami-Dade public schools,” Carvalho said at his press conference, referring to his investment in public magnet schools. “In Florida, charter schools are enabled by Florida statute, and school boards, by and large, do not have great latitude in the approval of charter programs.”
Carvalho liked the story so much that he tweeted it with a comment:
Alberto M. Carvalho@MiamiSup Publicly accountable choice, under the leadership of representative boards, that serve all children, regardless of their diverse abilities, not profits, is a model that has worked well. Will L.A.’s New Superintendent Expand Charter Schools? @capitalandmain
Right below Carvalho’s tweet was a response from Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education.
Opposed to for-profit @miamiSup? Why did largest for- profit Academica more than double # of schools in your district?
Academica is a huge for-profit chain based in Florida that is unusually avaricious and highly political.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The Stanford University Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) — which is funded by pro-charter organizations — has been conducting years-long research into the educational quality of charter schools. And yet even this charter-school-funded research center’s findings are that charter schools don’t do any better academically than genuine public schools. Moreover, CREDO reported that in the case of popular online charter schools, students actually lose ground in both reading and math — but online charter schools are the fastest-growing type of charter school because they make it easiest to skim away public tax dollars.
The impartial, non-political watchdog Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Education has issued a report warning that so much taxpayer money is being skimmed away from America’s genuine public schools and pocketed by private corporate charter school operators that the IG investigation declared that: “Charter schools and their management organizations pose a potential risk to federal funds even as they threaten to fall short of meeting goals” because of financial fraud and their hidden ways for skimming of tax money into private pockets.
The racial resegregation of America’s school systems by the private charter school industry is so blatant and illegal that both the NAACP and ACLU have called for a stop to the formation of any more charter schools. The Civil Rights Project at UCLA summed it up, stating that charter schools are “a civil rights failure.”
There is NO SUCH THING as a “public charter school”. Charter school operators spend a lot of taxpayer money telling taxpayers that charter schools are “public” schools — but they are not. As the Supreme Courts of Washington State and New York State have ruled, charter schools are actually private schools because they fail to pass the minimum test for being genuine public schools: They aren’t run by school boards who are elected by, and therefore under the control of and accountable to voting taxpayers. All — ALL — charter schools are corporations run by private parties. Taxpayers have no say in how their tax dollars are spent in charter schools.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2019/03/29/report-the-department-of-education-has-spent-1-billion-on-charter-school-waste-and-fraud/#ab1fbdb27b64
I think Carvalho explained this:
“In Florida, charter schools are enabled by Florida statute, and school boards, by and large, do not have great latitude in the approval of charter programs.”
He says he doesn’t have great latitude in approving charter programs- Florida has taken that over at the state level and it’s done without his approval. The rubber stamp comes from the state. It’s a very common situation in ed reform- they stack the deck toward “approval” by putting charter cheerleaders in charge of approvals and allowing no dissent.
Which if true, would explain why there are so many for-profit charter schools in his former district although he opposes for profit charter schools.
It’s consistent.
DeSantis has moved charter school approval up to the state level. He has stripped local school boards of most of their local self determination responsibilities. He has carefully appointed authoritarian types to lead most of the big city school districts. Anyone that crosses DeSantis can expect to be punished. He withheld school funding from districts whose superintendents implemented a mask mandate.
For-profit charter schools are not allowed in California, although a few have slipped in, as for-profit virtual charters or as EMOs for nonprofit charter boards.
Exactly. Florida school boards basically have no power over the expansion of charter schools.
Here’s this story from summer 2021.
https://www.tampabay.com/news/education/2021/06/23/corcoran-threatens-hillsborough-school-board-over-charter-school-denials/
I’d be interested to see how and what he does in Los Angeles just because Florida is so completely captured by the ed reform echo chamber that nothing negative about ed reform or “choice” is ever mentioned. It’s 100% cheerleading.
The only way one can find out what is actually going in Florida is to read local news sources- the ed reform echo chamber depicts the state as 100% sunshine and rainbows. To read ed reformers on Florida one would believe that the whole ed reform ideology and agenda is perfect, miraculous, no possible downside or problems at all.
I don’t think that’s true in California, where there is more dissent, less cheerleading and less ideological bias towards privatization and more (real) analysis. A real world test, instead of operating within a lockstep ed reform echo chamber.
The Billionaire Boys and Girls Club spent $13 million buying L.A. school board seats last year and untold sums for more charters than are in any other city. Shameful. Florida has Jeb Bush among others, and California has Reed Hastings among others. Oakland and L.A. in California are both chin deep in charter propaganda. At least we still have teachers unions. Let’s just say every state has a privatization problem: billionaires without borders.
“Billionaires without borders.” So funny, if it weren’t so sad.
Here’s an example of echo chamber “analysis” of a new state superintendent:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/12/20/youngkin-virginia-education-secretary-guidera/
Rah rah rah. She meets the echo chamber ideological test- she promotes and markets charters and she promises to test and punish public schools. Check, check. She hits both boxes of the agenda. Remember- all they have is “choice” and “accountability”, which means all public schools get out of this “movement” is “accountability”- in other words, tests for our students.
A+! And she hasn’t even started work. She’s another lockstep member of the echo chamber and that’s all that’s required.
Look for the glowing reviews to follow- they’re prewritten. It is foreordained she will be wildly successful- she has the correct beliefs.
From the available evidence, he will be a willing lackey and compliant stooge for charter schools. Just what we don’t need.
I hope he is better than Interim Superintendent Reilly, who has been like her pal John Deasy. That’s a really low bar.
Not only does he tout his Broad credentials (check his Twitter bio: https://twitter.com/MiamiSup), Miami Dade County Public Schools has its own charter schools.
The tempered response to this appointment of Carvalho in LA to me shows how insidiously propaganda works on even those who are progressive. When a progressive Mayor in NYC appointed Carvalho to be Chancellor, the comments at this very blog were about how co-opted and pro-charter Carvalho was and how Eva Moskowitz herself had Carvalho on her approved short-list to take over NYC public schools. (You can read the comments yourself on the blog post made February 28, 2018, “Miami School Chief Will Be NYC Chancellor”)
It surprises me that anyone here is giving Carvalho the benefit of the doubt because when de Blasio chose him for NYC it was immediately decried by almost everyone as giving in to the pro-charter forces who everyone believed controlled everything that the corrupt and co-opted de Blasio did. The amplified message was that progressives and pro-public school folks should not trust a progressive Mayor who would sell out public schools in a minute because that progressive Mayor was secretly controlled by his corporate masters to appoint Carvalho.
So what changed? Why doesn’t everyone agree that Carvalho serves only his pro-charter masters, as they did when de Blasio appointed him?
By the way, that was the fiasco where Carvalho showed his true colors — instead of politely turning down the job and saying he changed his mind, he blindsided and embarrassed the de Blasio administration by not telling them but instead publicly announcing he had decided to stay in Miami at an event so he could put on a publicity show where the Miami teachers could demonstrate their extreme gratefulness for the sacrifice Carvalho made in order to continue to be their boss.
My own hypothesis is that Carvalho was informed that the de Blasio administration would not let him be the charter friendly superintendent that he thought, so he turned down the job. I also read an article that said his decision was purely greed, because he wanted NYC taxpayers to pay even more for the privilege of him being superintendent.
But why anyone gives him the benefit of the doubt now – when a rabidly pro-charter LA board hires him – mystifies me, given how negative the reaction was when a progressive Mayor did.
My guess is that Carvalho will not stand up for anything unless the powers that be decide that is okay. His problem in NYC was always going to be that the Mayor wanted him to stand up for public schools but the power and money interests wanted him to do their bidding, which made it hard for him if he didn’t have the courage or will to stand up to power and money. In LA, Carvalho doesn’t have to worry about that, since the power and money interests control who Carvalho has to answer to. No worries about some progressive Mayor who might quash his ability to please those whose interests really matter — the pro-reform billionaires.
He must have a tempered response to our tempered response, or he will be another meaninglessly short chapter in the history of Los Angeles superintendents. He is invited to move smartly and temper interference by the CCSA, bargaining in good faith with teachers. There can be no more superintendents hijacking construction bond funds for standardized testing iPads. There must be not another superintendent siding against his employer in court. Any attack he makes on public schools, any unilateral, top-down mandates he makes will be met with swift and deliberate action. The strike in 2019, supported by well over 80% of the city, taught corporatists in L.A. that they lose when they war in broad daylight with United Teachers. The landscape is different after #Red4Ed, and labor is on the move all over the country today. Carvalho is invited to take note.
Wonderful, LCT!