A reader whose nom de plume is quickwrit explained in a recent comment that there is no such thing as a “public charter school.” In addition to the evidence supplied, bear in mind that several federal courts and the National Labor Relations Board have ruled that charter schools are not “state actors,” meaning not public schools. Even charter schools have sought to avoid accountability for their actions by insisting in court that they are not “state actors,” but private organizations with a government contract. If receiving public funds made your public agency, then every college and university that accepts federal funds would be public, not private, as would Lockheed Martin, Merck, and other corporations.
Quickwrit writes:
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.
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.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
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The public/private charter distinction emphasized by Bernie Sanders was the most disappointing thing for me in the 2016 presidential campaign (which is saying a lot!).
Yes, that was a disappointing comment, but do you honestly think that Hillary Clinton would have deviated at all from the Obama/Duncan playbook? Especially since she was drawing campaign donations from the same well that Barack Obama did?
Bernie Sanders came back in 2020 with a much stronger position on protecting and strengthening public schools, a position that Joe Biden copied parts of. (Can we say “plagiarized?)
As we can see, once in office, Mr. Biden has not really strayed from the Obama/Duncan playbook. Therein lies a much greater disappointment than Mr. Sanders’ 2016 position on charter schools.
Yes, and Obama plagiarized George Dumbya Bush, who plagiarized Bill Clinton, who plagiarized George Herbert Hoover Bush, who plagiarized Ronald Reagan, who plagiarized Bonzo the monkey.
We no longer have leaders, but plagiarists.
So, I suppose we can blame it all on Bonzo.
“The Charter Rush”
The charter is a gold mine
A hedge-fund schemer’s trick
Like golden rush of forty-nine
It’s offer: “Get rich quick!”
But Gold of fools is our return
For buying into plot
And picks and spades and “lessons learned”
Are all we ever got
“The Cuckoo’s Nest”
Birds of a charter
Flock together
Lay their eggs in public schools
Feed from a mother
Of another
In a land where cuckoo rules
LOL. Bravo!
Thanks, but I must point out that, like most of my other poems, the Cuckoo’s nest was inspired by a comment here by a teacher who posted under the pseudonym Mathvale.
Mathvale was a retired engineer who went into teaching because he thought he could make a difference.
Sadly, he left (said he was doing so and then stopped commenting) because of all the junk (Common Core, testing VAM and the rest) that was being forced down teachers throats.
I don’t think we will ever know how many teachers like Mathvale have done the same because I don’t think anyone has tracked this.
This would be a good job for the US Education department, but since they are the ones who are largely responsible for teachers leaving, I somehow doubt they would want anyone to know how many teachers have left the profession and why.
Personally, I think US Education system would be much better off without the US department of education.
In recent decades, USDoE has been more about interference with what should be local control of schools than anything else.
The programs like Title 9 that actually have a positive effect could easily be subsumed under another department like HHS.
And as far as student loans, the DOE has made a major mess of that, effectively trying to make money at the expense of students.
perfect analogy
While lofty (or schmaltzy – or both) —- The Statue of Liberty stands at the entrance of our public schools and the Preamble permeates everything inside.
It’s always worked well in speeches except to the haters – and doubtful it applies to all but maybe a handful of charter schools.
“…threaten to fall short of meeting goals”. The Feds are acting if there was a modicum of hope that somehow, maybe, possibly, charter schools were designed and implemented to “meet goals” of what, exactly? To benefit students? Newsflash, these schools, collectively fell short a long time ago while the Feds looked the other way. And they are shocked, Shocked(!), I tell you, as they report on the concern over meeting these goals. Charter supporters, operators, and incubators, along with the voucher crew, have absolutely met their goals. The dismantling of public education piece by piece: resegregation, the relentless attacks on teachers and unions, the siphoning of taxpayer funds into private and religious schools, and the nonstop grift. Everyone’s needs have been met, except for the actual users of the product: students and teachers.
There is little scrutiny of whether charters or vouchers meet goals. Once public money goes behind the opaque wall of private ownership, interest in evaluating is lost in pursuit of profit. Then, corporations start buying box seats at stadiums to woo politicians to keep the money flowing in their direction. It is a cycle of grift.
p.s. A complete digression but can’t ignore it
So looking up the Book I went to Amazon and put the following in the search box:
Public Education: Defending a Cornerstone of American Democracy
Listed below similar books and items – there was then a Tazer, a Gun, (and an exercise bike?)
I wrote to what I think was a human in the chat who sent me the link and sure enough – same list. The explanation was “defending” and “democracy” in the search.
I put “defending religious freedom in a democracy” in the search box. Same gun shows up.
Chat box person said “don’t worry” and they’d investigate.
I just read that the U.S. has an average of more than 1.3 guns per person. That’s over 300 million guns.
Glad to know I am above average in that regard!
What about power tools? (Saws, drills, sanders, etc)
Do they count?
I have a lot of those and I very much wish to be above average in some regard.
I also have a lot of kitchen knives and several of those big barbeque grill forks.
Oh, and an ax — albeit dull.
Do those count for anything?
And a Jewish space laser, which is mounted on top of my roof.
I got that at a Jewish flea market a while back.
It needed a flux capacitor which I found on an old DeLorean at the junk yard.
(oops – and both those comments from Wait What above should be on the next post about David Berliner’s book)
An outstanding piece, quickwrit!!!
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
Charter schools are not public schools. They are designed to make money for someone and in many cases bring back segregation, a sneaky manipulating way to bring about the separation of different racial groups so they do not mix.
“Charter schools are corporations run by private parties. Taxpayers have no say in how their tax dollars are spent in charter schools.”
As a Columbia journalism professor observed, death by euphemism (is a crime of murderous intent).
Calling a contractor school, a public charter school makes a mockery out of the concept that words have meaning.
Whoever wrote the language of the Missouri law authorizing charters must have been paid big-time as it states that charter schools, even though they are private, are “public schools”. And boy to the owners of charters trot that shit out all the time.
Ohio’s Supreme Court ruled charters are not “public”.
If Missouri has an independent judiciary, the judges may well agree with Ohio’s ruling.
The ruling was the result of citizens trying to recover money from a fleecing made possible by state legislators.
In my experience, most of not all states have charter law written by charter lobbyists and lawyers. No one else cares that much about them.
The public has been paying $350 to $650 a night for the Secret Service to stay at Mar a Lago. By charter propagandist logic, Mar a Lago therefore has public rooms. We should go stay in one of Former President’s public hotel rooms at no cost to us. We should have a union meeting at his resort.
The public is providing running water to Bill Gates’ mansions. By charter propagandist logic, Bill Gates’ bathrooms are public restrooms. Bill’s bathroom is probably pretty cavernous. Can’t wait to apply to the city for a permit to stage a protest there.
Like!
Charter schools most certainly can be Public Schools. You can not say in one line that taking Pubic Dollars does not make you a Public School and then in the Next line say that the Charters are wasting Public Dollars with fraud and abuse. I would prefer to say that most are public schools and should be as highly regulated as Public Schools as the majority of their funding is Public.
Privatization schemes and not only in education rely on the mantra that they should be unregulated because they are Private. Most of the time these schemes are ways to avoid regulations including labor regulation that would be required of a public agency. And to take costs of Programs out of public view.. That is true in construction where tax breaks are given for creation of affordable housing or Public Private Partnerships are used instead of Direct Public Contracting. Thus avoiding prevailing wage laws while disguising outlays . It is true in our military where private contractors take over functions formerly done by military personnel, the costs in this case being hidden is deaths and injury. Benghazi was 3 mercenaries and a state Department Employee functioning as an arms dealer. . Republicans forgot to mention that in the hearings. 3814 Civilian contractors killed in Afghanistan employed by DOD and the State Department ,many not Americans . The number was greater than US military deaths. In fact the all volunteer Army itself can be viewed the same. Taking away the shared Public anxiety of the draft and transferring the human cost of our endless wars to a small segment of the Population many who see it as the only employment opportunity available. .
Charters want to be called Public and treated as Private when it suits them. Treat Charters as Public Schools and force them to follow the same playbook that Public schools do,from pupil selection, to attrition rates and student body composition…..
…and elected boards, public, elected boards.
But would you allow the publicly elected school board to control the curriculum? Personal? If not, what should the publicly elected school board have control over?
(2) Public disclosure of all business dealings.
(3) Assets owned by the public
Education should take the concept of GOCO(Government Owned, Contractor operated). Claiming that charter schools are private schools would be like claiming that Los Alamos National Lab is a private research institution since it is run by contractors.
Who owns the Lab’s assets?
In some states, the charter owners are the owners of everything they purchase with public funds.
What part of government owned is that hard to understand? In how many states does the charter school operate in a privately owned building and own all of their own assets versus how many charter schools operate in pubically owned buildings?
It’s not “contractor operation” but “public control” that is the key thing that determines whether an organization is actually public (ie, whether it qualifies as a public institution).
Despite being run by contractors, Los Alamos is very closely overseen, regulated and controlled by the US government. Because it deals with nuclear weapons, it is probably more closely controlled by the government than almost any other organization.
The contractors operating Los Alamos National Lab are effectively controlled by the American people — through the Congress and President.
Many charter schools are controlled by private individuals and groups with little regulation and oversight by the public.
The military also employs a lot of contractors to operate various parts of their system.
But the contractors are all under the control of the military.
The mere fact of “contractor operation” really says nothing about whether something is public or private.
But isn’t that an argument for better oversight of charter schools instead of using it as an excuse to end charter schools and going back to the failed systems of the past? Operate charter schools like GOCO’s instead of private universities.
No, it’s merely to point out that your analogy is fatally flawed.
super destroyer-
“failed system of the past”, is that the one that produced workers who make GDP gains at a rate that enables economic growth and, that covers Wall Street’s 2% drag on GDP?
If Bill and Melinda Gates are into world improvement, they should have started by fixing the rigged financial system. But, what they really care about is channeling Main Street’s assets into the pockets of Silicon Valley tyrants.
And, no, taxpayers don’t want to pay for an unnecessary, expensive, inevitably- flawed system of oversight that relies on politicized judges and special interest, billionaire driven departments for decisions.
Hi, Diane. I am generally sympathetic, but this article contains mistatements. In New Mexico, all Charters are in fact organized as government entities, with elected Boards. They are authorized either by the Public Education Commission, another elected entity, or local elected municpal school boards, and must contribute 2% of their budgets to each.
Who owns the assets?
When interested parties want access to their records, can they get the same ones that public schools must deliver?
Do owners/operators, self-select?
Is enrollment open?
Are students counseled out?
What limits are there to the amount that owners are permitted to take from the operation for salaries, etc.?
Do personnel meet the same standards as what is found in public schools? (That’s not the case in Minn.)
Can they use taxpayer funds intended for education to buy other investments like hotels?
What prevents them from shutting down, leaving students with few options?
Linda, I’m curious which personnel standards charter schools in MN don’t meet that are required in district schools? Also, St. Paul public schools are shutting down several schools against the wishes of the parents.
Linda, all excellent questions that most charter schools could not answer satisfactorily. I heard about charters in Arizona and Ohio that closed and moved their assets elsewhere. Can you imagine a public school closing, and the principal insisting that he/she owns the desks, chairs, computers, printers, etc.?
Peter-
A commenter at this blog from Minn. who self identified as the head of a charter school, described his credentials. I checked the c.v.’s of other people in similar positions in Minnesota schools. The credentials of the latter were much greater. Secondly, the pay increases awarded to the commenter reflected that his salary had reached the point of a 50% premium to market (lesser credentials). The commenter said the teachers who reported to him decided on his pay raises, clearly a conflict of interest situation.
Peter,
False equivalency-
(1) Entities like ECOT in Ohio shut down for reasons entirely separate from those of public school closures.
(2) When religious schools and contractor schools manipulate the state governance process so that their schools take tax money from public schools, the framework for your analogy loses substance.
(3) When billionaire-funded and influenced state governance structures change student evaluation thresholds in public schools so that the state can take over the schools, the fraud negates rational arguments particularly those that rely on public vs. private comparisons.
Linda, the publicly elected school boards, which in most MN charter schools is made up of a majority of licensed teachers, determines the administrators salary. To me that is the opposite of a conflict of interest, the board which includes teachers is the administrators supervisor. I would imagine a great many teachers would love to have that level of control. In addition there are a number of charter schools in MN that are fully teacher powered schools, with no administrator and teacher satisfaction is much higher than in traditional districts.
Peter-
Your reasoning as expressed in the blog comments is one indicator that your ability is less than that of public school administrators. I’ve read a good cross section of school principals’ writings. As a general observation they are of high quality.
Without reviewing the professions of Minnesota’s public school board members, I can reference those in Ohio. Teachers may be members but, in my experience they are not the majority. Adding, when they are elected by the community, the situation is different than that of captive employees of an individual charter school.
Peter-
When “owners” are taxpayers, safeguards for their interests are essential. The ESOP model that you champion may work well in the private sector where the owners and employees are one and the same.
Linda, I am still curious to hear more about which school personnel requirements you think MN charters don’t comply with? If you are referring the administrator license requirements, MN State Statute 124E-12 outlines the qualifications for school leaders to include at least: instruction & assessment; human resources & personnel management; financial management, legal & compliance management; effective communication; and board, authorizer & community relationships, along with ongoing professional development. Additionally, the MN Department of Education recognizes charter school leaders as both principals & superintendents because in most cases they serve both rolls. If there is another personnel concern you have with MN charter schools I would be interested to hear more about it. With regards to teachers as school managers/leaders I would encourage you to check out the Teacher Powered Schools website to learn more about how teachers across the country at charter schools, alternative schools & traditional district schools alike are transforming leadership hierarchies and regaining their professionalism.