Back in the early days of charter schools, their advocates imagined that most would be run by teachers or local educators with a passion to run their own school. The charters would be innovative and accountable, working closely with public schools to share good ideas.
That was then, this is now.
No one back in the late 1980s envisioned huge charter chains like KIPP.
Nor did they imagine the emergence of for-profit chains owned by entrepreneurs.
Nor did they imagine that a state like Nevada would have most of its charter school students in schools managed by Academica, a Florida-based for-profit chain.
Academica’s politically connected owners have amassed over $100 million in Florida real estate. Real estate: that’s where the profit is. Running charters schools is a lucrative business, especially if you have influential friends and family in the legislature.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Legally stealing main street’s assets just as envisioned by AEI and Hoover.
More rigorous and diverse “debate” in ed reform:
Michael Petrilli Retweeted
Nina Rees
Ninacharters
·MichaelPetrilli
& Griffith: New research confirms that charter schools drive academic gains for their own students — and for kids in nearby district schools
Chris Barbic
chrisbarbic
MichaelPetrilli
& Griffith: New research confirms that charter schools drive academic gains for their own students — and for kids in nearby district school
Rah rah for charters! Boo hiss for public schools! Thousands of full time paid “ed reform advocates” who do nothing else but this all day.
These are the people who run “education policy” in the US- an absolute echo chamber with no real debate and absolutely no dissent and carefully cherry picked analysis that promotes only pro-charter studies. The rest of the information on charters is simply omitted.
You will not find a single criticism of a single charter, charter program or private school or voucher program anywhere in ed reform- not among the tens of think tanks or lobbying groups and not among the thousands of full time paid “analysts”
Are the claims based on real research or are the claims more “faux research?” Someone in research should examine the methodology.
Here’s another carefully cherry picked study of the “competitive effects” of private school vouchers, from the ed reform echo chamber at Harvard:
https://www.educationnext.org/ripple-effect-how-private-school-choice-programs-boost-competition-benefit-public-school-students/
Are there any possible downsides to privatizing public schools? Or is it true that all charter and voucher programs are 100% beneficial to all students, with no trade offs at all, like unicorns and lollipops?
Don’t bother looking for that information in ed reform! They scrubbed it. Only pro charter and pro voucher research may be presented and parroted by all the other echo chamber members.
Boy the country is in for a rude awakening when these folks reach their goals of privatizing K-12 education. It’s been WILDLY oversold and none of the downsides have even been considered, let alone “studied”.
I hope this experiment in privatization is as a big a success as it’s professional marketers and promoters have led the public to believe- there could be real regrets down the road when reality hits.
“Are there any possible downsides to privatizing public schools?”
Ask the Chileans how that privatization worked for them-a summary:
If the student was from a wealthy family just fine.
For the rest of the students well. . . not so fine, rather shitty actually.
Tough time for ed reformers who spent the last 20 years insisting charter schools are public schools:
“The bottom line is: Charter schools, as public schools, can never be religious institutions,” said Nina Rees, president of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. “And anyone who says differently is flat-out wrong.”
They’ll fold. They always do. They’ll embrace religious charter schools like they embrace everything else that comes out of their echo chamber. As long as it’s not a public school they’re for it.
These are the same folks who insisted they were opposed to private school vouchers, but now all lockstep lobby for and promote vouchers. The only mission is anti-public schools. That’s the only consistent belief. Eradication of public schools (and labor unions) is the unifying factor.
It’s highly doubtful that the very wealthy and well-connected Susan Rice (Silicon Valley) will come out in support of the common good.
KBJ’s mention of public schools in her SCOTUS appointment nomination speech was nice but, it will take action from the Biden Administration to stop the legal theft of main streets’ assets.
Yes, KBJ’s mention of public schools
in her SCOTUS appointment nomination
speech was nice but,she also currently
serves on the board of Georgetown
Day School,a private coeducational
PK-12 school located in Washington, D.C.
The school has educated the children of
several high-ranking government officials,
including Justice Thurgood Marshall,
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Attorney General
Eric Holder, Treasury Secretary Larry Summers,
Texas Senator Phil Gramm, Oregon Senator
Ron Wyden, Florida Congressman Kendrick Meek,
Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin, Louisiana
Senator Mary Landrieu, as well as Supreme Court
nominee and federal judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Georgetown Day has also educated the children
of several influential figures, including the
children of Joel Glazer.
From 2010 to 2011, she served on the advisory
board of Montrose Christian School, a
Baptist school.
In 1996, Jackson married surgeon Patrick G.
Jackson, a sixth-generation Harvard graduate,
whose family is considered Boston Brahmin.
The Boston Brahmins or Boston elite are members
of Boston’s traditional upper class. They are
often associated with Harvard University;
Anglicanism;(Western Christian tradition)
upper-class clubs such as the Somerset in
Boston, the Knickerbocker in New York City,
the Metropolitan in Washington, D.C., and the
Pacific-Union Club in San Francisco; and
traditional Anglo-American customs and clothing.
The Boston Brahmins are considered
White Anglo-Saxon Protestants.
Time will tell if “actions” of the Biden
Administration stop the “actions” of the
monied elite.
It’s unfair to criticize Justice Jackson if she sat on the board of a private school and if she married a man who went to Harvard, as she did.
People who send their kids to elite private schools have not sought vouchers, or public funding.
No should people be disdained because they received an education from an elite school like Harvard.
Harvard and other Ivies produce people with very different ideologies. Some conservative, some liberal.
Stereotyping is unfair. She is clearly well qualified to sit on the Supreme Court.
“The Boston Brahmins or Boston elite are members
of Boston’s traditional upper class. They are
often associated with Harvard University;
Anglicanism;(Western Christian tradition)
upper-class clubs….traditional Anglo-American customs and clothing.
The Boston Brahmins are considered
White Anglo-Saxon Protestants.”
This name calling is outrageous. To label and make such sweeping condemnations of large groups of people, their clubs, churches, schools and colleges does not contribute in any positive way to the discussion. Or, maybe that’s the point–maybe discussion isn’t intended, just an echo chamber of complaint.
I thought private schools were OK as long as they charged tuition and didn’t use public education dollars. I thought Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Eric Holder, and Thurgood Marshall had a very positive effect on America. BUT–now I should condemn them because they went to private school, or Harvard, or sent their kids there, or associated with people who did those things, OR–heaven forbid–lived in Boston with all the other “Brahmins”? (Sorry I got carried away and made reference to “heaven”)
Mark — it’s jarring at first, but you get used to it.
Flerp!…..I don’t and won’t get used to it but I’ve certainly learned to ignore it.
Mark and Flerp-
Your argument would have more merit if KBJ had cited both her ties to the common people and her ties to the culture of the richest 0.1%.
Evidently, she had motive in the telling of the stories about her grouping with the common people and the public services they use.
When Harvard morphed from an institution considered liberal and operating for the common good to a privatizing public policy machine, it set itself up as the enemy of the 90%. Telling the 90% not to be wary seems like sloppy, ill-founded advice that we shouldn’t follow.
Linda, demanding that we all accept sweeping generalizations about a huge institution with so many schools, students, professors, and programs seems like sloppy, ill-founded advice that we shouldn’t follow.
Georgetown University was publicly shamed for hiring Ilya Shapiro, both by those inside the community and outside. America is made a better country when its citizens have standards that they expect of institutions of higher learning. If Georgetown had the right values, a professor wouldn’t call on a student in 2021 with the identifier, Mr. ChinaMan.
When the Harvard Dept. of Ed. began to promote K-12 privatization, it’s to the school’s shame that the campaign did not meet resistance. It is to the school’s shame that it maintained and increased ties to Jeffrey Epstein after his conviction.
Larry Summers was a blight on the school’s reputation. The admission of unqualified students (e.g, Jared Kushner) because of his father’s donations to the college is a black eye on the institution.
There are some one-off situations that are embarrassing and corrections can be made. Then, there are institutional failures that
deserve to be judged as patterns.
Two points-
(1) Hillsdale? Liberty University? University of Texas at Austin?
(2) A lie of omission, boasting public education bona fides while ignoring private school board memberships, children attending high tuition, private schools.
Here’s a whopper: “The charters would be innovative and accountable, working closely with public schools to share good ideas.” Ha, ha, ha, surely they jest.
Is there an example anywhere in the US in which a charter school works closely with the actual real public schools? I seriously doubt that. The reality is that charter schools represent separate school districts unto themselves that work AGAINST the actual real public schools. There’s no cooperation but there is sabotage of the public school system in the US via school privatization/charter schools.
If there are such examples, you won’t hear much about them here, even though this is a “Site to discuss better education for all.” All you’ll hear from the echo chamber is simplistic,blanket statements to the contrary, with knee-jerk condemnation and wild accusations directed at the writer(s). Look for key words like “disingenuous” and “liar”
When a person is a liar and disingenuous, he/she would prefer not to be called out? Ed reformers would prefer not to be named in Diane’s book, Slaying Goliath? A person getting a billionaires’ paycheck for ripping off his neighbors would prefer the community not know?
Mark- The billionaires distance themselves from those like you who are at the bottom of the organizational food chain, expecting you to take the heat for the injuries caused. It’s a pattern that dates back since corporate “organization man” was created.
Linda, keep it short and simple. Just call me a “liar and disingenuous”–3 short words–and save your time and ours. No need to tax yourself, ’cause we know you’re not capable of discussion beyond just name calling.
It’s not just Nevada. A lot of charters in Utah are also Academica. It’s truly the Wild West out here.