I’m posting again—this time with the link!
This interview with education journalist Jennifer Berkshire is worth reading. Good questions, sharp answers.
Shockingly, Berkshire predicts that several states will “phase out” public schools, presumably to be replaced by a smorgasbord of choices: charters, vouchers, online schooling, homeschooling, and more.
What do you think?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Forgive me, but I don’t see a link to the interview.
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https://educationalendeavors.substack.com/p/jennifer-berkshire-on-challenges?s=r
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Where is the interview????
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https://educationalendeavors.substack.com/p/jennifer-berkshire-on-challenges?s=r
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I do not believe any state should phase-out traditional Public Schools.Period
Why the traditional public schools are constitutionally based so that discrimination in education cannot take place based on your race your, skin color, your cultural back round, your sexual orientation , on you immigration status in America and the traditional Public School guarantees the right to a thorough and efficient education.
Charter schools are not constitutionally base they are not held to the same constitutional standards and they can close at any point their main goal is not to educate students but to make money for hedge funders big bankers and donors.
This also brings back the fact that we blacks( African Americans) had to fight to be educated in America which led to immigrants reaping the benefits of the slaves fight in America for equity, acceptance as a equal human being , and to be 3educated in the school system they created for their gene pool to be educated to take over their business and take on the elected positions that establishes Humanities rights in America.
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https://educationalendeavors.substack.com/p/jennifer-berkshire-on-challenges?s=r
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Denise,
Thank you for writing your comment. Georgetown Catholic University (a racist past) hired Ilya Shapiro in the past few months. He was a Koch network employee. Shapiro recently tweeted about “lesser Black” women in the context of Biden’s SCOTUS nomination.
In Indiana, Catholics publicly take credit for the state’s school choice legislation. Media report that in Kentucky, the VP of EdChoice is also the associate director of the Catholic Conference of Kentucky. In some states, the state Catholic Conferences cohost school choice rallies with the Koch’s AFP.
Media reported yesterday that the leader of the Cleveland archdiocese “accepted an invitation to bless a crowd at an anti abortion confab that starred Milo Yiannopoulos.” (AFPAC)
Btw- research showed that Catholic hospitals provide no more indigent care than other private hospitals.
As you’ve stated, Americans should be warned about privatization of schools, especially when the idea is pushed by the religious because they pretend altruism.
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Doesn’t matter what I think. Ask the Chileans how that worked out for them.
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Or ask folks in The Netherlands, where 83% of students attend private schools.
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I don’t believe that private schools in the Netherlands operate for profit. I do believe they are run by educators, not entrepreneurs.
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You forgot to mention that private schools in The Netherlands are under the control of the Central Ministry of Education and must teach the national curriculum.
“School Choice in the Netherlands” by Harry Anthony Patrinos, chief education economist at the World Bank
“Central control is exercised over both public and private schools. The system is characterized by a large central staff; many school advisory services and coor-dination bodies; a strong Education Inspectorate; andstringent regulations.The central government, through the Minister of Education, Culture and Science, controls education by means of legislation, taking account of the provisions of the Constitution. Its prime responsibilities with regard to education relate to the structuring and funding of the system, the management of public-authority institutions, inspection, examinations and student support. Control may be exercised by imposing qualitative or quantitative standards relating to the educational process in schools and attainment results, by means of arrangements for the allocation of financial and other resources, and by imposing conditions to be met by schools. The central government decides what types of school may exist;the length of courses in each type of school; standards for teaching staff; number of teaching periods; salaries; examinations; and the norms of establishing and closure of schools.”
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Students with learning disabilities, physical disabilities, autism spectrum, etc. are not welcome at many charter, private and religious schools. It would be very bad for these students.
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I spent 30 years in North Carolina where in the 2000’s one particular judge, Manning I believe, consistently challenged the state to live up to its constitutional obligations to adequately fund the public schools in the state based on a NC Supreme Court finding in a 1997 case called Leandro v. NC. Leandro found that the state was not living up to its constitutional obligations with rural schools, and later urban schools. Judge Manning consistently found NC out of compliance, but there is little evidence that the General Assembly took him seriously, particularly after the right wing purge of 2010. In 2021 another Judge, David Lee, ordered the NC general assembly to cough up 1.7 billion to be in compliance with Leandro. The General Assembly has now been dragging its feet on compliance for 25 years. At some point, not in my lifetime I’m sure, the Federal Government is going to have to intervene in public education as it did with civil rights if the intellectual and educational imbalance that exists among regions of the country are going to be remedied. It’s as if Republican dominated states admire the Dark Ages.
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https://educationalendeavors.substack.com/p/jennifer-berkshire-on-challenges?s=r
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Well, knowledge is a threat to those who wish to rule by ignorance and power for their own good. This is just a continuation of what’s been going on for decades. If one goes back to the 50’s or 40’s, almost all our schools were run by folks who were religious–Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish. Prayer in school was common. American history was to be memorized–in the North we might memorize the Gettysburg address. But kids weren’t typically thought to think. “Progressive Education” began to change things, stressing creativity and free thinking. The Supreme Ct. outlawed mandatory prayer and pledges. It outlawed racial segregation and sex discrimination. At the college level, students demanded “meaningful” education. So the right wing fought back. And they’ve mostly won. That’s what we’re seeing–a swing back to authoritarianism. The NEA & AFT and other unions have been weakened, partly by internal problems, and partly by the decimation of trade unions by the flood of imported goods and exported jobs. Privatization of education, balkanization, education for profit–as in the stupid testing requirements or vouchers are part of the overall quilt of reactionary resurgence. Our media has become mostly entertainment and advertising (without the Fairness Doctrine). The big news networks are all capitalistic and not interested in “fringe” ideas or candidates such as Bernie Sanders. I’ll stop. Let’s work together to make America more progressive again.
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https://educationalendeavors.substack.com/p/jennifer-berkshire-on-challenges?s=r
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“I love the uneducated.” –Donald J. Trump
His words. There’s a reason for this.
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Quite a few years I remember a Republican inadvertently blurting out “We won’t rest until public schools are thought of in the way as public housing”. They are well on their way.
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no link?
Sent from my iPhone
>
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https://educationalendeavors.substack.com/p/jennifer-berkshire-on-challenges?s=r
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I believe that initially this conservative voucher/charter initiative will succeed. The root of much of this rancor is that too many parents have been dissatisfied with unresponsive public schools for a long time. Those running the schools have, in too many cases, forgotten that schools at their core are micro-communities that provide stability for the families they serve. Instead, we have pivoted to a model of a narrow understanding of academic growth and success at all costs. This ignores the developmental needs of children that allow them to be productive citizens. In some ways we educators have handed conservatives the playbook for this age of disruption. The standards movement has exacerbated our current crisis. Berkshire’s comments about the California voucher initiative ring true to so many parents. The basic model for schools that comes from our grading practices is that the top 1/4 of students in a school are successful while the others muddle through, too often miserable with the school experience, and another 1/4 drop out totally unprepared for adulthood. My experience with parents in secondary education is that they are all too aware that students who are not on an AP track are woefully unprepared for college or career. High schools were initially started as a way to better prepare students for colleges. Once a vocational model was in place, more students experienced success and found ways to thrive in industrial America. The democratic justification for progressive schools thrived as America became the public school and economic model for the rest of thee world. Then American public schools did not adapt well too the Information Age and the Standards Movement marked a radical return to a narrow college prep curriculum that has left out too many students and families. Now middle and upper class families are seeking ways out while blindly convincing themselves that charters are simply another form of public schools, diversity be damned. There will be profound backlash once the population has discovered that such “choice” actually limits choice and $14,000.00 isn’t enough to get into a “good” school. We will confront an entire generation of children, both privileged and underprivileged, who will have participated in schools with an underfunded teaching force with talents distributed unequally among these schools. Once states have discovered the errors of their ways, the most important question will be whether we resort to the failed unresponsive bureaucratic operation of district schools, inequitably funded by property taxes, or will we turn to an national investment in teaching that is as robust as our funding of soldiery. There will be many casualties at great expense before we have a chance to recover.
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The CRT/Parents Rights kerfuffle is in reality a Jedi mind trick to distract families from the fact that their school choices are being taken away. And then it will be too late.
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When the reddest of the red states start getting rid of public schools, I will not be surprised, but, what can be undone, can be reversed depending on the voters and if everyone eligible to vote is allowed to vote.
After all, if the US can repeal an Amendment (the 18th), then states should be able to repeal bad legislation like this.
By any chance are those states also the ones passing lots of voter restriction laws making it easier to stuff ballot boxes?
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California is the state which one of the most insightful education experts in the country thinks is the state where the right mix of elites angry about the pandemic and non-elites angry about race and gender may be the first — this year — to phase out public education?! I have no words.
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I think some red states influenced by authoritarian libertarian thinking may be inclined to take such a reckless, foolish path to dissolve public education. I would hope that whole mess would wind up in court where the decision will likely be influenced by leanings of appointed judges. I think many suburban parents in high tax states would be prepared to fight for the schools their families depend on. The results would leave students with a fragmented mess of schools with big disparities in academics for any students transferring from one state to another. This is simply my best guess of what could happen.
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Within 5 years here in FL, I predict.
There will be some hand wringing about what to do w/ the students who can’t get into or afford elite private schools, but who cares?
Plenty of strip malls to accommodate them by creating ECOT-like laptop schools w/ $15/hour non-union room managers. It’s that easy to pass this sort of legislation now. —And we keep voting for this scenario. Problem solved.
Two of my neighborhood schools were closed—dropping enrollment—only to be replaced w/ state- and federally-funded KIPP and IDEA shiny palaces.
Won’t give up the fight in year 38 as a public school Latin teacher—but how much longer can we hold on?
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I also live in Flor-uh-duh. You can I must be looking at the same crystal ball. But mine says that it will be this way through much of the South and Midwest.
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For all those clamoring to dismantle public schools because of our (alleged) brainwashing, liberalism, and all-inclusive agenda – – do they have one ounce of evidence that any of that (which is non-existent) has had any negative effect on, well, any children?
Those screaming at board meetings and crazy state house republicans do not realize they are being used. Pawns in the wealthy gop playbook.
They have no idea they are silver spoon feeding the hedge fund get-rich-off-kids loophole-seeking shysters who can fly under the radar in storefront schools with no public boards or accountability or state regulations.
And, those who have some understanding can now make racist, sexist, homophobic statements out in public openly using new code words and unscientific misinformation.
No Child Left Behind (uggh) was credited with George W’s no more “soft bigotry of low expectations.”
Well children WILL be left behind because of proud legislator speaking right into the microphone with outright open bigotry of no expectations and don’t really care.
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THIS!!!!! A brilliant, important essay!!!! Ms. Berkshire really groks what’s going on. A little fleshing out of the problem the Republicans have and that they are trying to fix by privatizing schools:
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cx: interview, not essay. ofc. lol.
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My thesis, here, is Ms. Berkshire’s:
Repugnicans have lost our young people.
The changing demographics are against them.
Repugnicans have to get rid of public schools and replace them with fundamentalist, fascist madrasas, or they will not survive.
Yes, the Graying Old Party’s idiot candidate got 70 million votes in the last presidential election, but that’s going to change soon. So, it has to scuttle democracy and create these indoctrination schools, or it goes the way of the Know Nothings.
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Thank you, Diane, and thank you, Ms. Berkshire!!! What Ms. B has to say in this is so, so, so, so very important. She nails it. This is freaking existential for schools and for democracy.
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In my opinion, Jenifer Berkshire is one of the sapient journalists in education. I’m not sure if some states would replace public schools by RSDitzing (what New Orleans did after 2005 Katrina) or corporatizing them. But, she’s right about state’s undying motive to take down on public education with series of education gag orders that scrutinize teachers and students over CRT, race history, and LGBTQ.
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The worst part won’t be getting rid of public schools. The worst part will be the declarations of victory and incessant cheerleading for the privatized systems that replace them, no matter how good or bad they are.
It won’t matter if the privatized systems are equal to or better than public systems- there will be an entire group of ed reformers wholly invested in claiming they are a huge success. If they accomplish the goal of privatization they will never, ever be able to admit error. To do so would mean they destroyed a public system and replaced it with a worse one, and all these prestigious people will die before they’ll admit that.
Younger people coming up will have nothing to compare the privatized systems to so they’ll never know what they lost, and the engineers of this thing will be the last people to tell them.
They knew the online charters in Ohio were absolute junk. Just about every prominent ed reformer enthusiastically sold them right up until they moment they collapsed in a heap of corruption. They don’t ever admit error now. Think they’ll be more likely to admit error when their privatized systems are the only schools available? They’ll be less likely. With each lurch toward privatization they get more invested in insisting it’s better.
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Here’s the ed reform “movements” one and only contribution to public schools:
“Embrace options: On the whole, parents were remarkably good sports when schools shut down in March 2020—and have been throughout. Suddenly told they were on the hook to play full-time teacher and tutor for their 6-year-old or 16-year-old, usually with little more than some curricular materials thrown online, parents muddled through. This was exhausting, dispiriting work. But parents did it. And, along the way, many explored and embraced new options like learning pods and microschools. Interest in homeschooling skyrocketed. Post-pandemic, about 2 in 5 parents have expressed interest in some form of hybrid schedule, in which students are at home one or two days a week. Rather than dismiss proposals like charter schooling, school vouchers, or Education Savings Accounts as “attacks” on public schools, school leaders should welcome these as a recognition that families need a more customizable, diversified set of choices.”
Always the same. Ask these people about public schools, they suggest charters and private schools.
Not a single positive or productive idea or plan – just recite the choice mantra, over and over and over.
It isn’t going to change when they reach the goal. They’ll just switch over to promoting the privatized systems as superior. They have to. If they’re not superior then this was a massive, irreversible failure of an ideological experiment where they dismantled an existing public system and replaced it with a weaker privatized one and none of them will ever admit that.
They should hire more cheerleaders. They’re going to need them.
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I must say, Chiara, that you have become an expert on the disinformation spewing from the Deformer covens! Thank you for continuing to out this stuff!
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Hey look you guys! “Classical education” on the cheap!
“Education Next
EducationNext
Officials at an Arizona-based charter school network are thinking about launching a low-cost, online, private-school model to bring classical education to anyone who wants it at a price point below—even far below—other options, including Catholic schools”
If you’re wondering why “ed reform” never seems to deliver any actual benefit to students in public schools, take a look at their work.
It isn’t about public schools. “Public schools” are barely mentioned, unless it’s to compare them unfavorably to private or charter schools.
Ohio ed reformers haven’t done anything for Ohio public schools in a decade. They spend their days lobbying for charters and private school vouchers. About once a year they show up with a new report card scheme or testing schedule. Other than that public school students barely exist.
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They use standardized tests that create the illusion that public schools serving children of working class parents look like they are failing compared to schools serving wealthier parents. They call them “failing schools” and “government schools”. They throw vouchers to attend private schools including charter schools at the children of working class parents, but not vouchers to attend the same private schools wealthier parents send their children to attend. Then, they close the “failing government schools”. Universal private schools.
They use standardized tests that create the illusion that private and charter schools serving children of working class parents look like they are failing compared to private schools serving wealthier parents. They call them failing private schools and government private schools, and the parents of the schools welfare moms. They will take away the vouchers and the charter school funding for the failing government schools. No more universal education.
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I reckon the U.S. is getting what it deserves. Sigh.
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Christopher Rufo of anti-CRT –
His tweet (2-27-2022)- “The narrative meta-conflict on Twitter: Liberal internationalists claiming Ukrainians have stopped the Russians in their tracks…Conservative realists claiming the Russians have encircled Kiev and moved the war to the endgame…We’ll find out who’s right in a few days.”
I speculate there was an assumption by well-funded groups within U.S. borders that they could propagandize and succeed in diminishing the Am. public’s backlash to Putin’s war against Ukraine. They were relying on conservative Americans to relish in the authoritarian win for the orthodox Christian, Putin.
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Linda, Putin is no kind of Christian. He is a barbarian.
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Reportedly, Pat Buchanan said in 2013, “Putin is one of us.”
For those who have not read Ryan Girdusky’s interview posted at the Buchanan site, they should.
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There would have been a time I would have said this will never happen. Public Schools are such an American Insitution. They are protected by laws.
Now I know charter schools are built to go around the laws. Our Nevada Constitution states one district one county. But charters claim they are not a district. And when necessary they are not even a school. The beauty of the EMO/CMO makes them slippery too. They are often a combination for-profit/non-profit. What law can apply to all of the above: a non-profit education.business, managed by a for-profit management corporation which can then also take advantage of all public school resources and tax advantages, while also applying for all the small business grants and money.
Nevada never got the immediate overnight conversion ElaineWynn and her reformers wanted. That was too quick and shocking. The ASD grabbing 30 schools at a time did not work.
So neoliberals have settled for a slow and steady 5 or 6 charters a year. Along with adding to charter chains by grade level every year – 100 students here and 100 students there.
Jana Wilcox-Lavin uses the $22 million in grant money to grease wheels and find favor. Rebecca Feiden is one of the most powerful women in the state. She grants charters; She refuses charters. Rebecca gives some chance after chance after chance to start their charter business. Others, she stops dead in their tracks. They both inherited a dysfunctional and failing charter business. The Charter Authority is still mired in failing charters – failing financially, failing academically, and failing to enroll diversity. Charters in Nevada are obvious segregation and white flight. There is limited appetite to serve poor students.
Mayors in Clark County seem to think running a school is easy. The pandemic allowed them to use education money to offered micro-charters. This seems to have whet some appetites to own a district of their own.
Mayor Goodman of the City of Las Vegas wants a charter. For some unknown reason she paired up with the EMO TNTP (Michelle Rhee’s Group). She signed on the who’s who of education reform. The City of Las Vegas is now in the school business. Interestingly enough Mayor Goodman was successful at running an expensive private school. She does know education. She has zero experience running a school for diverse poor students. She is about to get a wake-up call. Cedric Creer was only voice of reason when this was discussed. He has the failing Agassi, Rainbow, and 100 Academies in his area – he warned the City Council not to go into the school business. Those charters have had few successes and much more failure. Turnover is constant both teachers and students. Mayor Goodman is about to learn that loads of donations and cash from the City of Las Vegas will not be enough if you let Michelle Rhee’s teaching hating group abuse labor. Interestingly enough, Goodman will retire and the City Council will then run this charter school.
Things I did not think were possible.
Are happening.
I thought our straight forward laws would prevent the Mayors from owning a district through their City Councils.. But charters are not in “districts”. Nor are they schools. Nor are they businesses. They become whatever they need to be to skirt the rules the rest of us live by daily. They claim it is “innovation”. Grifters do it everyday. I do not find it new.
I watched Rebecca Feiden define EMO/CMO very differently to the Nevada Legislature the other day – than she has ever defined it is a Charter Authority Meeting. Perhaps she does not even know or want to know. She was certainly snippy like legislators should already know.
I think this year, The Nevada State Public Charter School Authority will become the second largest district (yes, I know they claim they are not one, but they act like one) in Nevada. It is the size of the Reno/Washoe School District almost. And it serves mainly rich white students inside the middle of Clark County. Yes I know it has a hand full of diverse charters – those are not the norm. Yes I know there are charters in other counties. The bulk of the Nevada charters are serving rich white students inside CCSD. Creating a systematic segregation in Clark County. White Flight is obvious.
Charters segregate by religion, race, and money. They are actually tracking special education, language learning, and free and reduce lunch because those categories earn businesses more pupil center funding dollars. This does tracking does not help with Mormon charters, all black or all white charters, and charter locations which are obviously limiting access.
Rebecca Feiden is focused on trying to get more free and reduced lunch children into charters. The Charter Authority is sending the charters a letter, inviting them to participate in “Weighted Lotteries” to help correct their diversity issues. All the charters are getting a “Weighted Lottery” and the Charter Authority is claiming this is a tool to diversify. Weighted Lotteries do not help at all. Especially with new charter enrollment which required diversity by law. Weighted Lotteries only go into affect if charters are full. Technically if a charter has even one spot open – the lottery is not triggered.
The irony of all this is not lost on me. CCSD is one of the most diverse districts in the United States. Yet our Nevada Charters which are predominantly EMO’d For-Profit Academica – serve the rich and white. Now Nevada Charters are spending money to attract diversity to their charters – advertising, flyers, walking door-to-door, or so they claim they tried to find a diverse child to enroll. The Tax Payer has to pay these businesses to admit a few IEP, language learners or poor children. For some perspective, my public school is 100% diverse on every and all levels – we do not try at all to add diversity. In fact
Nevada never closes a failing charter. Even charters that cannot fill out the application or meet the requirements just sue until they are finally allowed to do whatever they want. There is not remedy to stop this. $950 million in Nevada Charters and not a single soul can tell you where it is or what it was spent on.
This is why I think Jennifer Berkshire is correct. Eventually, there will be no place called public schools. There will be a selection list and rich people will be able to pay to have a teacher and school. Others will accept cash and their children will not receive anything and that will be fine because it is their “choice”. And most will meet in a charter warehouse somewhere to sit in front of a device with software teaching them. The poor will be used to privatized and receive the lesser quality of the lists.
It will be slow. CCSD has a parasite. At this rate, the Charter Authority will just keep growing and making more messes which use up more education dollars. It takes from some to give to others. And folx are just fine with allowing a corporation take everything from the disadvantaged so their own children can get ahead. The so called “progressives” are leading the charge.
It is wrong and I hope we fight it. I believe in our imperfect public schools. I see nothing the charters offer that is new. I do not see them being a remedy at all. There is some limited liability advantages for businesses – is that good use of tax dollars?
I hope I am wrong.
Logically I am just afraid Jennifer Berkshire is right.
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