Angie Sullivan teaches in a Title 1 elementary school in Las Vegas, Nevada (Clark County). She frequently sends letters to every legislator in the state about the need to fund schools like hers adequately and the dismal failure of charter schools.
She responded to a post that featured an interview with Jennifer Berkshire, who predicted that some states would phase out public schools in the next few years.
Sullivan responded:
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 Elaine Wynn and her reformers wanted. That was too quick and shocking. The ASD grabbing 30 schools at a time did not work. [Elaine Wynn is chair of the state Board of Education and wife of a major casino owner.]
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 offer 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 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.
She followed up with another comment:
Sadly CCSD and Nevada “Leadership” are TFA. They are here to stay. Having catapaulted themselves above everyone.
An example is the very powerful Rebecca Feiden who control $950 million in Nevada Education Dollars which go to Nevada Charters.
Another is Jana Wilcox-Lavin in Opportunity 180 which spreads charters and gives “grants” to them.
No one wants to be a teacher – seems there will always be an appetite to make six figures and control everyone and everything for an eduphilantrophist like Elaine Wynn.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Wow. That is crazy. Thanks for letting me know. I am in Utah. How would I find out whether this is happening in Utah? I homeschool my kids, but this still interests me. After all, my neighbors and relatives are in public schools and charter schools both.
“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 every day. I do not find it new.”
This is perfectly said.
and scary, since the word “innovation” has been so publicly attached to schools in some of our city’s districts
The distinction is made, here, between Education Management Organizations (EMOs) that are supposedly “nonprofit” and Charter Management Organizations (CMOs) that are supposedly “for profit.” Three comments about this. First, organizations that call themselves or are called CMOs can be either ostensibly nonprofit or for profit, so this distinction doesn’t hold up. Second, even the supposedly nonprofit EMOs and CMOs in fact profit from their operations as the whole scam is based upon pocketing taxpayer dollars. If you run one of these organizations and provide yourself and your golfing buddies and relatives and mistresses and misteresses whom you’ve hired large enough salaries and perks, there is nothing left over, so you are nonprofit. And third, the whole scam, whether ostensibly for profit or ostensibly nonprofit, is based on this principle: Anything you don’t spend to benefit students and teachers, you get to keep. So, no libraries, classroom supplies, art supplies, textbooks (we are a digital school of the future!), schools nurses, gyms, football fields, tracks, theatres, pools, etc.
The monied right wing in the United States has succeeded in almost entirely killing off unions. Only in government–in jobs for bureaucrats, fire fighters, police officers, and teachers–are these still a force, and the tighty righties want to finish them off entirely. And, the same monied right wing wants nonpublic schools for two reasons: first, they can have a two-tiered system in which their kids get the haute cuisine while the children of ordinary people get table scraps, which means that they don’t have to contribute to paying for the educations of those Prole kids via taxes; and, second, a proliferation of private schools funded with vouchers will mean more religious schools, which will mean more fundamentalist and nationalist indoctrination, which will mean that the wedge issues (guns, gods, and gays) that they use to keep the moron class on their side will get more traction among the young.
Add to this the tradition of allowing an occasional poor person into the schools which have the cuisine. If you let in a few folks who are not raised on a silver spoon, a private school can see itself, albeit vaguely, as fundamentally benevolent.
The neoliberal focus on the individual, to the detriment of society has brought us to this – an atomized society where large numbers of adults are willing to sacrifice the future of large numbers of children to gain an advantage for their own, following Margaret Thatcher’s profoundly sociopathic quote: “Who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first.” In this world, there is no future and no point to building or maintaining anything for later generations.- only the individual’s struggle to survive in the present.
https://www.the74million.org/article/city-of-las-vegas-approved-to-open-charter-school/
This “historic vote” could have just destroyed the Nevada Public Education System.
The former TFA Rebecca Feiden rules Nevada Education. Some politicians are IN. Some politicians are OUT. She has a powerful wand to wave that allows some to get a school district (or whatever they call it to get around our Nevada Constitution).
Henderson is going through the 6 year process to take the language out of the Nevada Constitution to have their own rich white district and get away from the rest of us.
Meanwhile Mayor Goodman spreads money around in the Nevada Charter Authority and gets a charter EMO (City of Las Vegas District or whatever they call it to get around our Nevada Constitution) with Michelle Rhee’s TNTP.
I think someone better tell these Henderson folx that Rebecca Feiden is their problem.
https://news3lv.com/news/local/how-communities-can-break-away-from-countywide-districts-like-ccsd?fbclid=IwAR3Ff6eYoXjBKRVR2I1JVXjwBpswj3CXs2QGOBECZ5_-RfGa0jAajjzE_ts
Rebecca Feiden is the one controlling who gets to ignore the Nevada Constitution.
For example: Rebecca allowed Mayor Carolyn Goodman and Michelle Rhee’s TNTP to become a Superintendent/CMO/EMO the other day.
Carolyn Goodman had to ignore the African American City Councilman Cedric Creer whose district she will privatize with another failing charter.
Carolyn had to give a building, security and other things at the expense of the City.
Carolyn had to line up a powerful list of reformers/privatizers who will expect cash.
Mayor Carolyn Goodman got rejected at first because her choice of CMO/EMO is a scary well known nut. (See Michelle Rhee Washington DC firing labor on TV and duct taping kids to seats)
Goodman kissed the ring/greased the wheels with donations and using city resources – viola.
Being extremely nice and bribing Rebecca Feiden works!
Rebecca waved her magic wand to stuff another charter chain “district” into Clark County without violating the Nevada Constitution. Rebecca Feiden is the most powerful person in the state.
When Goodman retires the City of Las Vegas will still be in the expensive charter school business. Lucky them!
Henderson elite and powerful were refused a charter.
Gulenist Soner Tarim, Senator Carrie Buck, Annette Dawson-Owens, most former Henderson mayors showed up to threaten Rebecca Feiden in the Charter Authority. They were slamming the table with fists and threatening lawsuits.
They made Rebecca Feiden mad.
Even a building and millions in promised donations did not make her happy after that.
They were so arrogant they did not even fill out the Nevada application correctly – leaving Texas information included (we do not pledge allegiance to the Texas flag).
EMO Soner Tarim wanted his cash without telling anyone in Nevada what he would do for it. Obviously Texas made him a charter king – but he is new to Nevada. We also already have two other Gulen Cult Charter Business chains. Plus For-Profit Acdemica rules here. Someone should have warned Soner Tarim.
Also – Rebecca Feiden is trying to look like she is following the law. Another rich white serving Henderson charter looks bad right now. She only increased diversity by a fraction of a percent after spending millions in tax payer money to diversity.
My suggestion: Henderson should send someone over to Mayor Goodman’s office to see how much this bribe – I mean donation – is costing the City of Las Vegas.
This six year process can be avoided if you have enough cash.
Mayor’s can get a district of their own now. Goodman just did it.
Nevada Constitution ignored via Rebecca Feiden.
I am not happy.
The FBI should follow the money.