Gloria Nolan is a parent of children enrolled in St. Louis public schools. She recently joined the board of the Network for Public Education.
She wrote the following article, which was published in the St.Louis Post-Dispatch.
She begins:
For about three years I worked for an organization that was invested in growing the charter school movement locally and around the country. Thankfully, I moved on, and now I fully support charter school reform, such as the reforms included in the new regulations for the federal charter school program proposed by Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. Here is why.
I fully began to realize what I was a part of during lunch when I had a chance to talk to the chief executive of The Opportunity Trust, Eric Scroggins. I rattled off a list of ideas I had for turning the public schools in the St. Louis district around.
That wouldn’t work, he responded. He said the objective was to burn the system down.
For Opportunity Trust and so-called reform movements like it, the key to school improvement is to replace public schools with charter schools, or public schools that act like charter schools. That is when I lost all faith in what charter proponents were selling.
And where do these charter schools go to get start-up and expansion funds? The federal Charter School Program…
The same special interest groups that promote organizations like The Opportunity Trust are fighting the very reasonable rules that [Secretary Miguel] Cardona has proposed to help clean up the mess. With a campaign of misinformation, the charter lobby led by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools promotes the extreme right’s support for stopping the proposed regulations.
As a Black woman, I find it hard to believe any news outlet that promotes fearmongering about critical race theory and features an op-ed that criticizes the regulations because their frequent use of the words “diversity” and “racial” has the best interests of my children at heart…
The one regulation that the charter lobby objects to the most is the requirement to do an impact analysis to see if the school is needed or wanted by the community. Given that more than 40% of charter schools close within their first 10 years, an impact sounds like common sense to me. This particular regulation is also in line with the implementation of the City-Wide Planning Committee and its call for a moratorium on the opening of new schools. The guidelines here locally were met with strong opposition from The Opportunity Trust and its supporters.
I have been on the inside of the reform/charter school movement. Its ultimate objective is to destroy our public school system by replacing it with a system of charter and voucher schools. These new regulations will not stop that. I wish they were stronger. But at the very least they could help ensure that our federal tax dollars will be given to charter schools that have better intentions than many of the schools that are receiving Charter School Program grants now.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
OK. I admit that I do not know all the players in the Scrap the Schools movement i America. So I looked this guy Scroggins up. He seems like a pretty big player. So when he says more or less publicly that he wants the “blow up the schools”, why is that not front page news on every TV cable news and still existing newspaper?
More to the point, why does the issue not beckon to one of the political parties on a national scale to pin this on its opponent, which has become the modus operandi of modern politics? Why does not Beta O’Rourke not immediate begin to link Cruz to the idea of blowing up schools: “This guy is coming for your community school. Vote for Cruz and watch your school never go to the state football playoffs again because the Republicans blew it up.”
Most people like their child’s school. Most Republicans would like to see your child’s school go away. This is a national issue. Defund the Charter School movement. Save our Schools. This would beat the Republicans everywhere.
So why do we not see this tactic?
40 percent of all new charters dissolve in less than 10 years. Betsy Devos who was our past Secretary of Education stated that charters and vouchers will ultimately take over our school system in the US. by the year 2030.
Betsy Devos trashed public schools on a daily basis and pours millions of dollars to charters around the country. Mike Bloomberg just donated 200 millions dollars to the success academy charter schools in NYC. If public schools have to deal with billionaires throwing money all over the country then indeed we may be facing a take over.
An essential element of any charter school accountability reform must be to require charter schools to file THE SAME annual and interim financial reports under the same legal reporting standards that genuine public schools are required to file so that taxpayers and watchdogs can see and report how charter schools are spending taxpayers’ tax dollars.
yes, EVERY penny
First, thank you Ms. Nolan for joining NPE board!
Regarding the issue of our education tax dollars being diverted from things that help students, such as books, a.c., teacher, custodian, etc. salaries to management companies, there is the additional insult of some of the charter chains diverting our education tax dollars outside the country or state of residence.
Gulen charter chain (such as Concept, Harmony, etc.) before the split between Fetullah Gulen and Turkish leader Erdogen used to send a portion of our tax money out of the country. In the current split between the Gulenists and the Turkish government, I don’t know where that money is going, does anyone know?
The 60 Minutes piece on Gulen charter schools included an interview with Gulen teacher about the cash flow.
I would be very interested to know the increase/decrease in academic scoring in schools that have adopted “Equity” programs
I don’t know a source for that information.