The U.S. Department of Education awarded $35 million to St. Louis from the federal Charter Schools Program despite the city’s checkered history with charters. The public schools sure could have used that money to reduce class sizes and improve their offerings. Republicans and DFER-funded Democrats protect the federal charter money from cuts, even though charter expansion harms public schools. (DFER=Democrats for Education Reform, a group of hedge fund managers who support charters, high-stakes testing and other corporate “reforms,” but never support public schools).
ST. LOUIS — The Opportunity Trust education reform group has been awarded a $35.6 million federal grant to expand and open new charter schools across Missouri over the next five years.
The money will be used for 16 charter schools to serve 5,000 additional students, according to the group’s application to the U.S. Department of Education. The federal agency granted a total of $147 million to education departments and reform groups in 10 states for more charter school seats…
The Opportunity Trust launched in 2018 and has helped fund the Leadership School and several other new charters, including Atlas, Kairos Academies and Voices Academy, which opened this fall in downtown St. Louis.
Charters have had a mixed record since they first opened in the city in 2000 with a promise to improve student performance through innovation and independence. More than half of the 37 charter school operators that came to the city have folded due to financial or academic failures, including La Salle and Hawthorn schools this year.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
These failed, so let’s throw a lot more money at them.
Yeah, Sec. Cardona. That makes loads of sense. Maybe you’ve been attending the Bill Gates school of management.
LikeLike
Why is this still happening?
LikeLike
Every year, Congress keeps the funding for the federal Charter Schools Program steady at $440 million or (in the past) increases it. NPE’s exposure of waste, fraud and abuse in that program led to no new increases. The charter lobby wants more every year. It’s not Cardona’s fault. It’s the GOP zeal for privatization plus Democrats who love charters, like Hakeem Jeffries.
LikeLike
Yes, it is at least partially Cardona’s fault. He could be making it clear that the privatization of public schooling is wrong. He could be out in the public pounding home that message. He could be doing a lot but he doesn’t. . .
. . . so yes, he has to take a fair amount of blame. . . but he won’t, he’s an adminimal at heart-he doesn’t know how to look inward at himself. If he did he would be out on the stump condemning the privatization.
LikeLike
The federal charter schools program is an example of wasteful public spending. It does not promote high quality education. The federal program often funds “white flight” academies in urban communities. It is a slush fund for profiteers that fund charter schools that never open or close shortly after opening, and it undermines the public schools that serve the most vulnerable students. During his last campaign Biden vowed to end the federal charter school program. Instead, he merely restricted access to funds for schools with connections to for profit groups. The charter lobby in Washington, DC. ensures that this reckless spending keeps flowing into private pockets.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Not sure which is more disappointing – the Wizard of Oz story of charter schools in Missouri or the Feds actually buying it (or selling it with $35 million).
The letter to community and award cites “based on a research study from Stanford.” The linked study cites: “Researchers looked at student-level data from the spring of school years 2014-15 to 2018-19 in order to compare charter school students’ learning growth to those at traditional public schools where they would have otherwise attended.”
The application mentions the word “Stanford” one time. It is in an employees resume.
The application references data as in data-driven, state data, etc. but findings from data to inform a $35.5 million are subjective at best.
All grants are based on speculation. Seems the Department of Education is content as long as the applicant is on some well-funded and anti-public school yellow-brick road.
And the article linked in this blog is the new story which one would expect accolades – rather – even it presents points about the “other side of the coin” of Missouri charter schools.
LikeLike
It’s the St. Louis Post Dispatch. I don’t expect much from them these days. Decades ago it was a decent a little left of center with the Globe Democrat being a bit right of center. My folks got both when I was young in the 60s/70s.
LikeLike
Well, there are parts of the P-D worth reading! If anything, when the Globe was around, both could be stronger advocates for their respective conservative / liberal stance. The Post now has to walk the line of being “liberal” and not losing subscribers.
As for this article, the author attempts to be in the “investigative” reporter category – she looks for the part of the glass that is half-empty – and she usually finds it! In this story, someone needed to reconcile the reality of this organization and most (not all) charters struggling with them receiving $35.5 million from the feds.
LikeLike
Given that public education in this country is not sufficiently funded to actually meet the needs of students with disabilities, a rich philanthropist could really make a difference by expanding access to schools that focus on students with learning disabilities, such as The Churchill School, that Rick Lavoie has interacted with. Schools such as Churchill are too expensive for middle class and poor families.
Many charter schools refuse to accept learning disabled students. Don’t need more of them.
LikeLike
Imagine the good that could have been done if Bill Gates had devoted the billions that he has poured into disastrous “reforms” to stuff like purchasing classroom libraries and making sure that poor kids had warm coats and eye glasses.
LikeLike
One of Gates’ latest projects is to offer grants so that schools can embed continuous testing into their personal learning platforms. He continues to use his weaponized wealth to buy his way into policies.https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ideas/media-center/press-releases/2011/04/gates-foundation-announces-portfolio-of-innovative-grants-to-develop-new-teaching-and-learning-tools-that-support-teachers-and-help-students
LikeLike
Gates is an utter moron. Clearly.
LikeLike
I wonder how long it will take this toxic junk to wash through and out of the education system. I’m sure the hype machine is up and running. Then will come the laboroious onboarding. Followed by a day of novelty. Followed by the crash and burn.
In other words, what ALWAYS happens with this idiotic ed tech.
Funny that this guy who supposedly is interested in learning never, ever learns. Or it would be funny if it weren’t so tragic for schools and kids.
LikeLike
Sickening and really STOOPID.
LikeLike
https://theopportunitytrust.org/
LikeLike
“We envision a St. Louis where every single person is able to find success in a rapidly changing world and a region that draws people from all backgrounds because of its renewed sense of possibility, growing economic opportunity, and safe, just, and peaceful communities.
By working with districts, schools, educators, parents, nonprofits, government and other community stakeholders, we will increase the percentage of children attending world-class schools in St. Louis city from 10% to over 40% by 2028 and ensure another 3,000 students are enrolled in world-class schools in targeted districts in St. Louis County.”
What is a “world class school”?
LikeLike
Doesn’t it all feel so warm and fuzzy?
LikeLike
Always, from these people, we get the same hype about how following the use of their magical elixir, test scores are going to improve dramatically. And always, this proves not to be so.
But despite this unbroken history of failure, these people keep making the same idle promises, and politicians and federal and state bureaucrats keep falling for it.
When will they ever learn?
LikeLike
No, they just figure out other ways to scam us out of public monies. I,ME,MINE people do not give a damn about others and learning truths. They care about what monetarily enriches them, not what ethically enriches them.
LikeLike
The language “world-class school” is used by pundits who take seriously the results of international standardized tests, as well as the rankings based on them. In other words, by Education Deformers and by the educational bureaucrats who side with them and their pernicious, insidious, destructive policies and who haven’t the intelligence to figure out that these tests are not valid measures of what they attempt to measure.
And please, no Wilson here. Thanks in advance.
LikeLike
I’ll use Wilson whenever I see fit.
The best takedown of the standards and testing malpractice regime is Wilson’s 1997 dissertation. . . by far bar none! “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error.” Found at: https://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/viewFile/577/700
LikeLike
Wilson’s dissertation is crackpot stuff on the level of Worlds in Collusion or Chariots of the Gods. It puts forward the obviously false assertion that no intellectual accomplishment can be quantified. Why do I say that this assertion is “obviously false”? Well, it’s breathtakingly easy to put adduce counterexamples. One can easily put together a test to determine, validly, whether a kid has learned his or her multiplication table from 0 x 0 to 12 x 12, for example. Wilson is a down-the-rabbit-hole-into-madness distraction from the actual problems with the federally mandated state tests that render those tests invalid.
LikeLike
You’ve admitted that you haven’t read it, so whatever you have to say holds no validity whatsoever. Read and understand it and then get back to us. If you can’t understand it, well. . . .
LikeLike
Duane, I read through about half of it and gave up because it was so idiotic. I don’t have to read all of Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, by Ignatius Donnely, to understand that it’s a work by a crackpot or all of Lucian of Samosata’s A True History to recognize that it’s a fantasy, not a travelogue.
LikeLike
You haven’t read it, yet you cast dispersions on it. I’d say it’s because it’s over your head. Sad, indeed very sad.
LikeLike
Haaaaaaa. OMG. Keep ’em coming, Duane.
LikeLike
And yes, I am casting aspersions on it. It’s ridiculous. The guy doesn’t understand the first thing about educational measurement. I certainly wouldn’t want crackpot nonsense like that one finds in Wilson any more dispersed in the general population. LOL. There are lots of elementary introductions to educational measurement if you care actually to study it, Duane. Just do a search on Amazon books for Psychometrics. It’s a whole field of scientific study, and it’s fascinating and, ofc, useful.
LikeLike
And yes, I am casting aspersions on it. I certainly wouldn’t want it more widely dispersed.
LikeLike
“If you can’t understand it”
HAAAAAAAAAA!!! OMG!!! Now THAT is hilarious.
LikeLike
Hilariously sad. Read it and comprehend it. If you need help, I can help you understand it.
LikeLike
But I can’t understand this here stuff wrote in words. Because my brain you know.
haaaaaa!
LikeLike
LikeLike
LikeLike
WILSON: The entire field of psychometrics is imaginary.
ME: HAAAAA!!!! OMG!!!! Now that’s hilarious. How about Astronomy? Is that imaginary, too? Chemistry? Get this guy some meds.
LikeLike
Of course, Astronomy is imaginary. The sky is a dome with the stars stuck into it like raisins in a pudding. HAAAAAA! And the Moon Landing was filmed on a movie set by Stanley Kubrick. ROFLMAO.
LikeLike
Yes, that must be it. Wilson is so far beyond my feeble intelligence. Must be all the algebraic topology, differential geometry, and calculus on manifolds he uses. ROFL!
LikeLike
The first Bush administration used the term “world class schools”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Collision, not Collusion
LikeLike
I think you had it right in one.
LikeLike
This behavior is despicable. Only idiots would continue to waste money, time and energy in that manner!!!
I have recovered from the abrupt closing of Hawthorn Leadership School for Girls.
LikeLike