The New Jersey Department of Education has approved six new charter schools to open this fall, and what a motley lot they are!

Jersey Jazzman, with his habitual research skills, has assembled the cast of characters, and it is alarming, even by New Jersey’s low standards for charter authorizing.

One, as described in a post by Mother Crusader, will be run by a man who was a major participant in a spectacular charter failure in Missouri. Another will be owned by a man who was the biggest campaign contributor to the governor of Pennsylvania and whose charter bankrupted its host district. Another has enrolled more Asian students than all other schools in the district combined. Another is a Gulen school.

And if that is not enough, state commissioner Chris Cerf is lobbying hard to bring the for-profit virtual charter corporation K12 to the Garden State. K12 is known for high attrition rates, low test scores, low graduation rates, but also for astute political campaign contributions and snazzy advertising. It is guaranteed to drain funding away from public schools, causing class sizes to rise and programs to be cut. It is very profitable for investors, but where public education is concerned, it’s a bloodsucker.

Darcie Cimarusti—aka Mother Crusader—has done some heavy duty investigation and research. She was trying to figure out who were the movers and shakers behind the Jersey City Global Charter School. She knew that New Jersey Commissioner of Education Chris Cerf boasted about the care with which he selected new charter schools and their operators. But she was not convinced.

It didn’t take much digging for her to discoverthat the operator of this charter was a central figure in one of the nation’s biggest charter school scandals.

If Mother Crusader could get to the bottom of this quagmire, why couldn’t Chris Cerf or his crack staff at the New Jersey Department of Education?

Bruce Baker added these thoughts to his earlier post about charter schools in Newark:

“So then, imagine if you will, an entire district of North Stars? Or an entire district of those who strive to achieve the same public accolades of North Star? That would sure work well from a public policy standpoint. They’d be in constant bitter battle over who could get by with the fewest of the lowest income kids. Anyone who couldn’t “cut it” in 5th or 6th grade, along with each and every child with a disability other than speech impairment would dumped out on the streets of Newark. Even after the rather significant front end sorting, we’d be looking at 45% citywide graduation rates – actually – likely much lower than that because some of the aspiring North Star’s would have to take students even less likely to complete under their preferred model.

Yes, there would probably eventually be some “market segmentation” – special schools for the kids brushed off to begin with – and special schools for those shed later on. But, under current accountability policies, those “special schools” would be closed and reconstituted every few years or so since they won’t be able to post the requisite gains. Sounds like one hell of a “system of great schools,” doesn’t it.

To the extent we avoid changing the incentive structure & accountability system, the tendency to act parasitic rather than in a more beneficial relationship will dominate. The current system is driven by the need to post good numbers – good “reported” numbers. NJ has created a reporting system that allows North Star to post a 100% grad rate and .3% dropout rate despite completing less than 50% of their 5th graders.

What do they get for this? Broad awards, accolades from NJDOE… the opportunity to run their own graduate school to train teachers in their stellar methods… (&, as I understand it, consulting contracts to train teachers from other districts in their methods).

A major problem here is that the incentive structure, the accountability measures, and system as it stands favor taking the parasitic path to results.

That said, in my view, it takes morally compromised leadership to rationalize taking this to the extent that North Star has. TEAM, for example, exists under the very same accountability structures. And while TEAM does its own share of skimming and shedding, it’s no North Star.

Bruce Baker has studied Newark charters repeatedly. As he shows in this post, their greatest success is their ability to skim the students who are most likely to succeed. Some if his findings about their academic growth–or lack thereof-may surprise you.

Charters are parasites, he concludes, that harm their host. Making the entire district charter does not change that:

“But sadly, those who most vociferously favor charter expansion as a key element of supposed “portfolio” models of schooling appear entirely uninterested in mitigating parasitic activity (that which achieves the parasites goal at the expense of the host. e.g. parasitic rather than symbiotic). Rather, they fallaciously argue that an organism consisting entirely of potential parasites is itself, the optimal form. That the good host is one that relinquishes? (WTF?) As if somehow, the damaging effects of skimming and selective attrition might be lessened or cease to exist if the entirety of cities such as Newark were served only by charter schools. Such an assertion is not merely suspect, it’s absurd.”