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New York: With Republican Loss of State Senate, Charter Schools Endangered

By dianeravitch
November 13, 2018 //
28

If anyone ever believed that charter schools are a “progressive” cause, please consider the reaction in New York to the Republicans’ loss of control of the State Senate.

Governor Cuomo and the Republicans who were in charge of the State Senate showered the charter schools with money and favors, because of the hedge fund money behind them.

But now the Republican grip has been broken and charter advocates are rightly worried. Not progressives, but Republicans.

This article appeared in Newsday on Long Island, the epicenter of the parent boycott of high stakes testing, where several representatives were felled in the last election by parents.

By Michael Gormley michael.gormley@newsday.com @GormleyAlbany Updated November 12, 2018 6:00 AM

ALBANY — One of the losers in Tuesday’s election is the charter school movement, which lost a big and reliable advocate when Republicans gave up control of the majority to Democrats in the State Senate, both sides said.

“There’s no question it’s going to be challenging,” said Robert Bellafiore, a consultant who works with charter schools. He also was part of the team under former Gov. George Pataki that authorized charter schools in 1998.

The strongest backer of charter schools now is Democratic Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who wields extraordinary power in crafting state budgets under New York law.

“What that means is you can stop bad stuff, but it doesn’t mean you will see an expansion,” Bellafiore said.

Advocates had hoped the legislature and governor in 2019 would lift a cap on the number of charter schools that can be created. The cap is 460, including a limit of 50 in New York City where demand is strongest. As of September there were 358 charter schools approved to operate or already operating. Five are on Long Island. Charter schools must be renewed every five years by showing they are successful.

Since 1998, Senate Republicans continued to support the publicly funded, but privately run schools. Many Democrats say charter schools unfairly compete for students, and the state and local aid attached to them. Advocates of charter schools, including some urban Democrats, say they are a needed alternative to failing traditional schools. Charter schools, for example, are free of some regulations, which allows them to experiment with instruction models such as longer school days. Supporters point to long waiting lists for these schools as proof of their value.

“This is a moment for charter schools,” said Andy Pallotta, president of New York State United Teachers, which has opposed expansion of charter schools and seeks greater transparency of their operations. “I think they lost their influence in the Capitol.”

Senate Democrats wouldn’t say what their plans are for charter schools or if the new majority would support any expansion.

“Senate Democrats care about providing a quality education for all New York’s children, including those attending charter schools,” said Senate Democratic spokesman Mike Murphy. “A Democratic majority will seek expanded opportunities for all our schools to ensure a brighter future for students regardless of the type of school they attend.”

There was no immediate comment from Cuomo or the Senate’s Republican conference.

NYSUT takes credit for part of the Democratic wave that ended Republican control of the Senate. Pallotta said the union’s more than 600,000 members were galvanized when Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan (R-East Northport) said the union was among groups acting “almost like the forces of evil,” spending millions of dollars to create a legislature led by Democrats.

“There was a red-hot reaction to that,” Pallotta said. “I believe it was a very bad move on his part.”

The charter school movement has also been a big contributor to Republican senators, until this last campaign, records show.

New Yorkers for a Balanced Albany is a major funder of pro-charter school candidates. Two years ago in the final critical month of the legislative elections, the group spent $2.8 million on TV ads and mailers and in direct campaign contributions, state records show. In the same October period of this year, according to the latest filings, the group spent $69,950.

The group supports StudentsFirstNY, a charter school advocacy group.

“Charter schools give parents in low-income neighborhoods school choices like parents have in affluent communities,” said executive director Jenny Sedlis in a prepared statement. “In New York City, we don’t have enough great school choices. We look forward to working with legislators to ensure all kids have access to high-quality schools.”

Wealthy supporters of charter schools are also big funders of Cuomo’s campaigns, but he has come under increasing pressure by liberal Democrats over his support of the schools. Teachers’ unions, which are also major campaign contributors, argue that charter schools reduce state aid for traditional schools.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization

Steven Singer Prefers the “Old” Linda Darling-Hammond to the “New” One

By dianeravitch
November 13, 2018 //
37

Steven Singer writes that Linda Darling-Hammond was one of his heroes. But after reading the new report from the Learning Policy Institute, with its benign embrace of choice, he is disappointed.

Perhaps what he sees is the difference between Linda writing in her own voice and Linda writing as part of a team. I wonder who wrote the first draft.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, School Choice

Tom Ultican: How the Destroy Public Education Movement Destroyed the Public Schools of Kansas City

By dianeravitch
November 13, 2018 //
4

Tom Ultican has been chronicling the advance of the DPE (Destroy Public Education) Movement. He attended the recent conference of the Network for Public Education, where he heard from leaders of the Kansas City (Missouri) school district and realized that it was suffering from the DPE strategy.

He wrote this post about the deliberate and heedless destruction of what was once a vibrant school district.

The city and the school district were, to begin with, victimized by white flight. Subsidized by federal housing policies, whites abandoned the city. Responding to a court order, the state poured huge sums into magnet schools in hopes of luring white students back, but it didn’t work.

Then the DPE moved in, like vultures, to feast on the carcass of the remaining public schools.

Ultican describes the rapid turnover in leaders, beginning with John Covington, who was placed in Kansas City by Eli Broad. Covington closed numerous schools to make way for school choice and charters. He didn’t stay long, however, because he got a call from the Great Eli himself, telling him to go to Detroit to run the Education Achievement Authority. That was a massive and costly failure.

At present, as he shows (based on the presentation of state data at NPE), the Kansas City school district has only 14,216 students. The charter in the districts, each of them considered a “school district,” has almost as many students. There are currently 20 (20!) separate local education agencies operating in what was once the Kansas City school district (each charter is its own local education agency). Twenty school districts competing for students.

This is expensive, as he shows. The Kansas City district spends more than double what is spent in the similar-size Springfield, Mo., district.

A sad footnote to this tale of harm inflicted on children and public schools is that much of it is funded by the local Kauffman foundation, whose namesake would likely be appalled to see what is being done with the money he left behind:

Ewing Marion Kauffman was a graduate of public schools. Before his death in 1993 he spent money and time promoting public schools. He was an eagle scout and he established the Kansas City Royal baseball team. He would undoubtedly hate the idea that the $2 billion foundation he established is now being used to undermine public education in his city.

Kauffman Foundation money was used to bring CEE-Trust to Kansas City. It was a Bill Gates funded spin off from Indianapolis’s proto-type privatizing organization The Mind Trust. The CEE-Trust mandate was to implement the portfolio theory of education reform. When local’s got wind of a backroom deal that had given CEE-Trust a $385,000 state contract to create a plan for KCPS things went south. A 2017 Chalkbeat Article says, “In 2013, a plan to reshape Kansas City’s schools was essentially run out of town.” It became so bad that CEE-Trust changed its name to Education Cities.

Now the same local-national money combination is funding a new group, SmartschoolKC, with the same portfolio district agenda. The new collaboration is funded by the Kauffman Foundation, the Hall Family Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation.

The portfolio model posits treating schools like stock holdings and trimming the failures by privatizing them or closing them. The instrument for measuring failure is the wholly inappropriate standardized test. This model inevitably leads to an ever more privatized system that strips parents and taxpayers of their democratic rights. Objections to the portfolio model include:

It creates constant churn and disruption. The last thing students in struggling neighborhoods need is more uncertainty.

Democratically operated schools in a community are the foundation of American democracy. Promoters of the portfolio model reject the civic value of these democracy incubators.
Parents and taxpayer no longer have an elected board that they can hold accountable for school operations.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Disruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, Kansas City, Missouri, Privatization

José Espinosa: The Truth About Charter Schools That Boast About a 100% College Acceptance Rate

By dianeravitch
November 13, 2018 //
12

José Espinosa is the Superintendent of the Socorro Independent School District In Texas. This article appeared in the El Paso Times.

Superintendent Espinosa thinks the public should know the truth about charter schoools that claim to have a 100% college acceptance rate. They are lying. Rightwingers in Texas and charter promoters are planning on a big expansion of charters in the state, peddling their wares with unverified claims about their “success.”

He writes:

When something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Dating back to 1954, the Better Business Bureau used this catchphrase to alert the public of shady business practices.

In the new era of school choice, this catchphrase can be used to alert the public of misleading business practices by charter schools in order to protect our most prized possessions — our children.

Every year, certain charters tout a 100 percent college acceptance rate as their major marketing pitch to lure parents away from traditional public schools.

The reality is the public isn’t told acceptance to a four-year university is actually a graduation requirement at some charter schools.

It specifically states in certain charters’ student/family handbooks that a student may graduate and receive a diploma ONLY if the student is accepted into a four-year university and has completed 125 hours of community service.

Reading lengthy student/family handbooks carefully before considering charters is just as important as reading the fine print before signing contracts.

We must also ask, “Why is Corporate America bashing our traditional public schools, yet it doesn’t demand transparency or accountability from charter schools?”

While 100 percent of charter seniors get accepted to college as required, the public has a right to know the percentage of charter students who didn’t make it to their senior year.

Ed Fuller, Pennsylvania State University professor, found in one of his studies of a particular charter network that when considering the number of students starting in the ninth grade as a cohort, the percentage of charter cohort students who graduated and went on to college was at best 65 percent.

In other words, 35 percent of ninth-graders at a charter network didn’t make it to their graduation….

Just like the BBB, it is our duty to alert the public.

If charters insist on boasting about 100 percent college acceptance rates, then traditional public schools must insist that our communities be fully informed.

Charters’ news release could read: “Since we require students to get accepted to a four-year university in order to graduate, our seniors have a 100 percent college acceptance rate. However, more than 30 percent of our cohort students in the ninth grade didn’t graduate from our charters. Therefore, we had less than 70 percent of our cohort students graduate and get accepted to college…”

Lauding charters who lack transparency and discount students while bashing El Paso’s public schools disparages the hard work, relentless dedication and success of Team SISD.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Graduation rates, Hoax, Lies, Privatization, Testing

Linda Darling-Hammond Vs. Ravitch and Burris on School Choice

By dianeravitch
November 12, 2018 //
146

Linda Darling-Hammond and her team at the Learning Policy Institute at Stanford published a report called “The Tapestry of American Public Education: How Can We Create a System of Schools Worthy of All?”

Carol Burris and I wrote a critique of that report, because it seems to endorse the reformers’ idea of a portfolio of charters, public schools, and other choices. Some call this the “portfolio” model or the “diverse providers” model, but whatever it is called, it accepts that charter schools and public schools are interchangeable. We argued that governance is crucial, because the public should be in charge of their schools, not private boards that are not accountable.

Linda Darling-Hammond took issue with our critique, and she responded here. I hope you will read her response in full. It recapitulates much of what is in the original publication, although the word “portfolio” has been deleted.

Our response is posted directly after Darling-Hammond’s comment on our original piece.

Here is our response.

We agree on many issues with Linda Darling-Hammond and the Learning Policy Institute. Our goals are the same. We want excellent schools for all children. But we don’t think that charter schools bring us closer to our shared goals.

As Darling-Hammond acknowledges, 40 percent of the charter schools that opened from 2001 TO 2015 have closed. Instability and churn do not provide a path to excellent schools for all. Darling-Hammond and her team believe the problems with charters are fixable. Given the charter sector’s continual resistance to any real accountability, transparency or serious reform, we are doubtful. It has become increasingly apparent that the corruption, mismanagement and self-dealing by private management are not “bugs,” but rather features of the charter sector.

We also think that the LPI team underestimates the damage that privately managed charter schools do to public schools, by siphoning off the students they choose and diverting resources, causing budget cuts to the schools that most students choose.

As Jan Resseger a former chair of the National Council of Churches Committee on Public Education explains here, scholars including Gordon Lafer and Bruce Baker have demonstrated the inefficiency of dividing scarce public resources among multiple systems of schools.

Some of the language we criticized in our prior blog has been deleted from the report, such as the word “portfolio.” We are grateful. Other language has been modified to soften the critique of those who are concerned about school governance, and language that we interpreted as opposition to caps has been clarified.

What remains, however, is a perspective that is consonant with the portfolio model, that is, the belief that privately managed charters can be seamlessly folded into the public school system as one of many choices. Based on what we have reported about charters school scams, frauds, and cherry-picking of students, we remain skeptical.

Given Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ love for charter schools, we continue to see private management of public dollars as privatization and to see privately managed (and unaccountable) charter schools not as public schools but as government contractors in serious need of regulation and oversight.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

Inside Philanthropy: Billionaires Buying Political Support for Charter Schools, or, Democracy for Sale

By dianeravitch
November 12, 2018 //
6

The veil is beginning to fall away from the billionaire-funded charter activity. There are no grassroots in this billionaire-driven “movement.” It is all about money. Without the billionaires’ money, the demand and the supply would dry up.

Inside Philanthropy looks at the funding behind Marshall Tuck, and the article assumes he has won. But millions of votes remain uncounted in California and the contest is not yet decided. At last count, the candidates were less than one percentage point apart. We will have to wait to see who wins the contest between Big Money and teachers.

On the eve of the election, spending for this election had risen to $50 million. The total is likely to be even higher when final reporting is in.

The apparent winner of the contest, Marshall Tuck, is the former president of Green Dot, a charter school network. He wants to expand charters in a state that already leads the nation in the number of such schools. The other candidate, Tony Thurmond, argued for putting the brakes on charters to address issues of transparency and accountability.

Tuck ran unsuccessfully for the same office in 2014 in a race that cost $30 million. In both cases, Tuck outspent his opponent. This year, his campaign had raised $28.5 million by election day.

The money has come from a who’s who of charter school backers and K-12 philanthropists, including Eli Broad, Reed Hastings, Lynn Schusterman, Julian Robertson, Laurene Powell Jobs, Laura and John Arnold, Dan Loeb, Michael Bloomberg and his daughter Emma, and three Waltons: Carrie Walton Penner, Alice Walton, and Jim Walton.

Among Tuck’s biggest backers was Helen Schwab, wife of the finance billionaire Charles Schwab, who gave $2 million to EdVoice for the Kids PAC, which managed independent campaign committees for Tuck; Arthur Rock, the venture capitalist, gave $3 million to EdVoice, while Doris Fisher gave over $3 million. Along with the Schwabs, Fisher has been a huge backer of charter schools as a philanthropist and a consistent mega-donor for political campaigns in this space.

A less familiar name on the list of top backers to EdVoice is businessman Bill Bloomfield. In fact, Bloomfield was the single biggest supporter of the PAC this year, with $5.3 million in donations.

What is crucial in this article is that it recognizes that the push for charters depends on billionaires who have no direct interest in public schools other than to destroy them.

Elected school boards are accountable to the people. To whom are the billionaires accountable?

The most important line in the article is the last one, which recognizes an obvious fact:

Regardless of what you think of charter schools, this seems like no way to make policy on public education, long regarded as among the most democratic institutions in America.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization

Ohio: Impoverished East Cleveland District Sues to Stop State Takeover

By dianeravitch
November 10, 2018 //
1

In 2012, I visited Cleveland and took a tour of the school districts in and around the city. I was escorted by Jan Resseger, a knowledgeable social justice advocate. She drove me through the plush suburban districts, then took me to East Cleveland, where there were numerous abandoned buildings and empty lots. East Cleveland had once been a prosperous suburban, but in the 1970s, the once affluent area began to lose jobs and population and its tax base, then fell into disrepair and decay. Because of its low test scores, the state of Ohio wants to takeover the district. This article about the district was written by Robert Brownlee, who grew up in East Cleveland, attended its public schools, and spent his career in its public schools. He hits the nail on the head: The state takeover will do nothing to address the root causes of low academic achievement.

East Cleveland schools are currently in the process of being taken over by the state of Ohio due to poor performance on various measures of student achievement. I grew up in East Cleveland and attended Rozelle Elementary School, the old Kirk Junior High School, and Shaw High School. I returned to East Cleveland as a curriculum specialist/administrator in 1990 and remained there until my retirement. As a resident and educator, I have witnessed substantial changes both in the city and the schools. Such changes, in an older suburban city, have been accompanied by rising poverty, deteriorating housing, and now a pending state takeover of its schools.

When we think in terms of the obvious differences between these East Cleveland neighborhoods and those where students perform well on state tests, it is clear that the neighborhoods and conditions in which students live have a direct impact on their learning in school. The research is available that highlights the effects of such living conditions on the brains of young people. In addition to the obvious physical conditions of the neighborhoods in which students live, they must also contend with the results of poverty itself that affect cognitive and emotional development, especially as young people experience poor nutrition, stressful living conditions, and urban blight.

Rather than resorting to a state takeover of districts such as East Cleveland, we must all take a closer look at the neighborhoods and the attendant poverty that impact the lives and learning of young people!

Bill Phillis reports on the latest community effort to block privatization in East Cleveland:


East Cleveland Schools HB 70 state takeover lawsuit transferred to Franklin County

The East Cleveland Board of Education sued the Ohio Department of Education in an attempt to stop the takeover of the District pursuant to HB 70 of the 131st General Assembly. The case has been transferred from Cuyahoga County to Franklin County. The Board claims the state’s takeover process is unconstitutional and has asked for a temporary restraining order.

HB 70 has wreaked havoc on Youngstown and Lorain Schools and their respective communities. Putting school districts in the hands of a czar appointed by an appointed board is just plain wrong. It is just another form of privatization.

“The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves.”
– John Adams, September 10, 1785

William L. Phillis | Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding | 614.228.6540 | ohioeanda@sbcglobal.net| http://www.ohiocoalition.org

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

Sue Legg: Twenty Years of School Choice in Florida, Part 3

By dianeravitch
November 10, 2018 //
6

Sue Legg recently retired as education director of the Florida League of Women Voters. She was assessment and evaluation contractor for the Fl. DOE for twenty years while on the faculty at the University of Florida. At my request, she wrote a four-part series reflecting on School Choice in Florida after 20 years.

Twenty years later: Who Benefits, Not Schools!

Florida’s Constitution mandates that the state shall make ‘adequate provision for all students to access a uniform, safe, secure, efficient and high-quality system of free public schools.

The strategies on how to implement or circumvent these values result in constant lawsuits…at least five in the last two years alone. The arguments are not new: civil rights, funding, local vs. state control, and accountability. One might ask: Who benefits in a system that generates so much conflict? Politicians and profiteers, but not the public may well be the answer.

Political Cronyism and Conflict of Interest.

Charter supporters use money and influence to affect policy outcomes. According to Integrity Florida, $2,651,639 was spent on committee and campaign contributions in 2016 alone. Major donors include John Kirtley, who heads Florida Federation for Children and is also chair of Step Up for Students (which distributes a billion dollars in corporate tax credit scholarships to private schools). All Children Matters, run by Betsy DeVos, gave over $4 million to Florida political committees between 2004 and 2010. The Walton family gave over $7 million between 2008 and 2016 to Florida’s All Children Matter. Large contributions by the Waltons, John Kirtley, CSUSA, Academica, Gary Chartrand (a member of the State Board of Education) and others were also made to Kirtley’s Florida Federation for Children. In addition, for profit charters have spent over $8 million in lobbying in Tallahassee. Former Governor Jeb Bush’s foundation ExcelinEd, supports the spread of pro-choice policies in 38 states.

Conflict of interest claims in the Florida legislature have been made against current and former legislators including Speaker of the House Richard Corcoran; legislators Manny Diaz, Eric Fresen (recently found guilty of tax evasion), Seth McKeel, House Education Chair Michael Bileca, Senators John Legg, Anitere Flores, Kelli Stargel, and Ralph Arza (who was forced to resign for other reasons). They have personal ties to the charter industry and held important education committee leadership roles.

Testing Companies.

The A.I.R. testing company received a six-year $220 million contract for the Florida state assessment exams. This contract does not include the mandatory End of Course exams required in high school subjects, the kindergarten readiness test, the English Language Learner test, or the 50 teacher certification tests and the principals’ leadership exam. Add to this cost was the technical debacle resulting from a law requiring all tests to be administered online. Districts did not have the bandwidth.

Private and Charter Schools Expansion.

The Florida tax credit scholarships (FTC) to private schools no longer serves only low-income families. Income eligibility has risen to $63,000 for partial stipends. Funding is increased by 25% per year, but the corporate tax revenue to support them runs afoul of the governor’s agenda to reduce taxes. As a compromise, in 2018 a sales tax ‘donation’ to private schools for new car owners was approved for students with approved claims of being bullied. Students with disabilities may qualify for MacKay scholarships to private schools which may have no qualified teachers to serve them. Parents whose children have severe disabilities are given a stipend and search on their own for assistance.

Categories Accountability, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Disruption, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit, Fraud, Funding, Privatization

News from NPE Action: Our Allies in Indianapolis Captured Two of Three Seats on the School Board!

By dianeravitch
November 9, 2018 //
10

Congratulations to public school advocates in Indianapolis, who were vastly outspent by the “School Choice Trust” (Mind Trust and Stand for Children), yet still managed to win two out of three seats on the school board!

The Indianapolis story is here.

Vocal critics of the Indianapolis Public Schools administration looked poised to unseat two incumbents in Tuesday’s school board election. The results signal opposition to sweeping moves that have reshaped the district, such as high school closings and partnerships with charter school operators.

The race for the at-large seat remained close as the final votes were tallied Wednesday night, with retired IPS teacher Susan Collins taking 43.7 percent of votes over incumbent Mary Ann Sullivan, a former board president. Collins led by about 600 votes — Sullivan held 42.4 percent of the vote, and Joanna Krumel, another challenger, had about 14 percent.

Taria Slack, a federal worker, defeated incumbent Dorene Rodriguez Hoops with 59 percent of the vote to represent the northwest side of the district.

The third seat was won by a proponent of school choice, a policy usually associated with conservatives and opponents of public education.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Indianapolis, Parents, Privatization, Resistance, School Choice

Jan Resseger: School Choice Fails to Provide Equity for the Neediest Children

By dianeravitch
November 9, 2018 //
17

Jan Resseger reviews the evidence about the “portfolio” model of school choice and weighs in on the Burris-Ravitch critique of the recent paper from the Learning Policy Institute that supported that model.

She writes:

“The Learning Policy Institute’s report, The Tapestry of American Public Education, promotes a lovely metaphor, a tapestry of school options woven together—open enrollment, magnet schools, charter schools, and specialty schools based on distinct educational models. The Learning Policy Institute declares: “The goal and challenge of school choice is to create a system in which all children choose and are chosen by a good school that serves them well and is easily accessible. The central lesson from decades of experience and research is that choice alone does not accomplish this goal. Simply creating new options does not lead automatically to greater access, quality or equity.” Here is how the Learning Policy Institute proposes that such fair and equal choice might be accomplished: “Focus on educational opportunities for children, not governance structures. Too often, questions related to the number of charters a district should have address school governance preferences, rather than the needs of children… Work to ensure equity and access for all. Expanding choice can increase opportunities, or it can complicate or restrict access to convenient and appropriate opportunities, most often for the neediest students… Create transparency at every stage about outcomes, opportunities, and resources to inform decision making for families, communities, and policymakers… Build a system of schools that meets all students’ needs.”

“The Learning Policy Institute’s recommendations sound familiar. They are the same arguments made by the Center on Reinventing Public Education as it describes its theory of “portfolio school reform.” Portfolio school reform imagines an amicable, collaborative mix of many different schools: “A great school for every child in every neighborhood. The portfolio strategy is a problem-solving framework through which education and civic leaders develop a citywide system of high-quality, diverse, autonomous public schools. It moves past the one-size-fits-all approach to education. Portfolio systems place educators directly in charge of their schools, empower parents to choose the right schools for their children, and focus school system leaders—such as school authorizers or those in a district central office—on overseeing school success.”

“Under portfolio school reform, a school district manages traditional neighborhood schools and charter schools like a stock portfolio—opening new schools all the time and closing so-called “failing” schools. CRPE says that portfolio school reform operates as a cycle: “give families choice; give schools autonomy; assess school performance; schools improve or get intervention; and expand or replace schools.”

“This rhetoric is all very nice. But the realities on the ground in the portfolio school districts I know fail to embody equity and justice. I believe it is a pipe dream to promise a great school choice for every child in every neighborhood. For one thing, there are the political and economic realities, beginning with the operation of power politics which is always part of the mayoral governance that is at the heart of this theory. There is also the unequal access parents have to information, and the unequal political, economic, and social position of parents. And finally there is the devastating impact of the ongoing expansion of school choice on the traditional public schools in the school districts where charters are proliferating. CRPE calls its governance theory “portfolio school reform.” Many critics instead describe parasitic school reform.”

Resseger cites studies by Gordon Lafer and Bruce Baker that show the harm the portfolio model inflicts on public schools.

And she concludes:

“The public schools are our mutual responsibility through public governance—paid for and operated by government on behalf of he public. We have a lot of work to do to realize this promise for all children. Bruce Baker describes our responsibility: ‘More than anything else, our system of public schooling requires renewed emphasis on equitable, adequate, and economically sustainable public financing at a level that will provide all children equal opportunity to achieve the outcomes we, as a society, desire for them.’”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Equity, Justice, Privatization, School Choice
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