NPR Explains Charter Schools

Claudio Sanchez at NPR decided to kick off March with a charter school explainer, and boy did March come in like a big, fuzzy, lamb. Sanchez decided that the best way to get a fully rounded explanation of charters was to talk to three charter advocates, a journalistic technique akin to interviewing the NRA about guns or the RJ Reynolds company about cigarettes. The resulting piece assures us all that charter schools are pretty awesome with no real down sides at all. Also, guns are basically freedom sticks and cigarettes can help you stay healthy.

Sanchez talked to Ted Kolderie (Education Evolving, and longtime charter law developer), Greg Richmond (National Association of Charter School Authorizers), and Nina Rees (National Alliance form Public [sic] Charter Schools). And together, they hit all the PR points one would expect in a charter puff piece.

Let's follow along with Sanchez'a Q&A format.

What is a charter school?

Kolderie notes that charters create a "two-sector system." One is a traditional centrally managed district, while the charters "are independent, not owned by a central school board." Which is to say, not owned by the taxpayers-- even though taxpayers foot the bill. Charter schools are, among other things, a system by which taxpayers buy a school system, but don't end up owning anything.

He also notes that charters are subject to performance, which is only kind of true in some states that have some accountability rules on paper. But some states have weak rules, and some states, like Betsy DeVos's home state of Michigan, have no real accountability rules at all. In Michigan, for instance, a charter can fail miserably and still expand into new markets.

Rees lists off her favorite features. "A local school district does not tell charters when to open or close their doors, what kind of curriculum to use, what company to contract for food or paper. Charters have the freedom to hire teachers without a union contract."

What are authorizers?

Richmond handles this one. They give the official okee dokee for a school to open and every so often review to see if they're doing their job. They aren't allowed to be for-profit, which doesn't mean they can't be using authorizing as a means of generating a solid revenue stream (like this example from Michigan).

Can teachers start a charter?

Actually, only in one state. Which seems.... wrong.

Charters can be for-profit, right? Because 15% of them are.

Barely a question, but Richmond dances around it by saying that in some places it's legal to hire a for-profit management company to run the school. This is where someone who wasn't there to push charter PR might have mentioned the many ways that non-profit charters can still be highly profitable, like renting the building to yourself or hiring your entire family in various positions or just plain skimming which is easier in the many states where charters are allowed to keep their financial dealings secret. And this would have been a great place to bring up an operation like the Gulen charter chain, which gives every appearance of a giant scam for funneling US tax dollars into a Turkish political movement.

Are charters funded the same way as public schools, with mix of state, local and federal money?

Actually a good question, which Richmond answers "maybe sort of depends." Also, private money figures in as well. In fact, for some charters, like Success Academy, depend on donors a great deal. And that's before we even talk about the hedge fund managers and real estate tycoons who invest in charters in order to get a great return on that investment.

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools says charters get less money. Is that true?

Yes, an award-winning journalist just asked the head of the National Alliance for Public [sic] Charter Schools if what her organization said is true. I wonder what she's going to say? Will she break down and confess that charters spend way more on administrative costs, or that it depend on who is doing the figuring, or that they pitched themselves in many states by promising that they wouldn't need as much money to do the job? Will she suddenly just say, "No, no-- we were totally lying about that."

Ha. No, she says that it's totally true.

Is she kidding?

Sanchez asks Koldorie is Rees is telling the truth, and Koldorie offers, "Well, I've heard charter advocates say it before." So he's got his doubts, too.

Do charters gets the same amount of federal IDEA money?

Rees goes with "it's complicated because funding is so opaque" which is true, not because, as she suggests, of something about how the district handles money, but because of how charters like to keep their books closed. Not that it would be that hard to figure out, but charters are in no rush to talk about how many poor and special needs students they are including because that information might make some of their less admirable behavior transparently obvious.

Richmond allows as how no federal money flows directly to charters except Bill Clinton Charter Start-up money.

What kind of kids enroll in charter schools and do charters take all comers like traditional public schools?

Cue the song and dance. Rees says that charters have to take all comers, which is in many ways beside the point, because what charters do not have to do is make themselves attractive to all comers. In other words, a wheelchair bound student is totally free to choose this three story charter school that has no ramp or elevator, and they are totally free not to help her get up the front steps.

Koldorie offers an even more audacious answer by redefining "everybody."

Traditional district schools don't take everybody. Superintendents talk as if they do, but they only have to take the children of families who can afford to live in their district. 

Yes-- community schools only take students in their community. 

But can't charters cream and skim?

Rees says that A) charters must accept all comers (but not that they must accommodate them with appropriate programs) and B)50% of charter students are Black and Latino which... well, what's the point there? If there were a non-charter non-PR person in the room, this might be a good place to discuss charters as engines of segregation, but we're not going there today.

Koldorie calls the charter system public and lists all the things they can't do like charge tuition or teach religion. And non-charter non-PR person might have pointed out the charters that are busy doing both.

Are charters held to the same standards as public schools?

Richmond says that there's "great inconsistency" and that we need more oversight and that charter operators don't want it. So there's an honest statement. He also says we know what a good balance of autonomy and accountability looks like, which is not a true statement.

Who's responsible for making sure that "bad" charters are shut down?

Rees says that after three to five years, a charter should show what it's worth and we should totally shut down bad ones. She does not discuss how often that actually happens (spoiler alert: almost never).

Koldorie says that when authorizers blow it, the state has to step in, but charters mostly tank because of mismanagement and financial problems. You know-- the kinds of things you get when you let unqualified amateurs set up schools.

What about cybers?

Richmond gets the final honest word-- they have not done the job and a lot of money is being wasted on not-educating students.

So there you have it.

Nothing about how unregulated charter sectors are leading to fraud and waste. Nothing about how badly designed charter funding drains resources from already-underfunded public schools. Nothing about how a complete lack of transparency leaves taxpayers in the dark about how their money has been spent. Nothing about how outsider-run charters end up leaving the members of a community stripped of all voice or participation, with no recourse for making their voices heard. Nothing about how charters can close up shop in the middle of a school year, leaving students abandoned. And nothing at all about the kind of results charters get for students (and what those results cost the students themselves).

In short, nothing about why any reasonable person would ever be opposed to charter school proliferation. Just the standard claims of charter advocates presented without counterpoint, balance, or fact checking.

Mr. Sanchez, if you ever decide you want to do a companion piece, explaining why some folks believe that charters as currently practiced are a bad idea, contact me-- I know some people I can hook you up with. In the meantime, a little more balance would be nice, and more welcome than just a big fluffy puff piece.

DeVos, HBCU, and Justice

There is just so much to unpack about Betsy DeVos's bonkers attempt to rewrite the story of Historically Black Colleges and Universities into an advertisement for school choice.

They started from the fact that there were too many students in America who did not have equal access to education.

HBCUs are real pioneers when it comes to school choice. They are living proof that when more options are provided to students, they are afforded greater access and greater quality.
 
DeVos has been justly and repeatedly slammed for this. See also here. Or especially this Slate piece.

The statement is wrong on so many levels. She tried some damage control later, but that was not much of an improvement:

“Bucking that status quo, and providing an alternative option to students denied the right to attend a quality school is the legacy of HBCUs,” she said, according to prepared remarks released by her office. “But your history was born, not out of mere choice, but out of necessity, in the face of racism, and in the aftermath of the Civil War.”

She chalked the HBCU story up to structural changes, but since she is personally as rich as all HBCUs put together, that rings a little hollow. And there's a huge irony in that vouchers and charters became popular in the South as a means of escaping the collapse of Jim Crow laws.

But I want to focus on one other aspect of this revelatory mess-- what it says about DeVos's "solution" for a twisted system, a system that is formally and deliberately unjust.

What DeVos could have said was something along the lines of, "HBCUs never should have had to happen. Those of us who had the power should never have made them necessary, and we should have torn down Jim Crow laws and the other barriers that prevented Black Americans from claiming the educations and lives to which they were entitled. HBCUs made the best of an unjust situation that should never have been allowed to stand."

Instead, she came up with something along the lines of, "Well, see? Y'all just solved the problem on your own, just like we've been telling you you could, and we didn't need to lift a finger."

Who needs to pursue justice when you can market choice instead?

Who needs to address the systemic and deliberately underfunding of schools that serve non-white non-wealthy communities, when you can just market choice instead?

If black folks show a little grit and get a charter or two, we don't have to even talk about the real problem at all.

DeVos has accidentally underlined the other problem with choice. Problem number one, discussed at length both here and elsewhere, is that choice doesn't solve any of the problems that its fans claim it solves. But problem number two, in many ways more stealthy and more destructive, is that implementing choice lets some folks pretend that they no longer have to address any of the systemic issues in public systems.

Is a major urban system screwing over its poor communities (say, perhaps, Chicago)? That's okay-- there are a couple of charter schools in place which students have "access" to (and which a handful of students will actually get to attend), so we don't have to talk about the larger problems any more! Hooray!

TX: Senator Ambushed by Students

Texas GOP Senator Don Huffines is a huge fan of choice systems, and does his best to shill for them. But he ran into a rough time trying to pitch them to 7-12 grade students at Richardson ISD on, of all things, Texas PTA Day.

While the senator might have gotten just a bit over-salty with the students, his spokesman spun Huffine's behavior as nobly passionate:

It was dark. There were so many of them

While the policy was right, Senator Huffines' tone and delivery today did not live up to the level of civil discourse that he always expects of himself and others. Senator Huffines is unapologetic in his support for education choice, because it's a policy that supports students. He will not hide from passionate or heated debate on the issue. Where other politicians might have run, Don Huffines stayed and endured the ambush-style attack, then calmly answered more questions for 15 more minutes, including questions from students.

Yes, just like an ambush. You have to watch those wily middle school students. No doubt many students at Richardson are on that protestor payroll, raking in $1,500 a week to complain about GOP policies (and making more money than their teachers in the process, which means the all-powerful teachers union must be really falling down on the job-- honestly, it's a wonder that many of these global liberal conspiracies don't fall apart more often).

What did this terrible ambush entail?

One students pointed out that that Huffines' proposed voucher for students would not cover the cost of many of the higher-priced private schools.

Replied Huffines, "It doesn’t pay for all their education does it? The $5,000 won’t pay for it. So it doesn’t pay for it. So you’re saying that OK, since we’re not giving them enough money to pay for all their education then screw ‘em they can’t go to private school?” Huffines said. “Do you want me to give them $15,000, is that what you want? So they can all go to Hockaday, they can all go to Saint Mark. You want me to give them a full tuition? That is the most selfish thing I’ve ever heard!”

A parent questioned the use of public tax dollars for a private school.

Responded the senator, “What makes you think it’s your money? They’re the taxpayers. It’s the businesses. They’re the taxpayers. Sixty-two percent of all property tax is paid by business.”

You can see Huffines on a video taken by one of the parents and posted at this news outlet.  He paces back and forth, talks angrily, stabs forcefully at the table top with a finger.

Huffines is a real-estate developer who won office in 2014. He has received 100% ratings from Americans for Prosperity Texas, Texas Values, and  Texas Eagle Forum, and his stated goal is to "achieve unimaginable prosperity through limited government so we may cherish our liberty that God alone has bestowed upon us." Nowhere on his website is there anything about hectoring children who dare to ambush him with ideas that disagree with his own.

Dangerous Amateurs

Not all amateurs are a problem.

I live in a small town  world, and much of the community's important work is done by amateurs. Most of our major local organizations are run by amateurs, and our elected officials are all folks with a real day job-- there's no real money in being a professional politician on the local level.

I have been one kind of amateur or another most of my adult life. My actual training is to be a high school English teachers, but I have been a radio dj, church choir director, technical stage manager, band director, graphic artist, photographer, musician, all-around theater guy, and writer/fake journalist. I always knew I would be a generalist, so I grabbed some coursework here and there to back some of these jobs up, but mostly in these pursuits I am an untrained amateur.

My saving(ish) grace is that I know what I don't know, and I know there are professionals out there from whom I can learn. Before I take on a responsibility, I do my homework, read up, study up, talk to people who are pros, watch them work and learn from them. And in a community like mine, there are plenty of people like me around. We backstop each other as well.

But there are other types of amateurs in the world. More problematic. More dangerous.

It is one thing to know you lack the professional expertise, the trained knowledge for a particular field. It is another thing to believe that no such body of knowledge exists, or that any such knowledge and expertise is unimportant as long you are, you know, really interested in whatever field we're talking about.

These are the folks who figure that since they occasionally eat at a restaurant, and they like food, well, they're qualified to open a restaurant. These are the folks who figure that public speaking is just standing up and flapping your gums for a while (usually a really long while). These are the people who feel that since they have seen performers they like on tv, they know more than enough stagecraft to direct live performers. These are the people who figure they're smart enough to run a country just because they think so. These are the people who are sure they are just as smart as those fancy-pants climate scientists or those doctors with all their vaccination baloney. These are the people who have been fortunate to find success in one area and who therefor conclude they possess all-encompassing wisdom.

And of course these are the people who believe they know more than enough to open a school, run a school, create education policy for a state or nation because, you know, they went to school once.

Sometimes they're honestly ignorant. They really don't know what they don't know, have no idea that there's more to an endeavor than meets the eye. Sometimes they are proudly, aggressively ignorant; they know there are supposedly experts, people who claim to Know Stuff, but the proudly ignorant amateur is sure that expertise is a scam, a con being run by people who want to hold onto power. The proudly ignorant amateur is certain he's smarter than all those guys.

These dangerous amateurs make a mess, both by deliberately destroying structures that have been carefully built over time and by stupidly breaking what they don't understand. Eventually they may emerge from the rubble to make wise pronouncements like "It's hard to educate people trapped in poverty" or "Health care is complicated" or "I have discovered that water is wet."

There is nothing wrong with venturing into new areas with an awareness of what you don't know, and a determination to fill in the blanks. But there is danger in amateurs who don't know what they don't know, and even more danger in amateurs who believe there's nothing they don't know that's worth knowing, who brandish their ignorance like a club and their privilege like a battle ax. When these dangerous amateurs grab the reins of power, we are all in for a bad ride.

The Free Market vs. Customers

I write so much about the free(ish) market that one might assume that I hate it. I don't. I think the profit motive, properly harnessed and directed, can accomplish a great deal. Making money is not inherently bad.

However, there are certain things that the free market will not do, and those weaknesses are in direct conflict with the purposes and goals of public education.

If you want to see what the problems would be, all you have to do is look around right now at every other sector of Trumpistan, where the Privatizer-in-Chief and the members of his Free Market Fan Club have been pursuing a particular set of goals.

This week the FCC took some steps to "relieve thousands of smaller broadband providers from onerous reporting obligations." More specifically, they removed some regulations that require ISPs to publish pricing and service information. This is seen by some as a first step of a general assault on net neutrality.

Meanwhile, some environmental regulations are already rolling back, a trend that is expected to accelerate under the new EPA head. Elizabeth Warren's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is under attack. And in the education world, for-profit colleges that were feeling some pressure under Obama (though, seriously, how much pressure really) are feeling like there's a fresh new day a-borning.

These and the many government actions like them come from the same basic free-market complaint, addressed to government:

"We could make a lot more money if we didn't have to [insert regulation you don't like here]."

Free market fans (like Betsy DeVos) prefer to argue that free market business needs no regulating because customer reactions provide all the regulation needed. If the business fails to do a good job, customers can vote with their feet, and free market justice is served by the invisible hand.

This is bunk, and any successful business people know it's bunk.

In fact, between "this company is awesome and I love them" and "these guys suck and I'm going to start foot-voting right now" is a whole grey area where businesses actually operate. Awesome-love is really expensive to provide, so the smart business play is to figure out just how little you can get away with providing before the foot-votes start to hurt.

Government regulations are a pain in the ass because they interfere with the search for that sweet barely-enough spot. Auto makers might love to cut the costs associated with things like air bags and seat belts, but regulations won't let them. Industries could be far more profitable if they didn't have to follow environmental regulations. Internet providers could make way more money if they were allowed to give special treatment to rich customers. Any business could be more profitable if it could pay workers the very lowest pay it could get away with.

If Donald Trump possesses anything like a business genius, it would be this-- he has really pushed the boundaries on "the least you can get away with." Lying to investors and refusing to pay contractors, as well as extracting pay-to-play bribes good treatment, Trump has dared people to walk with their feet or hold him to any code of conduct. And he has mostly won. Like that annoying kid in your fourth period class, he has a genius for figuring out exactly how little he has to actually do to get by.

This is what the privatizers want to see-- a world in which the bare minimum required to run a school is hugely lowered bar. They want a friendly federal government, someone prepared to listen to them when they say, "We could make so much more money running this school if we didn't have to [fill in any school function or service here]." We could make so much more money if we didn't have to serve high-needs students. We could make so much more money if we didn't have to pay teachers more than minimum wage. We could make so much more money if we didn't have to pay prevailing wages to our contractors. We could make so much more money if we didn't have to meet all the items on this list of regulations.

Can government go way too far when it comes to regulation? Absolutely-- particularly when it's going in the wrong direction.

But what the privatizers promise to do to education is put the needs of the business operators ahead of the needs of the students. In the business world, that is common and results in a kind of sorting-- the business chases away some customers and focuses on the smaller assortment of customers whose needs best match what the business wants to do as its bare minimum.

That's a rational business approach, but it is an immoral approach to education. And it creates a hugely unbalanced contest. On one side, we have the businessmen and hedge funders and national charter chains plus the elected and unelected government officials who are looking out for their interests. On the other side, we have parents.

That's why it's absolutely necessary that government stand up for those parents and for the interests of those students. That's why it's up to government to set boundaries, to determine what the barely acceptable minimum will be (because businesses will always sink to that low bar). That's why it's up to government to stick up for citizens, and not the invisible hand.

ICYMI: Here Comes March Edition (2/26)

A wide assortment of stuff today, because fake spring is over and real winter is back.

Homeschoolers Revolt Against Republican School Choice Bill

Yeah, it's Breitbart, so it may be 100% crap. But it might also be an interesting look at how very conservative  folks end up opposing school choice.

Charter Schools Have Lost Their Way

A look at how folks who started out as charter supporters could end up disaffected and abandoning the cause.

4Chan- The Skeleton Key to the Rise of Trump

A really interesting look at 4chan, anonymous, gamergate, and the whole angry young white guys in their Mom's basement part of society. Not directly related to education, but still a fascinating read.

Decaying Buildings and the Rise of Digital Education

Using the deliberate abandonment of physical plants as a way to drive the new industry

The Failure of the iPad Classroom

A long look at how the movement to put ipads at the center of classrooms has been a sad and wasteful failure.

Betsy DeVos and the Plan to Break Puiblic Schools 

Ffrom Rebecca Mead at the New Yorker, a well-thought-out look at the Big DeVos Picture, with lots of links.

The Disappearing Educator

At the Michigan Education Association website, a look at why the teacher pool is shrinking.

Have We Lost Sight of the Promise of Public Schools

At the New York Times, Nikole Hannah-Jones looks at the difficulties we've always had fulfilling the promise of public education (hint: they're related to our problems acepting all citiizens as equal parts of the public).

Betsy DeVos and the Task of Satffing Donald Trump's Education Department

Andy Smarick at US News breaks down the five hurdles future USED staffers will have to clear, and in the process, he gives us a picture of what the Trump-DeVos USED will look like. Forwarned is forearmed.

W.E.B. DuBois and Dual Consciousness for Teachers of Color

Jose Vilson looks at DuBois and the questions teachers of color must ask.

It's Not About Them (It's About Us)

Blue Cereal Education with a piece that looks at the basic foundation of how principled people behave toward other people.

Oh, Hey-- a Lot of Private Charter Schools Are Just Dumping Grounds for Poor Students-- Imagine That

I suppose I could have just linked you to the original report, but Wonkette's take is so much more spicy and entertaining, while still presenting the meat of these shameful findings.

Success Staff Questions Moskowitz's Ties to Trump

From Politico, we learn that Eva Moskowitz suddenly has scruples about being politically active in her position. Who knew?

WI: State Superintendent Vs. Voucher$

On April 4, two former school superintendents will square off for the state superintendent spot. The shape of that race tells us a lot about what the new politics-as-usual will look like in the years ahead.

Wisconsin state animal. She is not rich, either.

In one corner, we find Tony Evers. Evers has been the state superintendent of public instruction since 2009; before that he was deputy superintendent for eight years. He's a Wisconsin boy, born raised and 3educated, and he married his high school sweetheart. He's also the president of the Council Chief State School Officers. Policy-wise, he's a mixed bag-- on the one hand, as CCSSO president, he's been a Common Core advocate; on the other hand, he has steadfastly resisted attempts to expand vouchers and privatization in Wisconsin.

For those reasons, he has been in the GOP cross-hairs for a while. Don Pridemore (his real name) had a brief career in the legislature, during which he backed legislation for photo ids for election and a resolution declaring unmarried parenting as a contributing factor in child abuse. He took a run at the state superintendent job in 2013 and got his ass handed to him by Evers.

So this time around, Pridemore reached out to another unsuccessful superintendent candidate, and Lowell Holtz was brought in to try again. That led to several contentious moments with a third candidate-- John Humphries (in Wisconsin, the state superintendent race is non-partisan-- everyone runs in the primary, and then the top two vote-getters from the primary face off in the general election). Humphries claimed that Holtz offered him the bribe of a $150K job, a car, and the right to manage five big Wisconsin districts. Holtz said, no, it was an offer from an unnamed business leader to both of them. They both called each other big fat liars.

Then it turned out that Holtz hadn't even expected to do any of the hard work of running for office himself, that he felt that the deal was that an advocacy group run by Pridemore would do the grunt work. Much of this was documented in emails that Holtz sent with his school account (oops).

Why were Holtz and Humphries, neither of whom emerges from accounts as a particularly formidable political player, attract such attention and support?

Vouchers.

Or as Holtz said when he was explaining why he really hasn't done any local fundraising, "The folks that support the vouchers nationally have lots more money than I could ever raise in the state of Wisconsin."

And why would the business interests and voucher fans think that they had a better shot than usual against the popular Evers? The clue rests in this paragraph from Wisconsin State Journal coverage of the race:

Evers is seeking a third term in the wake of massive membership losses for the state’s largest teachers union — a strong campaign contributor for Evers in the past— setting the stage for the potential of third-party groups spending on behalf of Holtz to ensure the election of a voucher supporter.

Scott Walker's assault on public sector unions was never just about putting the help in their place, but about reducing their strength as Democratic Party supporters. Unions were, among other things, an effective way for working people to put together the same kind of clout-commanding contributions that rich folks are now allowed to toss around with abandon (thanks, Supreme Court). So now even clumsy amateur-hour puppet candidacies like Holtz's can stand a chance because they can muster the big bucks, while Democrat money has been hobbled. 

Evers cleaned Holtz's shiny clock in the primary, and so he still looks like the odds on favorite, and he has a well-stocked war chest, but he's still worried.

“If it’s all in, it’ll be very difficult to compete with that amount of money. There’s just not that much in the state that’s available,” Evers said. “And we’re talking about Amway money and the money from the family that owns Walmart and I don’t know any of those people.”

The election will be April 4. We'll have to wait and see how badly national voucher fans want it, and how much they're willing to spend to buy it. Pay attention. This is how these sorts of elections work these days.