Who Really Wins in Privatization?

Who was the biggest lottery winner in NJ in 2016? Not Joe Schmoe. Not the people in that office pool. Not even that kid in Newark trying to get into that charter school. Nope, it was the lottery company itself. Today's Star Ledger ran this story about Northstar New Jersey, the private company that Gov. Christie handed the once state-run lottery operation over to in 2012:

The private gaming joint venture that operates New Jersey's lottery received a more than $30 million bonus despite having originally over-promised a billion dollars in revenue at the start of its contract, its latest annual report shows. 

Northstar New Jersey, which oversees Powerball, MegaMillions as well as various scratch off games, was paid a $30.6 million incentive for reaching contractual obligations that were renegotiated downward in February to more easily attainable goals. 

At the urging of Gov. Chris Christie in 2012, the state entered into a 15-year contract with Northstar under which the gaming venture committed to sending "at least" $1.42 billion in additional income back to New Jersey in exchange for its making an upfront payment of $120 million in 2013. Northstar was the only bidder on the contract. 

That agreement was short-lived, however. 

After Northstar fell short of its promised income targets two years in a row, it renegotiated its contract with the state. In Feb. 2016, the company's financial targets were lowered by $1 billion through 2029, about $76 million less a year.
In 2013, Northstar had been forced to tap into a $20 million reserve established at the outset of its contract with New Jersey to pay for its shortage penalties. 

But because 2016 produced an unexpected surge in ticket sales -- more than $3.29 billion through June -- the conglomerate was able to finally reach its renegotiated contractual obligations, according to its 2016 annual report, which runs through New Jersey's fiscal year ending June 30, 2016. 

New Jersey lottery officials faced questions from state lawmakers Tuesday on a private lottery contractor's failure to live up to its promises to increase sales and payments into the state treasury. 

Northstar, a joint venture made up of lottery operators GTECH and Scientific Games along with the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, was also paid $104 million for "management and system fees" as well as advertising and marketing costs, the report said. 

The state gets back $987 million, or 30 percent of the $3.29 billion in 2016 ticket sales, the absolute minimum required by law.  

"Record-breaking sales enabled the Lottery to make a record-breaking contribution to its beneficiaries," Carole Hedinger, the lottery's executive director, said in a statement released to media. 

"The Lottery could not have achieved those goals without investments made by Northstar New Jersey in technology, marketing, personnel, retailer expansion and capital equipment," said Will Rijksen, director of communications with the state's Treasury. 

Rijksen also noted that after Northstar's contract was renegotiated, its bonus shrank to 3 percent of net income, down from 5 percent. Doing so, Rijksen said, ensured "that Northstar would not receive a windfall if (ticket) sales turned up dramatically." 

Much of the 2016 windfall was the result of greater public interest in Powerball, which had its first billion-dollar jackpot this year, resulting in $93 million more in tickets sold that had been budgeted, according to the annual report. 

But William Weld, the two-time governor of Massachusetts who's previously served as national co-chairman of the U.S. Privatization Council wrote a recent op-ed in Forbes that "even as a long-time proponent of private management, I am constrained to say that the results obtained by private managers in Illinois and New Jersey have been a disappointment." 

An email to Northstar officials requesting comment was not immediately returned, and there was no answer at the telephone number for its Princeton headquarters. (emphasis mine)

Whether it's privately run prisons, lotteries or charter schools, the number one goal, like any private industry, is to make a profit, not service the people. So, it's no surprise that today, Carol Burris posted this:

Read the article here. When there's no fiscal oversight, no public input, no local control, but many lobbyists and political influences, charters are free to do whatever they want with taxpayer money.

And, if Betsy DeVos is appointed the next Secretary of State, we will see privatization of public education in this country explode, and benefit mainly Christian religious schools. 

What to do? Call your US Senator and tell him or her to vote No on DeVos on January 11.

7 Things Wrong with Gov. Christie's School Funding Proposal

There's an old joke that goes like this: 

Q: How do you know when a politician is lying? 

A: When their lips are moving.

I guess now that Christie's poll numbers are in the tank, his ego is pushing him to appear relevant. So what does he do when his back is against the wall? Attack public education of course. 

In true Christie style, he gave a speech yesterday that even Pinocchio would cringe at, ripping into the state's school funding formula—one of the most progressive in the nation—and vowing to change it to flat funding.

There are so many things wrong with it that it's hard to know where to begin. But let's start with this: Gov. Christie used the word 'unfair' seven times in his speech. So here are seven things that are unfair not only with his proposals, but with how he has treated public education over the past 6 years:

1. Gov. Christie has cut almost $7 billion in education funding statewide, and given away just about that much in corporate tax breaks, yet he has the nerve to claim that urban education is 'failing'.

2. Under Gov. Christie, urban charter schools have bled their host public school districts of hundreds of millions of dollars, which has forced massive layoffs and cuts to programs and vital services. 

3. Under Gov. Christie, segregation has skyrocketed in urban school districts as charters habitually skim the best and brightest (and least expensive to educate) students, and toss those most in need of additional resources back to cash-starved public schools. 

4. Under Gov. Christie's new funding formula urban districts would be drastically underfunded, thus devastating the very schools and students he claims to want to help most.

5. Under Gov. Christie, aid to those most in need in this state has been slashed. Funding for women's health centers, housing assistance for low income and chronically ill citizens, food stamps, and earned income tax credits have all been red-lined. He even fought the raise in the state minimum wage. These cuts directly affect parents in our large, urban centers, many of whom were already struggling to make ends meet before he became governor. And when their children do not have a good head start in life (like the majority in our wealthier, whiter suburbs), they have greater learning hurdles to overcome.

6. He simply will not, as he claims, "make sure that we have the aid for special needs students so that they may reach their potential too." Why? Because he is going to slash funding to our poorest, neediest districts where there generally tends to be a larger population of special needs children. He has not once kept his word to public school districts. Why should we believe him now?

7. This plan simply will not reduce property taxes. The year after Gov. Christie imposed the 2% tax cap, property taxes across the state skyrocketed an average of 20%. I don't know about you, but my property taxes have only gone up since then. But if by chance property taxes do decrease, it will be a massive tax break for wealthy, white, suburban NJ, and a massive tax hike for poor, brown and black urban areas. 

So, what will work? 

• Fair school funding, not equal funding. The two are very different.
• Full funding of our public schools as required by the law
• A moratorium on the expansion of segregationist charter schools
• Access to quality, affordable prenatal health care for every expectant mother in NJ
• Access to quality, affordable health care for every man, woman and child in this state
• Access to fresh, quality food in our urban centers
• Safe urban neighborhoods with true community schools as their anchors
• A living wage—not a minimum wage—so that parents don't have to work two or three jobs to make ends meet
• An end to unfunded mandates

This is just a start. There is much more that can and should be done, but unless and until profits are removed from the public education equation, things will never change.

Before I go...

Hat tip to my bloggy buddies, Jersey Jazzman and Dr. Bruce Baker for always having facts and figures at the ready...

... and Darcie Cimarusti (aka Mother Crusader) for reminding us what 'fair' really means:

 

@DmitriMehlhorn who's really being uncivil in the ed 'reform' debate?

Venus, Jupiter and Mars weren't the only planets aligning in the sky this month. For the past couple of weeks, Jersey Jazzman has been engaged in a debate on the merits of charter schools with Dmitri Mehlhorn, venture capitalist, education 'reform' blogger and co-founder of Michelle Rhee's ed 'reform' lobbying group StudentsFirst. 

Last week, former news anchor turned education 'reformer', Campbell Brown posted a piece on her ed 'reform' website, The Seventy Four, in support of Britain PM David Cameron's call to end public education in his country titled, Britain's Education Reboot And Why America Needs A David Cameron. Brown's husband is on the board of StudentsFirst. She is a vocal opponent of public education, tenure and teachers unions, and accuses them of coercing suburban parents into opting out of CCSS-driven standardized tests even though the opt-out movement was started by parents. Then Jeff Bryant wrote this scathing piece in Salon about how dangerously out of touch Brown and the ed 'reform' movement in general are about labor unions.

My colleague Dave Johnson at the Campaign for America’s Future recently came across a new study conducted for the Center for American Progress, which found in places where union membership is higher, low-income children, in particular, benefit from “economic mobility” and “intergenerational mobility.” In plain English, this means union strength correlated with low-income children being more apt to rise higher in the income rankings — and for their children in turn to be better off. 

Reporters at the New York Times looked at the study as well and noted, “There aren’t many other factors that are as strongly correlated with mobility” as the presence of unions. “A 10-percentage-point increase in the rate of unionization in an area coincided with a rise of an additional 1.3 points on the income distribution as the average child becomes an adult,” they wrote. 

Combating unions is not only a strategy unlikely to result in good outcomes for low-income kids, it also seems completely out of step with the political zeitgeist of the times.

So, when Brown tweeted out her post about Cameron and privatizing America's public schools, I tweeted this meme:

And I've continued to do so every day since. I don't have billionaire backers to finance and spread my message the way Brown does, but I do have social media. 

So, after one of my tweets, Dmitri responded with this, which Brown 'liked':

I read Mehlhorn's link. You should, too. There are some contradictions in there that had me scratching my head. But this quote in particular stuck out:

If we want a civil debate, we should first and foremost strive to be civil.

He uses the example of Vladimir Putin's ruse of pacifism and civility to justify his invasion of the Ukraine, then goes on to say that "in education policy, although some genuinely seek productive discourse, calls for civility often serve as cover for nasty personal attacks."

And that's where his hypothesis derails. He immediately attacks Diane Ravitch for being uncivil:

While Ravitch was attacking Rhee for lack of civility, she was receiving financial payments from the teachers unions that were funding a secret campaign to personally demonize Michelle Rhee.

Those financial payments are speaking fees, no doubt the same ones that Michelle Rhee and Campbell Brown receive when they speak in front of education 'reform' groups who attack public education on a daily basis. But I never hear either woman publicly denouncing the vilification of public school teachers that they regularly pump out.

Personally, I knew nothing about that website until I read his post. And I certainly can't speak to whether or not Diane knew about it. That said, if in fact AFT did create a website that mocked Michelle Rhee, then shame on them. That's a low blow. Shame on NJEA members who mock Gov. Christie for his weight. Shame on any education professional who puts personalities before principles. But, Dmitri, you must admit, there's plenty of uncivil behavior to go around. Do I need to recount all the horrible things Gov. Christie has said about teachers? Look at this picture. Is this a man with whom educators could sit down and have a 'conversation'? 

"I am tired of you people."

How about Campbell Brown's outlandish accusation that the New York City teacher's union harbors sexual predators? What about the NRA blaming teachers for the Newtown massacre because they weren't carrying guns? Are you aware that while he was working for then NYC Schools Chancellor, Rupert Murdoch, former NJ Education Commissioner and current Newark Schools Superintendent Chris Cerf was spying on Diane Ravitch and Parents Across America founder and education activist, Leonie Haimson? Don't you think it's uncivil to blame tenure for 'failing schools' as Campbell Brown does, despite the fact that some of the nation's leading legal scholars find no basis in that claim, nor have there been any long-term studies to support it? Don't you think it's just a tad disingenuous when newspaper reporters and editorial writers don't even bother to do their homework about education policy, relying instead on baseless talking points from 'reformers' to spread their propaganda? Don't you find it mind boggling that there is a mountain of research like this showing how poverty affects children's brain development and their ability to learn, and yet it is summarily dismissed by education 'reformers' and elected officials on both sides of the aisle who do nothing but hold teachers responsible? Don't you find it hypocritical that Governors like Scott Walker, John Kasich, Chris Christie, Rick Scott and Rick Snyder—to name just a few—have done all they can to destroy labor unions in the name of helping the middle class despite the fact that strong labor unions help lift low income earners out of poverty, and provide the middle class with more financial stability? Don't you find it downright mean and cruel that Michelle Rhee fired an educator with cameras rolling? How would you feel if you were an educator and you saw this? 

The woman in this picture does not want to have a 'civil conversation' about 'fixing' America's schools. Any third grader looking at this as a writing prompt could figure that out. I'm sorry, I know she's your friend, but can you walk a mile in my shoes for a minute and see how this image sends the wrong message?

I could go on, but hopefully you get the idea. These are attacks, plain and simple. They are not 'conversations' and they certainly are not 'civil'. They are not even debates. If education 'reformers' such as you think you unequivocally know what will 'fix' education, why not sit down to a 3-hour debate on national television with leading education experts? I would pay good money to be in the audience for that! Unfortunately, I doubt that will ever happen because the facts are on our side. But Bill Gates, Eli Broad, the Walton Foundation, ALEC, StudentsFirst and many other anti-public education 'non profits' have boatloads of money which is used to buy up the media and politicians, and thus control the message. 

And if you think I'm off my rocker, then please tell me why organizations like the Broad Foundation are pouring millions of dollars into local board of education races in states all across this country? 

No, there was never any plan to have any type of civil discourse. Bill Gates simply showed up at America's public school doorsteps and declared, "This is what I'm doing because I believe it will work." He never sat down with educators to hear our expert views on education in America. He has treated public education as another novelty on which he can focus his vast wealth. He manipulates it, shapes it and molds it to his liking, then moves on when he tires of it. We're not real to him; we're just his lab rats scurrying through his mazes, unwillingly helping to carry out his grand scheme to turn public education into a system to which he would never send his own children. No, his children, along with many other 'reformer' children, are educated in elite private schools that would never stand for this nonsense. Education 'reform' isn't for his children; it's for everyone else.  

Now, I know what you're thinking: See? That's just what I'm talking about. You're not being civil; you're attacking. But we've tried—really, really tried to no avail. Anthony Cody, bless his heart, is still the most civil educator out there debunking 'reform'. He tried to engage Bill Gates and members of the Gates Foundation in civil discourse about ed 'reform'. He even wrote a book about it: The Educator and The Oligarch. But not all of us are blessed with his time and patience. And when somebody is standing over you kicking you repeatedly in the gut and blaming you for starting the fight, it's really hard to be civil. When a billionaire tells an oncologist she's got to treat her patients with cotton candy because he believes that's the cure (and said billionaire coincidentally owns a cotton candy factory), would you blame the oncologist if she acted just the teeniest bit incredulous?

There are a lot of people in this country who have lined up to grab their piece of the $700 billion public education pie. But those people have already eaten their way through the entire bakery— banking, real estate, the military, prisons, healthcare—and left the rest of us scrambling for crumbs. The only thing left is public education. And most teachers are just too nice, too polite to fight back. As for the rest? Well, some think that if they bog us down with so much extra, meaningless work, we won't have time to fight. But that's backfiring.

So, excuse me if I'm not polite. Excuse me if I don't know my place. Excuse me if I don't genuflect at the altars of the super rich and powerful who have brought this country to its knees with greed and selfishness as they plow through one economic sector after another leaving a wake of death and destruction as they toss aside the foundations of our democracy like over-indulged children at Toys-R-Us hell-bent on the next immediate gratification.

I am not becoming a better teacher because of the Common Core, Race to the Top, standardized testing, defunding of public schools, the expansion of charter schools, and the demonizing of my profession. I am working longer, harder and getting less results and personal satisfaction from the work I do. But I am becoming stronger. And every educator who becomes stronger, empowers others to become stronger, too. 

So, if you don't like my snark, I'm sorry, but as the saying goes, "You don't bring a knife to a gunfight."

So, in answer to your question: 'Has Ravitch said anything else we need to keep in mind?" Yes. Here's a sampling:

Poverty is the greatest handicap to the academic performance of students today, not “bad teachers.” 

The problem with turning public education over to the private sector is that they don't know anything about education. 

American Education has a long history of infatuation with fads and ill-considered ideas. The current obsession with making our schools work like a business may be the worst of them, for it threatens to destroy public education. Who will stand up to the tycoons and politicians and tell them so? 

We are now reducing corporate taxes, reducing taxes on the richest people in this country and cutting the budget of public education. This is crazy. 

Bill Gates is wrong. American education is not 'broken'. Federal education policy is broken. Testing children until they cry is a bad idea. It is educational malpractice. 

Can teachers successfully educate children to think for themselves if teachers are not treated as professionals who think for themselves? 

Our schools will not improve if we value only what tests measure. The tests we have now provide useful information about students' progress in reading and mathematics, but they cannot measure what matters most in education....What is tested may ultimately be less important that what is untested... 

Testing is not a substitute for curriculum and instruction. Good education cannot be achieved by a strategy of testing children, shaming educators, and closing schools.

Oh, and fyi... parents are more powerful than educators. Remember, the Opt-Out movement was not started by the teachers unions. It was started by all those white suburban moms Arne Duncan accused of daring to have an opinion about their child's public education. Hell hath no fury like a mother of an over-tested child. 

Debunking Reformy Logic One Tweet At A Time Part 3

This one's personal

As I reported in Part 1 of this series, I recently got into a Twitter debate with Laura Waters, Derrell Bradford and Ryan Hill which turned into an all-day affair, with Save Our Schools NJ, Jersey Jazzman and a few other pro-public education advocates chiming in. It all started with this Tweet:

It was a 3-pronged discussion focusing on:

1. Part 1: Waters' continuous, illogical reasoning 
2. Part 2: Hill's assertions that:
   - charter schools are underfunded compared to district schools
   - every child should have choice but only when that choice is a charter school
3. And here Part 3: Bradford's assertions that:
   - I'm a teacher, therefore I am not an expert on public education
   - I'm a white, suburban woman so I should "say nothing"

Who is Derrell Bradford?

Currently the executive director for the 'reformy' group, NYCAN (The New York Campaign for Achievment Now), his previous stints include two 'reformy' NJ shops: the billionaire-funded Better Education for Kids (B4K), and Excellent Education for Everyone (E3).

Bradford's 'reform' pedigree also includes many public speaking gigs including one wherein he claimed in a rather snarky tone to be an expert on education because he watched the movie, "Dangerous Minds". I kid you not. I, along with many, many others saw this video online and shared it before it mysteriously disappeared from public consumption—and with good reason. It's an Excellent Example for Everyone (E3) of the truly 'Dangerous Minds' behind the 'reform' movement.   

Jersey Jazzman wrote about Bradford back in 2014 which included this Twitter exchange:

And this:

Bradford's sole experience in anything remotely having to do with education was working at the now-a-ghost-of-its-former-self voucher lobbying shop, Excellent Education for Everyone, or E3: first as a director of communications, and then as Executive Director. E3's mission was to bring "choice" in the form of opportunity scholarships vouchers to New Jersey's urban children. 

Bradford is always happy to use his personal story to sell the idea of "choice": he claims he just wants for every child what he himself had. What he fails to acknowledge is that he went to an extremely expensive and elite private school (not that there's anything wrong with that) that spends twice per pupil what the local public schools spend. Yet he questions whether New Jersey schools spend too much on "bells and whistles," and the opportunity scholarships vouchers he promoted wouldn't have come close to providing children with the "hoity-toity" (his words) education he enjoyed. Derrell Bradford's "personal story" has nothing to do with his preferred policies.

... 

Bradford's service on [Gov. Christie's teacher evaluation] task force produced a disaster of a report, which led to a disaster of a teacher evaluation scheme (AchieveNJ, aka Operation Hindenburg). But it also opened up new possibilities in reformy advocacy -- for Bradford, that is. When the Christie administration needed someone to serve on the secret charter school review panels of 2010, they called Bradford. When they needed someone to take a cheap swipe at then-NJEA President Barbara Keshishian, they called Bradford:

(My note: The video originally embedded in Jazzman's post is no longer visible. It now looks like this:)

Hmmm... is someone cleaning up their image? I do hope so because in this video, he is quoted as saying this about then NJEA President Barbara Keshishian:

I go up against the president of the teachers union in New Jersey all the time, right? She's got a bad haircut and terrible fashion, right? 

Way to keep it classy. 

Who is really listening?

So, when Bradford said this to me:

I let him know who I listen to:

• The students who have been denied choice because they didn't win the charter school lottery
• The students who've been denied their choice of school in the disastrous One Newark enrollment plan
• The outraged parents whose children are sent to schools all over Newark also as a result of One Newark
• The parents in NJ's state-controlled school districts who've been denied choice because they have no say in how their local school district is run
• The students who've marched in the streets to protest the closing of their school of choice: their neighborhood school
• The voters of Newark who overwhelmingly elected an educator as their mayor as part of a city-wide referendum against the Christie, Cami, Cerf, Hespe education 'reform' blitzkrieg

These people have been denied choice and voice in a democracy and that is somehow something to be celebrated? That is good for all students? That will ensure all students are magically lifted up out of poverty even though the 'reform' agenda starves public schools, and will never, ever provide students with the choice to attend an elite private school such as the one Bradford attended?

And as for the 'privileged power structure' comment, what exactly does he mean? I don't have billionaires at my beck and call throwing me money to set up shop whenever and wherever. I don't have direct lines of communication with the governor that will ensure I get a seat on panels and committees that help shape education policy. And I'd sure like to compare our paystubs because I have a feeling his has a few more zeros and commas than mine.

Sit down and shut up

But what really got to me was this:

It's the epitome of the 'reform' industry's opinion of education professionals: We don't care how many degrees or years of experience you have, just sit down and shut up because we (with little to no education experience) know what's best for kids. And as for that 'choice' thingy that suburban kids have so much of? The majority of students in wealthier suburbs choose to attend their local public school. So, why are so many students in our state controlled districts being denied that choice?

And people wonder why I use SHOUTY CAPITALS and bold, italic, underlined text in my posts. Oy!

I freely admit I don't know what it's like to attend a school where the overwhelming majority of students suffer the effects of poverty. I don't know what it's like to live in a neighborhood that is unsafe; where I couldn't go outside to play; where violence is a frequent occurrance. I don't know what it's like to be born with a skin color that automatically puts me at a disadvantage. 

But here's what I do know: 

I know what it's like to be homeless, to go to school hungry, to steal food because there was none in the house, to not have proper clothing to wear or medical intervention, to not have parental support and supervision, to suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, to attempt suicide, to experience abuse and neglect, to go home to a war zone every day, to go to sleep at night and wonder if I'd even wake up the next day. While my family wasn't poor on paper, it was very dysfunctional. My father earned a good living but squandered it on his addiction. 

I know what it's like to go to a strict, regimented Catholic school where drill and kill were all we knew. Where art, music and PE were non-existent and recess was withheld as punishment. Where kids were hit, slapped, locked in closets and put in garbage cans in the name of discipline. Where class sizes often topped out at 35, 40 and even 50 students. Where there were no special education, minority or ESL students, and those who didn't toe the line were there one day and gone the next. I didn't know which was worse: home or school. But for whatever reason, my sisters and I were blessed with academic minds. We all excelled at school, we are all artists and teachers, and we all have numerous scars from the work we did to heal the wounds that threatened to consume us. 

So, while I may not know how it feels to be a high-achieving student (which I assume Bradford was), possibly living in a dangerous neighborhood and attending a school where the majority of his classmates suffer the debilitating effects of poverty, I have my own history, my own hole that I had to crawl up out of, that has profoundly shaped my views on public education. And unless education 'reformers' have a recipe to address all the baggage that many students in their target districts carry with them to school every day, their efforts will never, ever succeed. 

Bradford, my sisters and I made it. We are the success stories. But we are in the minority. Not every person has the ability to pull themselves up out of debilitating situations. Not every person has the mental and emotional strength to keep pushing forward despite seemingly insurmountable odds; to never give up. So when those kids don't win the golden ticket that gets them a seat in the latest miracle charter school, they damned well better have an excellent public school to fall back on. Unfortunately, that is simply not the case. The students who are left behind in the name of 'choice' simply become collateral damage as the 'reform' machine marches on.

So, when Bradford accuses me of being part of a 'privileged power structure', I have to laugh because I prefer to stand with the people who are standing up and fighting back because they have been denied the right to choose their neighborhood public school because—ironically—people like him choose to impose their 'power structure' on them.

If that makes me 'privileged' then so be it. I guess the only 'privilege' we have is that our freedom of speech hasn't been taken away—yet.

Debunking Reformy Logic One Tweet At A Time Part 2

As I reported in Part 1 of this 3-part series, I recently got into a Twitter debate with Laura Waters, Derrell Bradford and Ryan Hill which turned into an all-day affair, with Save Our Schools NJ, Jersey Jazzman and a few other pro-public education advocates chiming in. It was a 3-pronged discussion focusing on:

1. Waters' continuous, illogical reasoning (Part 1)
2. Hill's assertions that:
   - charter schools are underfunded compared to district schools
   - every child should have choice but only when that choice is a charter school
3. Bradford's assertions that:
   - I'm a teacher, therefore I am not an expert on public education
   - I'm a white, suburban woman so I should "say nothing"

Today's post brings you...

Part 2: Ryan Hill: "All You Need Is [Choice]"

My exchange with Ryan Hill, founder and executive director of TEAM/KIPP charter schools, centered on school choice and funding. My beef isn't with whether charter schools are better or worse than TPS. That's not an either-or argument because recent research has shown that some are better; some are worse; many are about the same. 

What I have a problem with is 'charter school choice' being sold as the miracle cure when there is no proof whatsoever that market-driven reforms benefit all students. And if we're going to call charter schools 'public', then we have to talk about all students because traditional public schools educate all of them and charters simply do not. 

False Advertising: Charters don't do 'more with less'

During the exchange, Hill pulled out the 'charters do more with less' talking point, and even mentioned Zuckerberg's $100 million donation to NPS (which largely went to $1000/day consultants although Superintendent Cerf now says he's giving a whopping $100 to teachers for classroom supplies). It didn't take long for Jersey Jazzman to jump into the fray with his magic bag of charts and data—something 'reformers' are sorely lacking. (Note: to follow the exchange, read the text in the box first, then my reply):

Writing about Jonathan Alter's near religious zeal for all things charter, Jersey Jazzman also had this to say:

[Alter] won't acknowledge KIPP enjoys a resource advantage, both through being the recipient of large amounts of philanthropic giving, and through an employment policy that keeps a younger, less experienced, and therefore less-expensive teaching workforce on its payroll. 

It's nice that KIPP enjoys this advantage, but it's highly questionable as to whether it can be extended to all urban schools (at least not while we refuse to raise revenues through taxes for these districts). (emphasis mine)

For a definitive look at how charter schools miraculously do 'more with less', read Jazzman's 4-part series on the Hola Charter School in Hoboken:

• Part I - Hoboken's charters amass social and political capital, helping them thrive.

• Part II - Hoboken's charters raise substantial outside funds, casting doubt on the claim"we do more with less."

• Part III - Hoboken's charters pay their teachers less, because they have less experience. 

• Part IV - We can't have a serious conversation about charters -- in Hoboken or elsewhere -- until we are honest.

With 'choice' like this, who needs choice? 

From coast to coast, we have seen what the unincumberance of bureaucratic control has freed many charters to do: fiscal mismanagement, high staff turnover, fraud, waste, lack of transparency, nepotism, cronyism, segregation, failure and community disruption. And they call that 'innovation'? Granted, not all charters are like this. Some do an excellent job of educating their students, but if charter schools and school choice are being pushed as the Viagra of education 'reform', why are any of them allowed to operate like this? Why aren't state and federal governments swarming all over them the way they do 'failing schools'? Where is the outrage? Could it be that somebody along the food chain is actually profiting from them?

Back in 2011, The Miami Herald uncovered the seedy underbelly of the Florida charter school industry with an in-depth report on the blatant corruption and lack of oversight that turned education into another get-rich-quick scheme. One charter even tried to do double duty as a lewd after hours nightclub. (Did they remove the pasties and g-strings before students arrived the next morning?) Just the other day, Diane Ravitch posted this:

Last month as the country marked the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina (aka. "the best thing to happen to the education system of New Orleans" according to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan) much was written about the progress (or lack thereof) in New Orleans' Recovery School District (RSD), the poster child for education 'reform', which is 100% charter. Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig weighed in with a policy brief which concluded that:

Louisiana charter schools perform worse than any other state when compared to traditional schools. This finding is highly problematic for the conventional narrative of charter success in Louisiana and the RSD. Also, the RSD dropout, push out, and graduation rates are of concern— placing last and nearly last in the state. After ten years of education reform it is a disappointment that only 5% of RSD students score high enough on AP tests to get credit. The review of data also demonstrates that neither the Louisiana ACT nor RSD ACT scores are positive evidence of success.

In conclusion, the national comparative data suggest that there is a dearth of evidence supporting a decade of test-score-driven, state-takeover, charter-conversion model as being implemented in New Orleans. The predominance of the data suggest that the top-down, privately controlled education reforms imposed on New Orleans have failed. The state and RSD place last and nearly last in national and federal data. These results do not deserve accolades. (emphasis mine)

Louisianna public education advocate and founding member of Parents Across America, Karran Harper Royal, frequently speaks about how NOLA charter schools come and go like a corner deli. When one doesn't quite work out, it closes and is quickly replaced by another school. New name, new owner/operator, same m.o.: disruption and churn. Writing on the PAA website, she said this about the RSD:

The Recovery School District was supposed to improve the schools and give them back to our local board; however, it seems that the only method that the RSD is utilizing to improve the schools is to maintain the schools’ failure so that the schools will qualify to become charter schools. The RSD has not improved any of its direct operated schools enough to qualify for return to the local board, and it’s imperative to question the validity of the RSD. One has to ask “was this by design?” Has the RSD deliberately trapped the lowest performing students in schools under their jurisdiction so that the charter schools would have more access to the higher performing students in New Orleans? (emphasis mine)

And former Newark Mayor Cory Booker wanted to remake the Newark school district in the image and likeness of New Orleans.

The horror stories of charters sucking the life out of local school districts in the name of 'choice' is seemingly endless, but perhaps the worst is what's happening right now in the Chester (PA) Uplands School District:

Peter Greene writes: 

Some districts can weather the budget storm. CUSD, sucked dry of money by charter schools, cannot. So while the state's elected officials cannot get their jobs done for pay, Chester Upland teachers and staff will get their jobs done for free. Tell me again about how teachers and their unions are the big obstacle to education in this country. (emphasis mine)

In reporting on research about school 'choice' in Chicago, Rebecca Klein writes in the Huffington Post, that it's not necessarily a good thing. While low income students have much more 'choice' than their higher income counterparts, the latter group is much more likely to attend a local neighborhood school, while the former group is more likely to travel across town thereby disrupting neighborhood connections and fostering social isolation. And while many low income children end up choosing successful schools, some don't. 'Choice' means nothing when you struggle to get through the 'choice' maze either because of a lack of English proficiency or reading ability or simply of time. 

The idea that poor Chicagoans frequently leave their neighborhood for education contradicts the perception that low-income kids are often "trapped in underperforming local schools," according to Burdick-Will's paper on the subject. This perception often drives the arguments of school reform advocates in Chicago who push for greater school choice options 

... 

[T]he fact that low-income families are more likely to exercise school choice should not be seen as a positive. The ability to not have to search for schools outside your neighborhood is the real privilege, said Burdick-Will.  

"Not having to participate in this complicated system is really a privilege. The most advantaged people really don’t have to figure out how to read the Chicago high school book. They don’t have to gather the information or spend a lot of time figuring out if charter school A is better than charter school B."

... 

When kids live in areas where most people opt not to attend a neighborhood school, they are more likely to choose poorly and attend a school that is worse than the one to which they've been assigned, Burdick-Will found.

For those of  you who are old enough to remember, Listerine was once marketed and sold as a cure for the common cold. When that claim was disproved, they had to stop saying it. When will charters be forced to do the same?

It's not the 'choice', it's the poverty 

Charter cheerleaders love to say their schools give students in 'failing schools' 'choice', but Jersey Journal reporter Earl Morgan writes about the real problem: funding inequities:

In Jersey City, the dirty little secret is that there are actually two schools systems; the one that exists north of Montgomery Street and the other south of that educational demarcation.

For decades, schools south of Montgomery Street to a large extent lacked, and still lack, the resources of those north of Montgomery. For many years there were few if any gifted and talented or accelerated enrichment programs in schools south of Montgomery. In their stead was a surfeit of special education and Title I classes.

North of Montgomery, teachers would routinely order needed supplies or items that their colleagues would have to purchase themselves.

If the state wants these troubled school systems to succeed, they’re not going to make that happen in the 5 1/2-hour school day. They will have to go deep into the weeds, to where students in low-performing schools live. It will take time to unravel the Gordian knot of turmoil, anxiety and despair these young people grapple with every minute of every day of their lives.

Ride the Amtrak past Camden and you’ll see something resembling the aftermath of a disaster movie with one dilapidated and abandoned neighborhood and building after another. If you want to improve education, it’s not charter schools or a few “vouchers” used to transfer a handful of students to more affluent districts. It’s the soul destroying poverty that must be confronted in Jersey City, Paterson, Newark and Camden. That’s where you need to start. (emphasis mine)

Ah, yes, poverty—that dirty little word that 'reformers' deny is really the problem in 'failing schools'.

Choice for some, just not for you

But what about the people who choose their neighborhood public school, but are denied that choice because education 'reformers' want to close it, flip it to a charter or, in the case of the One Newark plan, send siblings to different schools all over the city—in the name of choice? Where is their choice? Why don't they have a say? Why is their choice not valued as much as those who choose a charter school? We've seen it in Newark not only with parent and student protests to save Hawthorne Ave. School, West Side High School and Barringer High School, but with the protests and boycotts of One Newark. Blogger Bob Braun's extensive coverage of the Newark school district insanity included this scathing report:

“Why are they doing this to us?” cried Richardson, an immigrant from Dominica who raised six grandchildren, two of them war veterans. “Are they doing it because we are poor?” 

A helpful school security officer  found Richardson a chair and moved it to place outside Newark Vocational Sc hool–the so-called “enrollment center”– where there was just a little shade. The woman had dressed in formal clothes, a long-sleeve top and a long, black skirt because, well, that’s how you dress when you are dealing with people in government. You showed them respect and you hoped they would show it in return. But to Deseret Richardson, the  school system, under Gov. Chris Christie and his superintendent, Cami Anderson, wasn’t showing anyone respect. 

“I tried to explain to them that I have watched these children all their lives,” said Richardson of her grandchildren. “I have taken care of them when there was no one else. And I will do that until I die. But they didn’t want to listen.” 

Richardson lives near Barringer High School. Has for years. That’s where her other grandchildren had gone, including the sailor and the solider and the young man who made it into Cheney State. That’s where she intended to send her youngest granddaughter, also Deseret, Deseret Segura. 

But [former Newark Superintendent] Cami said no. Cami has a plan she calls “One Newark.” She won’t tell anyone how she devised the plan. Cami–who lives far away with rich friends in Glen Ridge and has enough money not to worry about such things–insisted this woman somehow find a way to get her namesake all the way across town to Shabazz High School. 

Thousands of children  are being forced to attend schools outside their neighborhoods. It is destroying the system. It is destroying the city.
And this is what this cruel woman calls “school choice.” (emphasis mine)

We see it in Chicago with the hunger strike still going on to save Dyett High School. Parents are willing to literally fight to the death to save their neighborhood school. In all of these instances, and others, parents, students and the community have no choice in what is happening to their local school. Where is their 'choice'? Why is it ok that they have none?

Ryan Hill, please answer this question:

If 'choice' is so great and wonderful, why was former Central HS Principal Ras Baraka elected Mayor of Newark based on his platform of rejecting Cami Anderson's One Newark plan? Why did Baraka have to set up this to help parents who couldn't get their children into the school of their 'choice': 

Why did the President of the Newark Teachers Union post this on Facebook:

If 'choice' is the miracle cure-all for low income communities, what are 'reformers' doing about the fact that these people are being their denied choice?

If school 'choice' will miraculously level the playing field; if it will truly provide a pathway to a more enriching education for every child, then it's a farce, a joke, a crime if even one child is denied their school of choice. Ryan, if charters are really, truly public schools as you and other charter supporters claim, if they really, truly are a better option than 'failing schools', then why have a lottery? Why won't you accept every, single child who wants to attend, first come, first served. Start a waiting list that is verifiable, accurate and open to public scrutiny. Serve the needs of every, single child—no exceptions. That is a real public school. That is real choice. Anything less just... isn't.