Last week when Ohio’s progressive Senator Sherrod Brown introduced (to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization bill being considered right now by the U.S. Senate) an amendment for federal regulation of charter schools, the Plain Dealer reported that he noted the irony that the very people who complain about waste, fraud, and abuse in government are now defending unregulated charter schools.
Whether or not Brown’s “Charter School Accountability Act of 2015” is enacted in this session of Congress, it is absolutely important that someone has finally introduced regulation of charter schools into the Congressional debate about education. Just last month, a group of national organizations, the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools, wrote to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to remind him that the Department of Education’s own Office of Inspector General had, “raised concern about transparency and competency in the administration of the federal Charter School Program,” and to demand a moratorium on new charter schools until regulation is improved. The Office of Inspector General had reported in 2012 that neither the Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and Improvement, which administers the Charter Schools Program, nor the state education agencies which disburse the majority of federal funds are equipped to keep adequate records or establish even minimal oversight of charter schools. But according to the Alliance’s letter, nothing has been done to improve oversight. And yet, according to Lyndsey Layton of the Washington Post, “The department has given $1.7 billion in grants to charter schools since fiscal 2009.” This blog covered the letter sent to Secretary Duncan from the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools here.
Nowhere has the experiment with charters been as extensive as New Orleans, where ten years ago after Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of the city, laws were swiftly changed to enable the state of Louisiana to declare the majority of New Orleans’ public schools “failing” and to seize the schools into the state-run Recovery School District that turned the majority of schools into privately managed charter schools. The Recovery School District in New Orleans has been bragged about in the press and in a mass of research literature produced by proponents of its “portfolio school reform” strategy. And Louisiana’s creation of a “recovery district” or state appointed emergency manager has been copied by, for example, Michigan, Tennessee, Georgia, and very recently by Ohio for Youngstown’s schools, and Wisconsin for Milwaukee’s schools.
The National Education Policy Center (NEPC) is an organization at the University of Colorado that has undertaken the project of reviewing research produced too often by think tanks with a bias. On Monday, NEPC released a statement to raise concerns about the much-publicized research that has been produced to endorse the New Orleans charter experiment: “This year marks the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina…. Following this tragedy, an extraordinary experiment in market-driven governance of public school was imposed on the city. On this anniversary, advocacy groups and think tanks have issued numerous reports touting the claimed success of the New Orleans model, pointing to test scores that are higher than before Katrina, and championing its export to other disadvantaged communities. Past claims put forward by these groups have rarely been supported by rigorous, objective research. In fact, independent researchers have disputed these claims, arguing that the massive out-migration of students may have resulted in inflated scores for those remaining. Other scholars have noted that the test standards were changed and the gains were exaggerated.”
NEPC suggests that whether or not test scores have significantly risen, there are other standards by which a school district must be evaluated. NEPC endorses independent research that now documents: that the fragmented mass of charter schools have not always done a good job of providing services for students with special needs; that low-income families’ school choice has been far more constrained by lack of transportation and after-school care while wealthier families have far less constrained choices; that some charter schools have been skimming the best students through tactics involving selective advertising and recruitment; and that the massive layoff of all the district’s teachers after the 2005 hurricane has left the district with far fewer African American teachers and fewer teachers with at least 10 years of experience. NEPC adds: “Voters in New Orleans have lost control over the majority of their public schools, and have almost no say in whether they will get those schools back.”
A report released in May by the Center for Popular Democracy and the Coalition for Community Schools adds another serious worry. Just as there has been lack of adequate oversight of charter schools at the federal level and across the states in general, Louisiana and the New Orleans Recovery School District have been ill-equipped to ensure adequate financial and academic oversight of New Orleans’ charter schools. The report documents the size of the public’s financial investment in Louisiana Recovery District charter schools: “These schools have received substantial federal and state taxpayer support, totaling $71.8 million from federal Charter School Program grants and billions from Louisiana taxpayers. In school year 2014/2015 Louisiana taxpayers will have poured over $831 million into charter schools.”
Oversight to protect taxpayers and students has not accompanied the massive investment of tax dollars, however. “The rapid growth and massive investment in charter schools has been accompanied by a dramatic underinvestment in oversight, leaving Louisiana’s students, parents, teachers and taxpayers at risk of academic failures and financial fraud.” Here are the problems the Center for Popular Democracy identifies: “Oversight depends too heavily on self-reporting by charter schools or the reports of whistleblowers… The general auditing techniques used in charter school reports do not uncover fraud on their own… Inadequate staffing prevents the thorough detection and elimination of fraud.” “As the state has insufficiently resourced financial oversight, it has failed to create a structure that provides struggling schools and their students with a pathway to academic success… Since 2005, approximately $700 million in public tax dollars have been spent on charter schools that currently have not achieved a C or better on the state’s grading system.” The report, recommends very basic reforms including that “underlying data comparators remain consistent from year to year to allow oversight officials and the public to accurately compare school performance,” that the state investigate whether there has been cheating by some schools to elevate their scores, and that the state audit school-reported data regularly to ensure it is accurate.
The National Education Policy Center warns this week that broader and more extensive research is needed for a comprehensive understanding of the meaning New Orleans’ school reform: “Ten years after Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent reforms, there remain more questions than answers… (I)t is important to attend to the serious equity concerns that remain in the system, and to examine other outcomes, beyond test scores. The preliminary evidence, from a combination of news reports and research studies, suggests that the New Orleans reforms disproportionately benefit more advantaged students, relative to the most at-risk and under-served students. It is also important to ask how much local, democratic oversight the public is willing, or should be willing, to trade for somewhat higher test scores. In New Orleans, as well as in many other cities and states seeking to adopt a ‘recovery’ or ‘portfolio’ model, policymakers should ensure that the temporary turnaround measures do not permanently disenfranchise local actors.”
janresseger 
Thanks Jan! This is so very important! There is no democracy for New Orleans.
Brenda
Economist Milton Friedman was still very much alive after Katrina decimated NOLA, and he grabbed at the opportunity to tell those southern gentlemen that now is the time to kick out those socialist schools known as public schools and let the good ol’ free market do its wonderful work. His disciples unquestionably salivated at this command, and, as the saying goes, the rest is history. Despite the data that set off alarms about the quality of education by selling off the students to corporate interests, it’s full speed ahead and truth be damned for these zealots.
Ironically but with great bravado, The Philadelphia Inquirer [A15:7-15-15] has an Op-Ed from State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams crowing loudly about the disadvantaged in Philadelphia’s worst-performing schools, charter school crapola & his formula(s) for success, as if he did NOT lose the Democratic Mayoral Primary & had a leg to stand on! At least his propaganda is con-
sistent: turnaround schools, increased state funding accompanied by accountability, economically disadvantaged/children & families in poverty, new standards budget issues more than just money, etc./et al. No admissions for mismanagement, failing schools all across PA, . a range of new tools for effectiveness, and “schools be accountable for their students’ academic performance” as if he is the “turnaround” leader. He invokes MLK JR as not allowing things to continue as long as they have, and ‘underfunding’& accountability are his mantra.
Exactly opposite (A14) two regional senators [NJ/DEL] opine too much of the same propaganda with reform/accountability making the day by these failing schools suddenly adding to the nation’s H.S. graduation rate & not accepting low expectation rates. “Education reform” is easier said than done, maybe better done by teachers than politicians: I doubt that any of these rooster
crowers ever taught a day in any schoolroom! Woah!
http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentId=16889
Effects of Inequality and Poverty vs. Teachers and Schooling on America’s Youth
by David C. Berliner — 2013
Background/Context: This paper arises out of frustration with the results of school reforms carried out over the past few decades. These efforts have failed. They need to be abandoned. In their place must come recognition that income inequality causes many social problems, including problems associated with education. Sadly, compared to all other wealthy nations, the USA has the largest income gap between its wealthy and its poor citizens. Correlates associated with the size of the income gap in various nations are well described in Wilkinson & Pickett (2010), whose work is cited throughout this article. They make it clear that the bigger the income gap in a nation or a state, the greater the social problems a nation or a state will encounter. Thus it is argued that the design of better economic and social policies can do more to improve our schools than continued work on educational policy independent of such concerns.
Purpose/Objective/Research Question: The research question asked is why so many school reform efforts have produced so little improvement in American schools. The answer offered is that the sources of school failure have been thought to reside inside the schools, resulting in attempts to improve America’s teachers, curriculum, testing programs and administration. It is argued in this paper, however, that the sources of America’s educational problems are outside school, primarily a result of income inequality. Thus it is suggested that targeted economic and social policies have more potential to improve the nations schools than almost anything currently being proposed by either political party at federal, state or local levels.
Research Design: This is an analytic essay on the reasons for the failure of almost all contemporary school reform efforts. It is primarily a report about how inequality affects all of our society, and a review of some research and social policies that might improve our nations’ schools.
Conclusions/Recommendations: It is concluded that the best way to improve America’s schools is through jobs that provide families living wages. Other programs are noted that offer some help for students from poor families. But in the end, it is inequality in income and the poverty that accompanies such inequality, that matters most for education.
My colleague’s response to the paper cited above:
Ugh..
I can’t get past the first paragraphs.
First- I don’t believe that all reform efforts have failed.
They haven’t ‘failed’ completely and totally — they haven’t kept up with the kind of success needed NOR have they equitably made up for hundreds of years of educational abandonment. Nor have they succeeded fast enough to keep up with the new demographic realities of the past 30 years.
Also all institutions, have not reformed themselves equally. Higher Ed pedagogy remains the same as it did 100 years ago.
Also the notions that all reform efforts have failed is a VERY easy way for people to confirm their own prejudices such as
1. Desegregation did nothing.
2. Funding equity is meaningless– just throwing good money away…
3. Progressive pedagogy has been a waste of time 4. Standards reform and accountability – which to the average citizen has come to mean federal intervention – has accomplished nothing.
Maybe accountability has gone awry– but it is not THE sole reason student progress has stagnated.
The basic premise that ALL has been for naught– needs to be revised or massive mistakes will be made by the next generation of progressive educators and policy makers.
And the asinine notion that the poor can’t learn is simply the worst sort of self-serving, arrogant classist non-sense that supposed progressives have allowed themselves to believe.
UGH..
Rant over.
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