Charter Schools
What Happens if the Charter School Companies Win?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/what-happens-if-the-chart_b_780000.html
Among the arguments made by advocates for charter schools is that they expand consumer
choice and that given the state of education in many inner-city minority communities
experimentation with alternatives can only help the situation. As buzz words, choice and
experimentation always sound good. After all, we know about the disappointing performance of
many students in inner-city schools under the current educational system, so why not try
something else?
Unfortunately, we already know what will happen if private-for-profit charter school
companies take over K–12 education in the United States, because for-profit proprietary
companies have already successfully invaded what used to be called “higher education.” These
companies have defrauded the government, left families deep in unrepayable debt, and cheated
students out of an education.
The federal Department of Education recently published a list of suspect businesses
masquerading as colleges and issued new rules to protect students from aggressive or misleading
recruitment by private, for-profit institutions. For-profit colleges received $26.5 billion in
government-funded student aid in 2009. Tax dollars ensure student loans, and the government
must pay them if students default.
One of the worst offenders is the so-called University of Phoenix, a “university” in name
only, operated by the Apollo Group. Phoenix currently enrolls over 280,000 students nationwide.
It makes its money by recruiting students who are eligible for federal Title IV financial aid
programs. Over 90 percent of Apollo's net revenue in 2009 came from federal money.
Phoenix advertises that it offers flexible-degree programs for “working learners” who have
jobs or other obligations that keep them from attending school full-time but who want to garner
credentials that will improve their income and employment possibilities. However, according to
its 2008–2009 records, only 9 percent of its customers “graduated,” the average debt per
customer is over $13,000, less than half of its customers repay loans, and 13 percent of them are
currently in official default on loan payments.
Phoenix’s parent company, the Apollo Group, is also under investigation by the Securities
and Exchange Commission for illegal insider trading in company stocks.
Another large proprietary school accused of misrepresentations and under investigation is
Kaplan University, with 138,000 customers, a loan repayment rate of only 28 percent, and a
default rate of 17 percent. Kaplan, which is the largest and fastest-growing division of the
Washington Post Company, boasts, “We build futures.” It is unclear, however, what kind of
futures the company actually builds.
Kaplan started as the American Institute of Commerce in 1937, changed its name to Quest
College, and became Kaplan College when purchased by Kaplan, Inc. in 2000. It changed its
name again, to Kaplan University, when it was granted permission to offer graduate-level degree
programs. It is currently based in Davenport, Iowa, and has offices in Fort Lauderdale, Florida,
and online student support centers in Florida, Illinois, and Arizona.
Almost all of Kaplan's customers take online courses of dubious quality. For a while
California's public community colleges allowed students to take some courses at Kaplan and
transfer credits that would count toward their degrees. However, in 2009 the University of
California and Cal State University systems, concerned about the quality of Kaplan courses,
canceled their agreement with the company
Kaplan University has an open admissions policy, which means there are no admissions
standards other than eligibility for federal Pell Grants and student loans. Kaplan was one of
fifteen for-profit colleges cited by the Government Accountability Office for malfeasance, and
three former academic officers have filed a federal lawsuit accusing the “university” of
defrauding the United States government out of more than $4 billion. They allege that Kaplan
enrolled unqualified students, inflated student grades so they could stay enrolled, and falsified
documents to obtain accreditation. The company's response is that the lawsuit should be
dismissed because it lacks the specificity required in a federal fraud case.
In the movie Waiting for Superman, cute kids and desperate families plead for access to
charter schools. But the movie is little more than propaganda for a well-financed campaign to
undermine public education in the United States so edu-businesses can pick up the more
profitable pieces. They need to divert us with the cute kids and their families because few people
would buy their product if they realized it was being pushed by companies like Phoenix and
Kaplan.
Charter Schools Don’t Do Miracles
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/charter-schools-dont-do-m_b_627600.html
Charter schools are not the magic bullet that will transform urban minority public schools. As
you peel away layers of the charter onion, the inevitable problems come to the surface.
Locke High School in Los Angles has been touted as a charter school miracle. I wish it were
true, but it’s not. In 2008, Locke was notorious as one of the worst failing schools in the United
States. It had a high crime rate and a low graduation rate, the opposite of what schools should be.
At one point a race riot involving 600 students made the national news.
According to The New York Times, two years after a charter school group named Green Dot,
which also operates a charter school in the Bronx, took over management of the school, gang
violence was down, attendance was improved, and performance on standardized tests was
inching up. The school has become one of the number one stops on the charter school reform
bandwagon tour, as corporate and government “education reformers,” including federal
Department of Education bigwigs, get photo ops in its newly tree lined courtyard and issue
pronouncements about how wonderful everything has become.
But a closer look at the Locke miracle, way down in the Times article, exposes what has
actually taken place there. In 2007, a former principal complained that Locke was the Los
Angles dumping ground for problem students. Only 15 percent of its students could pass the state
standardized math test. The first thing Green Dot did was get rid of all the troubled students and
bring in a fresh supply. It also dumped most of the teachers—keeping those prepared to work
longer hours for less pay, what it defined as enthusiasm. Locke reopened in fall 2008 with a new
freshman class. Green Dot also fixed up the place to make it attractive for the photo ops.
The big problem was cost; although Green Dot is a nonprofit company, its administrators do
get paid. The four-year turnaround at Locke cost $15 million over budget. This does not include
part of a $60 million grant from the Gates Foundation to support state development, which
makes the actual cost of the turnaround much higher. Unfortunately, the federal government has
set a $6 million cap for the reorganization of an individual school. Green Dot is now more than
150 percent over budget. The rest of the money, $9 million, was covered by donations from
foundations, supposed charities, but often business groups hoping to make lucrative profits from
the dismantling of public education.
Locke is actually a good model of what educational change will really cost. The school now
has additional administrators, security, two psychologists, busing, and health services for
students, in addition to staff development provided by the Gates Foundation. None of this has
anything to do with being a charter school. This is just the real cost of educating inner-city
children.
Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, New York, questions have been raised about another miracle
charter school, the Hebrew Language Academy. While 15 percent of the students in New York
City are White, White children make up two-thirds of the students attending this school. This is
essentially a private religious school for White Jewish families financed with government
money. The parents have made this very clear, explaining in a New York Times article that if it
were not the Hebrew Language Academy they would be paying $20,000 a year to send their
children to private religious schools. Additionally, the curriculum is chauvinistically pro-Israel.
There are Israeli flags all over the building and children sing songs about Israeli pioneers who
built homes on empty land, the area’s Arab population conveniently ignored.
This school also receives outside money to operate, from a philanthropist named Michael
Steinhardt, who also happens to be a hedge fund manager and a big financial supporter of Israel.
The school’s organizers, using Steinhardt’s money, plan to open a string of similar charter
schools around the country.
Sometimes I wonder whether the editors of The New York Times read the paper. On Sunday,
June 27, 2010, the Metropolitan section highlighted a manic super-=hero principal who has
supposedly turned around education in a troubled Bronx middle school. What struck me was a
passing remark by the principal quoted in the article and his biography.
This superhero principal actually grew up in this Bronx neighborhood and has an
understanding of the life faced by these kids. However, he is in constant trouble with school
authorities and has bounced from school to school. He is now under investigation by the
Department of Education for three serious rule violations and was suspended at least once.
For a short time the school’s principal was the founding principal of the Manhattan Charter
School on the Lower East Side, but he left that charter school after a year and a half because “I
don’t do well working with a board of directors that are not educators.”
This guy may be good. He may just be trouble. But in either case, there are no miracles in the
Bronx, Brooklyn, or Los Angeles, certainly not charter school miracles. Kids do better when they
are cared about and money is invested in their education. Progress in these places has nothing to
do with charter school miracles.