Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: I'm not 'anti-charter' but I am anti-this...

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: I'm not 'anti-charter' but I am anti-this...:

I'm not 'anti-charter' but I am anti-this...

 

Mavericks charter founder Frank Biden, brother of V.P. Joe Biden.

"I give you my word of honor on my family name that this system is sustainable.”

"I'm very proud of what we're doing." We're on a  mission from God."  --  Frank Biden

As I have pointed out many times, I am not "anti-charter". But I am against what they've become and the way charter schools have been taken over by networks of politically-connected corporate privateers. They have co-opted the language of the small-schools movement, ie.  "choice" and "autonomy", in order to further debase teachers, erode public space and public decision making, to bust teacher unions, and to reap profits from urban gentrification.

The wild, unregulated expansion of these privately-run charter networks has come at the expense of public schools. It has also served to increase racial segregation. And to top it off, there's no evidence that these networks perform and better (often worse) than the public schools they were meant to replace.

A case in point, as if another one were needed... A large Florida-based charter network is called Mavericks (R.I.P. James Garner).  It was founded byFrank Biden, brother of Vice-Pres. Joe Biden. Yesterday's Palm Beach Postreported that Mavericks Principal Krista Morton was arrested while allegedly using drugs and having sex with a student in a car.

Okay, some might say. This is terrible but it has nothing to do with charter schools per se. After all, we read about incidents like this all the time, sensationalized in our gossip-hungry media. But that begs the question. This story not only highlights a school principal who probably shouldn't have been hired in the first place, but a charter chain, established by a politically-connected non-educator. It's one of many that has failed to keeps its promise to its students and their families. It also raises the question: Are charters really public.?

Back in 2011, when Krista Morton was the principal at Richard Millburn Academy — a charter school for dropout students in Manatee County — district officials investigated the school for graduating students who did not meet requirements, Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: I'm not 'anti-charter' but I am anti-this...: