Charter Schools Do Bad Stuff Because They Can
Charter Schools Do Bad Stuff Because They Can
By Jeff Bryant
“Charter schools have become a fetish of both Democratic and Republican political establishments, but local news reports continue to drip, drip a constant stream of stories of charter schools doing bad stuff that our tax dollars fund … Most recently, my reporting on the shadowy business of the charter school industry was cited by media watchdog Project Censored as one of the top 25 most under-reported news stories of 2016 … When do you think the malfeasance committed by charters won’t be ‘under reported’?”
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NEWS AND VIEWS
White, Wealthy Communities Want Their Own Schools
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U.S. News & World Report
“30 states have laws on the books that allow communities to secede from their school district, and it’s an allowance that many municipalities have taken advantage of over the years – at least 47 since 2000 … Only 4 require that seceding communities gain the majority support in the school district being left behind and only 6 require consideration of the racial and socioeconomic effects of the separation. Moreover, only nine states require a study of the financial impacts of dividing communities … Currently there are 9 active secession efforts in various states.”
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19 Kids Are Shot Every Day In The United States
The Washington Post
“Roughly 7,100 children under the age of 18 were shot each year from 2012 to 2014. An average of 1,300 died of their injuries in a typical year. That works out to 19 children shot every single day in the course of a year – or 3.5 children killed by guns every single day … ‘Firearm-related deaths are the third leading cause of death overall among US children aged 1 to 17 years.’”
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Oil’s Pipeline To America’s Schools
Public Integrity
“Decades of documents reviewed by the Center for Public Integrity reveal a tightly woven network of organizations that works in concert with the oil and gas industry to paint a rosy picture of fossil fuels in America’s classrooms. Led by advertising and public-relations strategists, the groups have long plied the tools of their trade on impressionable children and teachers desperate for resources. Proponents of programs … say they help the oil and gas industry replenish its aging workforce by stirring early interest in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM. But some experts question the educational value and ethics of lessons touting an industry that plays a central role in climate change and air pollution.”
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Betsy DeVos Moves To Help For-Profit Schools Defraud Students
The Nation
“Betsy DeVos announced a postponement and imminent rewriting of two key rules designed to protect students of predatory for-profit colleges … The Gainful Employment rule and the Borrower Defense rule both force for-profits to make good on their promises of helping students pursue a viable career path, and provide students a way to cancel their debt if the college actually defrauded them … Current and former Education Department officials have acknowledged that for-profits are getting a light touch under DeVos’s tenure … DeVos has brought in former employees of for-profits as top officials at the agency.”
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Education Dept. Closes Transgender Student Cases As It Pushes To Scale Back Civil Rights Investigations
The Washington Post
“The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights last week closed a long-running discrimination case involving a transgender student and withdrew its earlier findings that the girl had suffered discrimination at school … Civil rights advocates see the closure of the Ohio case – and especially the unusual withdrawal of the federal investigators’ legal conclusion – as a troubling sign of retreat from civil rights enforcement … The agency also this month closed a different long-running case involving a transgender student’s complaint about locker room access.”
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