School Privatizers Restructure State of Iowa to Seize Public Funds | Dissident Voice

School Privatizers Restructure State of Iowa to Seize Public Funds | Dissident Voice

School Privatizers Restructure State of Iowa to Seize Public Funds

School privatizers and their political representatives are relentless in their efforts to restructure the state along neoliberal lines so as to restrict democracy and funnel more public funds into private hands. Privatization is a main mechanism for enriching major owners of capital, eliminating democratic arrangements, and degrading the public interest in the context of a continually failing economy. Privatization allows neoliberals to temporarily avert the law of the falling rate of profit under capitalism.

Recently, the Governor of Iowa, Kim Reynolds, signed a law that significantly increases the ability of major owners of capital to siphon public funds from public schools by creating more charter schools while also eliminating long-standing democratic arrangements, namely local school control over what happens in local school districts.

Under the new law, neoliberals seeking to privately appropriate public money can circumvent local public school boards and apply directly to the State CONTINUE READING: School Privatizers Restructure State of Iowa to Seize Public Funds | Dissident Voice

Shawgi Tell: Segregated Unaccountable Charter Schools | Dissident Voice

Segregated Unaccountable Charter Schools | Dissident Voice

Segregated Unaccountable Charter Schools

Anyone who has carefully followed charter school news and analysis in recent years knows that privately-operated charter schools are not only segregated but actually increase segregation in the sphere of education. It has become common knowledge that charter schools are notorious for consistently under-enrolling English Language Learners, students with disabilities, homeless students, and other groups of students. Even though they are ostensibly public and “open to all,” most charter schools do not serve all students, let alone equally. Privatized education has never paved the way for all students to have an education.

But even when non-profit and for-profit charter schools are publicly exposed, cited, and rebuked for discriminatory enrollment practices, they are usually allowed to operate with impunity and to continue to siphon enormous sums of money from public schools that accept all students at all times. Many are frustrated by this persistent lack of accountability by schools that constantly claim to not only be accountable but to be more accountable than the public schools they continually drain large sums of money from. The public does not want to fund schools that frequently cherry pick students. Publicness is about inclusivity, not exclusivity. Public means for the common good, for everyone. To claim that you are a public entity while acting like a private entity is CONTINUE READING: Segregated Unaccountable Charter Schools | Dissident Voice

Shawgi Tell,: More Than 1,650 Charter Schools Closed in Seven Years | Dissident Voice

More Than 1,650 Charter Schools Closed in Seven Years | Dissident Voice

More Than 1,650 Charter Schools Closed in Seven Years

According to the U.S. Department of Education, 1,654 charter schools closed between 2010-2011 and 2016-2017.  That is an average of 236 charter school closures per year, which is a big bite out of the total number of charter schools in a short period of time. Today there exist roughly 7,300 charter schools, which is less than 7% of all schools in the U.S. Given the endless problems with transparency and open accurate reporting in the charter school sector it is not unreasonable to assume that the number of charter schools that have closed in this time period is actually larger than what the U.S. Department of Education reports.

Privately-operated charter schools are notorious for over-promising and under-delivering on many commitments and assurances. The chasm between charter school rhetoric and charter schools reality has always been large. The massive onslaught of disinformation about privately-operated charter schools has created a situation where facts like the closure of thousands of charter schools over the years have been drowned out by never-ending happy news about charter schools. The pressure to not engage in a conscious act of finding out what is really transpiring in the unstable charter school sector has left many at a disadvantage that harms everyone. Only systematic research and analysis can arm a person to see and appreciate this persistent gap between charter school words and charter school deeds.

For decades the public has been told by charter school promoters and their CONTINUE READING: More Than 1,650 Charter Schools Closed in Seven Years | Dissident Voice

Shawgi Tell: Public Opposition to Charter Schools Steadily Growing | Dissident Voice

Public Opposition to Charter Schools Steadily Growing | Dissident Voice

Public Opposition to Charter Schools Steadily Growing

Over the years, as more problems with charter schools have been exposed, analyzed, and critiqued, more people have come to see the need for opposing them and for defending public education and the public interest. Criticism and rejection of these privately-operated schools has become more mainstream in recent years and it is safe to say that opposition to charter schools will keep growing so long as neoliberals and privatizers impose more charter schools on society.

Public school boards and many different education advocacy groups, along with more legislators, former charter school teachers, many public school teachers, countless teacher educators and teacher education students, teacher unions, and myriad rights and justice groups are just some of the forces that are increasingly speaking out and taking action against charter schools. Many others have also heard of charter schools, and even with little or no investigation, they tend to approach charter schools with some skepticism. The days when charter schools were blindly embraced and investigation was deemed unnecessary are gradually fading. More people are doing their homework and learning about the numerous problems these segregated contract schools create.

Recent Actions

In April 2021, the Buffalo Public School Board voted to close two Buffalo charter schools that have been failing for years. There is also a legal push to pass a moratorium on charter schools for the next three years in the city. And in the past year even the New York State legislature has also become a little CONTINUE READING: Public Opposition to Charter Schools Steadily Growing | Dissident Voice

Shawgi Tell : No Justification for the Existence of Charter Schools (Part Two) | Dissident Voice

No Justification for the Existence of Charter Schools (Part Two) | Dissident Voice

No Justification for the Existence of Charter Schools (Part Two)

Non-profit and for-profit charter schools are privatized, marketized, corporatized education arrangements that appeared 30 years ago in the U.S. They are legal in 45 states, Washington DC, Puerto Rico, and Guam. About 3.3 million youth are currently enrolled in roughly 7,400 charter schools.

Charter schools openly embrace “free market” ideology and siphon billions of public dollars a year from public schools, many of which are chronically under-funded. Their academic track record is unimpressive and often very poor. Many do not provide employee retirement programs. Like a private business, charter schools spend lots of money on advertising and marketing and have high student, teacher, and principal turnover rates. They are also frequently mired in controversy, scandal, and corruption. They cannot levy taxes, are run by unelected individuals, and regularly hire uncertified teachers. Most charter schools are segregated and thousands have closed over the course of three CONTINUE READING: No Justification for the Existence of Charter Schools (Part Two) | Dissident Voice

Shawgi Tell: Economic Collapse Continues Uninterrupted | Dissident Voice

Economic Collapse Continues Uninterrupted | Dissident Voice

Economic Collapse Continues Uninterrupted

To conceal the economic and social decline that continues to unfold at home and abroad, major newspapers are working overtime to promote happy economic news. Many headlines are irrational and out of touch. They make no sense. Desperation to convince everyone that all is well or all will soon be great is very high. The assault on economic science and coherence is intense. Working in concert, and contrary to the lived experience of millions of people, many newspapers are declaring miraculous “economic growth rates” for country after country. According to the rich and their media, numerous countries are experiencing or are on the cusp of experiencing very strong “come-backs” or “complete recoveries.” Very high rates of annual economic growth, generally not found in any prior period, are being floated regularly. The numbers defy common sense.

In reality, economic and social problems are getting worse nationally and internationally.

“Getting back to the pre-Covid standard will take time,” said Carmen Reinhart, the World Bank’s chief economist. “The aftermath of Covid isn’t going to reverse for a lot of countries. Far from it.” Even this recent statement is misleading because it implies that pre-Covid economic conditions were somehow good or acceptable when things have actually been going downhill for decades. Most economies never really “recovered” from the economic collapse of 2008. Most countries are still running on gas fumes while poverty, unemployment, under-employment, inequality, debt, food insecurity, CONTINUE READING: Economic Collapse Continues Uninterrupted | Dissident Voice

Shawgi Tell: Inflated Charter School Waitlists | Dissident Voice

Inflated Charter School Waitlists | Dissident Voice

Inflated Charter School Waitlists

With great frequency, promoters of privately-operated non-profit and for-profit charter schools like to claim that charter schools are so great that they have very long lists of students waiting to get into them. They use such claims and “data” to argue that more charter schools are needed and that more public money should be spent on creating and multiplying more privately-operated charter schools.

However, many reports show that such waitlist numbers need to be taken with a grain of salt because they are usually inaccurate and misleading for various reasons. For example, a recent report from the North Carolina State Board of Education reported that:

During the 2019-2020 school year, over 117,000 North Carolina students were enrolled in [200] charter schools. As of October 1, 2020, over 126,000 North Carolina students are enrolled in charter schools. Self-reported data from the state’s charter schools indicate that 78% of charter schools had a waitlist totaling nearly 76,000 students statewide. (p. 3)

But in a footnote attached to this observation, the report notes that this “Figure may include duplicates, as students are often waitlisted at multiple charter schools.” An article from NC Policy Watch states: “76,000 names on waitlists aren’t the same as 76,000 students.” Names that appear on waitlists at multiple schools can result in a large overcount. Thus, for example, when one student is on multiple school’s waitlists, they are counted as being on each school’s waitlist. In other words, one student could be counted two, three, or more times, thereby inflating the final waitlist number. Such data could cause people to “mistakenly think that demand for charter schools is a lot higher CONTINUE READING: Inflated Charter School Waitlists | Dissident Voice

Big Education Ape: National Education Policy Center: The Myth of Charter School Waitlists | Diane Ravitch's blog - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/02/national-education-policy-center-myth.html

Shawgi Tell: Public Funds For Charter Schools Is Socially Irresponsible | Dissident Voice

Public Funds For Charter Schools Is Socially Irresponsible | Dissident Voice

Public Funds For Charter Schools Is Socially Irresponsible

Charter School Report Card (Critical Constructions: Studies on Education and Society) (9781681232959): Tell, Shawgi: Books - https://www.amazon.com/Charter-School-Report-Critical-Constructions/dp/1681232952

Public money comes from the new value workers produce. It does not come from somewhere else. This value is presently controlled not by those who produce it but by the financial oligarchy and its state. When socially-produced wealth is not controlled by those who actually produce it, endless problems arise. There is no way for the economy to benefit all individuals and serve the general interests of society when it is dominated by a handful of billionaires.

Socially-produced wealth belongs to the public and must be used for social programs and public services that benefit the socialized economy and the general interests of society. This includes education, healthcare, municipal services, and more. This can be achieved when major economic decisions are made by a public authority worthy of the name. A government beholden to the rich and their political representatives leads only to more retrogressive developments.

Since public money does not come from, or belong to, narrow private interests, it must not be used for privatized education arrangements such as charter schools. That is socially irresponsible.

Privately-operated non-profit and for-profit charter schools are contract schools run by unelected individuals. They are not state agencies like public CONTINUE READING: Public Funds For Charter Schools Is Socially Irresponsible | Dissident Voice

Shawgi Tell: New York State: 50 Charter Schools Closed in 20 Years | Dissident Voice

New York State: 50 Charter Schools Closed in 20 Years | Dissident Voice

New York State: 50 Charter Schools Closed in 20 Years

According to New York Charter School Fact Sheet (January 2021) from the New York State Education Department, the number of charter schools issued in New York State since the passage of the state’s charter school law in 1998 is 397. The total number of privately-operated charters permitted statewide under 2015 legislative amendments is 460. It is worth noting that a conversion of an existing public school to a charter school is not counted toward the numerical limits established by Article 56 of Education Law. This amounts to about 10 charter schools.

A separate but related document from the New York State Education Department, New York State Charter Schools (January 2021), claims that 46 privately-operated charter schools closed or never opened in the state. Fifteen of these charter schools closed since 2010.

It is not unreasonable to assume that more investigation and more recent data would reveal that more than 46 charter schools have actually closed in the state over the past 20 years. For example, the Buffalo School Board voted in April 2021 to close two failing charter schools in Buffalo.

Broken Promises: An Analysis of Charter School Closures From 1999 – 2017 provides a more comprehensive picture of the high failure and closure rate of charter schools nationwide. Equally problematic, persistently poor oversight CONTINUE READING: New York State: 50 Charter Schools Closed in 20 Years | Dissident Voice

Shawgi Tell: Charter Schools: “Choice” Is Not An Argument | Dissident Voice

Charter Schools: “Choice” Is Not An Argument | Dissident Voice

Charter Schools: “Choice” Is Not An Argument

Advocates of privately-operated non-profit and for-profit charter schools have long ignored serious criticisms of charter schools in a variety of ways. They have always believed, for example, that simply repeating worn-out phrases like “charter schools provide choice” will automatically cause everyone to dismiss the need for any discussion, investigation, and critical thinking about the well-documented negative effects of charter schools on education, society, the economy, and the national interest.

“Choice,” however, is not an argument for the existence or expansion of privately-operated charter schools.

When charter school promoters use the language of “choice,” they want people to:

1. Not recognize that education is an inalienable human right that must be guaranteed in practice by a public authority worthy of the name.
2. Believe that “free market” ideology is the best and most pro-social way to organize education in a modern society based on mass industrial production.
3. Ignore how “choice” leads to greater stratification and segregation in charter schools through their geographic location and selective student enrollment and attrition practices.
4. Disregard the fact that by “choice” charter school promoters really mean education is a commodity, not a social responsibility, and parents and students are consumers, not humans and citizens, who fend for themselves while shopping for a “good” school that hopefully does not close in under 10 years.
5. Think that there is no need to analyze how and why public schools have been set up to fail by privatizers so as to justify the rise of deregulated charter schools.
6. Get used to the disinformation that public schools are automatically bad and charter schools are inherently superior.
7. Ignore the fact that charter schools usually choose parents and students, not the other way around.
8. Overlook the fact that “choice” does not guarantee excellence, stability, or equity. Several thousand deregulated charter schools run by unelected individuals have closed in recent decades.
9. Believe that it does not matter who “delivers” education, but what kind of “results” are produced.
10. Dismiss the fact that “choice” means taking money away from under-funded public schools that educate thousands of students and that public schools in many instances are even compelled to provide some free services to charter schools.

It is not possible to conceal the fact that deregulated charter schools fail and CONTINUE READING: Charter Schools: “Choice” Is Not An Argument | Dissident Voice

Shawgi Tell: Charter School Disinformation About Families Being the Most Important “Stakeholders” | Dissident Voice

Charter School Disinformation About Families Being the Most Important “Stakeholders” | Dissident Voice

Charter School Disinformation About Families Being the Most Important “Stakeholders”

Since day one, advocates of privately-operated charter schools have tried to convince everyone that segregated charter schools “empower parents” and that parents are not only “stakeholders” but the most important “stakeholders” in education. Everything in education is supposedly all about parents first and foremost. Parents are the end-all and be-all. Education apparently serves no one else or 10 other broad functions. Education exists mainly to serve parents. Everyone and everything else is secondary at best. Oddly enough, while the “parent empowerment” theme is central to charter school disinformation it is actually charter schools that choose parents and students, not the other way around.

Such a narrow notion of parents-first-last-and-always deliberately degrades and debases the historical, cultural, social, political, and economic role, significance, and importance of public education in a modern society based on mass industrial production. The days of petty production, small estates,  small farms, and feudal manors are long gone. Humans today are born to a complex modern society in which all production is highly technical, scientific, advanced, large-scale, and cooperative. Everything is interdependent and impossible without millions of skilled working people. The problem is that this modern mass production system is based on outdated relations of production, that is, it is owned and controlled by competing private owners of capital CONTINUE READING: Charter School Disinformation About Families Being the Most Important “Stakeholders” | Dissident Voice

Shawgi Tell: Charter Schools’ Obsession With Test Scores Deliberately Misses the Point | Dissident Voice

Charter Schools’ Obsession With Test Scores Deliberately Misses the Point | Dissident Voice

Charter Schools’ Obsession With Test Scores Deliberately Misses the Point

Putting aside the endless problems with punitive high-stakes standardized tests produced by a handful of large for-profit corporations, charter school advocates have never stopped making a fetish out of students’ scores on these political instruments. Charter school promoters obsess endlessly over racist psychometric tests that have been rejected by many for decades. They appear to be immune to all criticism of these widely-rejected tests. No critical examination of these top-down corporate tests is even attempted. It is as if everyone is expected to automatically embrace them and treat them as being useful, flawless, and meaningful.

What is odd, however, is that thousands of charter schools, which frequently cherry-pick their students, actually perform poorly on such corporate tests, more poorly than many under-funded public schools, and about the same as some under-funded public schools. There is really not much to boast about. The charter school record is not impressive, especially when viewed in its totality. Thirty years after their appearance, segregated charter schools cannot seem to claim victory for much.

It is no surprise that more than 150 privately-operated non-profit and for-profit charter schools close every year due to academic failure (and financial malfeasance). Literally thousands have failed and closed in three decades, leaving many black and brown families out in the cold.

Overall, it remains hard to make a compelling argument for the existence of CONTINUE READING: Charter Schools’ Obsession With Test Scores Deliberately Misses the Point | Dissident Voice

Shawgi Tell: Biden Swiftly Disappoints Educators and Students | Dissident Voice

Biden Swiftly Disappoints Educators and Students | Dissident Voice

Biden Swiftly Disappoints Educators and Students

Months before he became president, many pointed out that harmful neoliberal policies would continue unabated in K-12 education under a Joe Biden administration. Indeed, there is a long record of both democrats and republicans supporting harmful education policies like high-stakes standardized testing, charter schools, performance-based pay schemes, NCLB, ESSA, and more.

But U.S. presidential elections always have a way of successfully enforcing amnesia and intensifying false hope in the context of a discredited political set-up that has long failed to affirm the interests of people. To be fair though, there has emerged in recent years a level of social consciousness that did in fact enable more people than usual to take a more measured conscious approach toward presidential candidates and political realities. More people are increasingly adopting a “we’ll believe it when we see it” attitude because they have come to learn, often the hard way, that politicians are usually unaccountable, break promises regularly, rarely respond to endless begging by the polity, and typically don’t do “the right thing.” It is hard to ignore cumulative experience.

It is no accident that Biden, who has previously claimed he is opposed to high-stakes standardized tests, chose a major promoter of charter schools and high-stakes standardized testing like the neoliberal Ian Rosenblum to make the recent antisocial announcement that punitive high-stakes standardized tests CONTINUE READING: Biden Swiftly Disappoints Educators and Students | Dissident Voice

Shawgi Tell: What is a “Strong” Charter School Law? | Dissident Voice

What is a “Strong” Charter School Law? | Dissident Voice

What is a “Strong” Charter School Law?

Every year the billionaire-funded National Alliance for Charter Schools (NAPCS) produces a glossy report ranking state charter school laws. This year’s 72-page report is titled: Measuring up to the model, a ranking of state public charter school laws, twelfth annual edition.

The main goal of the report is to rank state charter school laws in terms of how “strong” or “weak” they are. This is supposed to signal to privatizers and neoliberals which states are most conducive to privatizing public schools and which are the least conducive to privatizing public schools.

When the report refers to a state’s charter school law as being “strong” what it means is that the door is wide open in that state to unfettered privatization of public schools. In other words, a state with a “strong” charter school law enables and empowers privatizers and neoliberals to create more privately-operated segregated charter schools than a state with a “weak” charter school law. States with “strong” charter school laws, for example, have less charter school accountability and fewer laws, rules, and regulations upholding public standards for non-profit and for-profit charter schools. Being able to dodge teacher unions and being exempt from collective bargaining agreements is also considered a feature of a state with “strong” charter school laws. States with “strong” charter school laws also tend to have more “charter school authorizers,” which means that it is easier to start a charter school in that state because if one authorizer rejects a charter school application, the applicant CONTINUE READING: What is a “Strong” Charter School Law? | Dissident Voice

Shawgi Tell: Charter Schools Distort the Modern Socialized Economy | Dissident Voice

Charter Schools Distort the Modern Socialized Economy | Dissident Voice

Charter Schools Distort the Modern Socialized Economy

Every year billions of public dollars and assets flow into the hands of private businesses like charter schools, leaving public schools, the economy, the public interest, and the nation worse off. This is due to the fact that competing owners of capital are using deregulated charter schools to atomize the socialized economy for private gain. As pay-the-rich schemes, privately-operated charter schools drain the large-scale socialized economy of a huge amount of social wealth produced by working people and meant for the public interest.

When public funds leave the public sector and end up in the hands of deregulated private entities like non-profit and for-profit charter schools, that means narrow private interests are benefitting at the expense of the public. It means less added-value is used by and benefits the public. It means all public wealth is not reinvested fully and directly back into the public sector. Instead, a large portion of social wealth produced by workers is illegitimately claimed by external private claimants whose aim is to maximize profit as fast as possible.¹ This distorts the economy and undermines public schools and the public interest. It is a net loss for society. It is socially irresponsible. Funneling public funds to private interests undermines modern nation-building that relies on a diverse, self-reliant, balanced, and pro-social economy under public control.

It may be asked: Why don’t public funds stay in public hands? Why aren’t CONTINUE READING: Charter Schools Distort the Modern Socialized Economy | Dissident Voice

SHAWGI TELL: Arizona Pioneer in Wrecking Public Education through Charter Schools | Dissident Voice

Arizona Pioneer in Wrecking Public Education through Charter Schools | Dissident Voice

Arizona Pioneer in Wrecking Public Education through Charter Schools

Recent news articles claim that Arizona is a “leader in innovation” when it comes to private businesses like charter schools. Arizona is said to be amazing because it is ensuring “freedom” for parents to “choose” from an exciting array of charter schools to send their kids to, and this is all thanks to a legal environment that strongly supports deregulated charter schools. This is another way of saying that there is little accountability and oversight of charter schools in Arizona and that charter schools can generally operate with impunity. Charter school promoters call this “a friendly regulatory environment.”

It is worth observing that Arizona’s charter schools, much like charter schools elsewhere, are rife with fraud and corruption. In fact, some of the most egregious forms of corruption come from Arizona. Further, in the recent period privately-operated charter schools in Arizona have seized about $100 million in PPP funds from the CARES Act. These funds are not available to public schools because public schools are not private businesses.

In 2017, the ACLU slammed hundreds of charter schools in Arizona for practicing discriminatory enrollment practices even though charter schools are ostensibly “public” and supposedly “open to all students.”And like other CONTINUE READING: Arizona Pioneer in Wrecking Public Education through Charter Schools | Dissident Voice

Shawgi Tell: Cyber Charter Schools: Neoliberals Determined to Commodify More Students | Dissident Voice

Cyber Charter Schools: Neoliberals Determined to Commodify More Students | Dissident Voice

Cyber Charter Schools: Neoliberals Determined to Commodify More Students

The parasitic seizure of social wealth by the rich has intensified in recent years and promises to increase in 2021. While the stock market soars to artificial new heights, the productive sector of the economy continues to steadily disintegrate, leaving the financial oligarchy with fewer options to maximize profit over time. This in turn is causing the rich to engage in more stock market gambling, private lending, bankruptcies, and restructuring of the state in order to funnel more public funds into private hands (e.g., through more “public-private-partnerships”). As the law of a falling rate of profit invariably intensifies, the nexus between the rich and the state will become more critical to analyze in the months and years ahead. Left unchallenged, state-organized corruption to pay the rich will be strengthened well beyond 2021, leaving society, the economy, and the environment worse off, and making it harder for the New to emerge.

In the sphere of education, given the increased obsession with technology and screen-based instruction, the rich are more aggressively striving to seize public funds, impose user fees, and maximize profits through a dramatic expansion of “virtual learning,” especially through cyber charter schools, which have consistently low graduation rates and are regarded by many as a scam. The rich are extremely eager to commodify as many students as possible, at home and abroad. To be sure, the charter school phenomenon is reducing more and more students, parents, and teachers to fend-for-yourself consumers entangled in commodity logic, which in turn degrades the integrity of human CONTINUE READING: Cyber Charter Schools: Neoliberals Determined to Commodify More Students | Dissident Voice

Shawgi Tell: Charter School Accountability Will Remain Weak in 2021 | Dissident Voice

Charter School Accountability Will Remain Weak in 2021 | Dissident Voice

Charter School Accountability Will Remain Weak in 2021

Segregated charter schools have a high failure rate and are notorious for lacking accountability and oversight. Charter schools are also well-known for being non-transparent even though they are ostensibly “public” schools. This has been the case for nearly 30 years when charter schools first came into being. Over the years, endless reports, articles, and books have documented the chronic lack of accountability in the troubled charter school sector.

Privately-operated charter schools have always over-promised and under-delivered on accountability. This is closely related to why fraud and corruption remain entrenched in the charter school sector. The worn-out assertion that charter schools will deliver “results” and be accountable in exchange for autonomy and independence has always been a pretext to privatize education and fool the gullible. It has nothing to do with improving schools. The closing of several thousand charter schools over the years shows that charter schools are not a worthwhile “innovative experiment” or a “better alternative” to public schools. So much for “results-based accountability in education.”

As “free market” schools charter schools operate according to market accountability, which really means no accountability. Market accountability is a way to dodge public oversight and do as you please. The “free market” mainly delivers chaos, anarchy, and instability and allows many “bad actors” to stay in business. Market accountability also means treating parents and CONTINUE READING: Charter School Accountability Will Remain Weak in 2021 | Dissident Voice

Shawgi Tell: Charter Schools Have Fewer Nurses and More Inexperienced Teachers than Public Schools | Dissident Voice

Charter Schools Have Fewer Nurses and More Inexperienced Teachers than Public Schools | Dissident Voice

Charter Schools Have Fewer Nurses and More Inexperienced Teachers than Public Schools

According to two recent U.S. government reports, private businesses like segregated charter schools have far fewer nurses and more inexperienced teachers than public schools: School Nurses in U.S. Public Schools (April 2020) and Characteristics of Public and Private Elementary and Secondary School Teachers in the United States (April 2020).  Both reports cover many years of data.

It is also well- known that privately-operated charter schools have higher teacher, principal, and student turnover rates than public schools, ensuring instability in the school milieu.

These and other facts stem directly from the privatized and marketized character of segregated charter schools, whether they are non-profit or for-profit. Privatization is usually associated with greater corruption, higher costs, less efficiency, lower quality services, less transparency, and restricted public access. The so-called “free market” ensures a law of the jungle fend-for-yourself atmosphere.

It should also be noted that privately-operated charter schools, which are governed by unelected individuals and are ostensibly “open to all,” have long offered fewer services, programs, and resources than public schools while also engaging in selective enrollment practices. This is not due to a shortage of CONTINUE READING: Charter Schools Have Fewer Nurses and More Inexperienced Teachers than Public Schools | Dissident Voice

Shawgi Tell: Charter School Promoters Comfortable With Cardona | Dissident Voice

Charter School Promoters Comfortable With Cardona | Dissident Voice

Charter School Promoters Comfortable With Cardona

President-elect Joe Biden recently nominated Miguel Cardona to serve as the next U.S. Secretary of Education. Hardly anyone in education circles has heard of or spoken about Cardona, let alone in an open and serious way. For weeks there was endless speculation and confusion surrounding the “top potential pick” for this position. All kinds of illusions, diversions, and false hopes predictably came to the fore. As in previous elections, emotions ran high while analysis, theory, and experience took a back seat.

The notion, according to many, that Cardona is a “non-controversial,” “non-party-splitting,” “unifying choice” is meant to intensify opposition to analysis, theory, and experience. The idea that Cardona is a “middle-of-the-road” kind of guy is designed to cover up harsh splits, profoundly different visions of education, and worsening class divisions in society. Objectively, a capital-centered agenda cannot be reconciled with a human-centered agenda; they are based on diametrically-opposed aims and visions.

Then there is the widely-held notion that public education can only benefit from a person at the helm who has experience in public education. Many insisted that the next U.S. Secretary of Education must have “real public school experience.” This demand is usually made spontaneously and uncritically, as if nothing dreadful or harmful could possibly happen in public schools so long as someone from public education is leading American CONTINUE READING: Charter School Promoters Comfortable With Cardona | Dissident Voice