“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” – Nelson Mandela

By Glen Reaux

Education in America has been a battleground since the end of slavery.  Ben Franklin once said: “An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”  His reasoning that education equates to economic gain is the principal reason why whites prohibited slaves from learning to read.  To this day, this ideology is the motivation behind the discriminatory practices that still exist in today’s education system.  Only today, discrimination has expanded from racial to include socioeconomic status.  When one examines the recent initiatives in education towards privatization “The Truth Behind Secretary of Education Betsy DeVoss and Charter Schools” and their future role in American education is revealed.  And, in Trump-land where the driving forces of racism, divisiveness and hatred are used to mask the true agendas of greed and domination of the masses, the future of our kids and their education is very dismal.

The fact is, the push for privatization in education is just one facet in the long-standing fight to cripple this nation’s public education system.  As education becomes more and more important and America becomes less and less white, the education of America’s present and future voters may be a determining factor in whether the Party of old White Men or the voices of a diverse populace will rule this country.  The country of South Africa is a prime example of how educating the poor and disenfranchised has changed the power structure with a nation.  Nelson Mandela’s quote: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”, serves to  strike fear into the hearts of the Republican Party, the elitist 1% and corporate donors that set the agenda and funds the party of rapidly aging “old white men.”

While there have been many documented successful charter schools, the debates of just how much they will contribute to society, are they the future of education, will they cause the education system to fail or will they offer true long term solutions rage on?  To get a better understanding of how we got here, we first, must understand how charter schools became a topic of such energetic discussion.

In 1974, Ray Budde, an education professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, introduced the idea of charter schools.  His idea was for states to grant charters to create new, experimental programs and departments at existing public schools.  To educators, the idea fell on deaf ears.  But, Terrel Howard Bell, the Secretary of Education for the then incumbent U.S. president that wanted to put an end to the Department of Education took notice.  The Department of Education which was founded by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 was not a big favorite of the most racist President since the Civil War, Ronald Reagan.

Ronald Reagan, the president that today’s Republican Party considers to be the greatest American President of all times, behind closed doors, proudly wore the title of the most racist president since the Civil War.  It is no wonder that the Republican Party holds him in such high regard when one considers the Republican Party and their racist and inhumane policies as reported in the March 13, 2019 article published on this site titled “American Racism aka The Republican Party.” ^{1}

Reagan’s racist policies, opposition and attempts to block civil rights legislation, were inhumane at the very least.  The actor Ronald Reagan began to make his transformation to a politician in the 1960s.  During this turbulent time in our nation’s history, Reagan openly opposed all civil rights legislation which included the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.  Once elected President, Reagan continued his racism via his administration’s policies.  As president, he gutted the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), fought the extension of the Voting Rights Act, vetoed the Civil Rights Restoration Act (which required all recipients of federal funds to comply with civil rights laws) and opposed the creation of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.  He vetoed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, which imposed economic sanctions on South Africa that could only be lifted when that country abolished apartheid.  Also, Reagan openly labeled anti-apartheid groups like the African National Congress as Communistic.  Like other Republican presidents before him, he did not openly consider himself to be a racist and feigned being insulted on the matter.  But fortunately, his actions speak volumes to the contrary.

As President, Reagan was a vocal advocate for the dissolution of the Department of Education which Reagan considered to be an expensive and unnecessary social policy leftover from the Carter administration.  If not for pressure from Democrats in Congress, Reagan would have probably had his way.  Under Reagan, Terrel Howard Bell, the Secretary of Education formed the National Commission on Excellence in Education. The commission included 12 administrators, 1 businessperson, 1 chemist, 1 physicist, 1 politician, 1 conservative activist, and 1 teacher.  Other than the one active teacher, there were no other education professionals or experts on the committee.  Despite the lack of education professionals on the commission, “A Nation At Risk” ^{2} the April 1983 report provided by the commission received critical acclaim for its findings on the American Education system and led a call for education reform in this country.  It was this call for education reform that fueled the rise and acceptance of charter schools in this country.  The report found that the problems of U.S. schools were mainly caused by lazy students and unaccountable teachers.  As noted by educators that criticized the report, administrative incompetence, poverty, inequality, underfunded schools and racial discrimination were factors not addressed in the report.  Although ignored in the press at the time, today, the lack of these factors in the report cast a great deal of doubt on the credibility of the report, its findings and on the members of the commission.  This leaves one to question if there was a hidden agenda in the creation of this commission by the racist President, Ronald Reagan.

Shortly after the release of “A Nation At Risk”, President Reagan began a strong push for educational tax credits for people who sent their children to private schools as opposed to public schools.  Also, under the guise of helping poor and disadvantaged students who more than often were Black, Reagan began to promote a government voucher program to offer alternatives for children seeking a better education by-way-of attending a private school.  Educators at that time saw this as a means of reducing funding for public education.  Truth be told, Education Secretary Bell saw this as a means to incentive the private sector through government funding for private education which in turn would reduce public school funding.  Openly, racism was not seen as a factor in these education initiatives.  But, in many ways, they actually mimicked the programs that funded segregation academies that began to pop up in the South after the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education.^{3}  Much like today’s charter schools, these schools were market as freedom of choice schools.  They existed as government funded, Whites only schools, with the government awarding tax credits and vouchers until 1976 when the High Court ruled in Runyon v. McCrary that private schools could not discriminate based upon race.

Today charter schools and private schools cannot discriminate based upon race.  However, this excerpt from a February 2013 Reuter’s article ^{4} finds that publicly funded charter schools do discriminate:

“Students may be asked to submit a 15-page typed research paper, an original short story, or a handwritten essay on the historical figure they would most like to meet. There are interviews, exams and pages of questions for parents to answer, including: How do you intend to help this school if we admit your son or daughter?

 “These aren’t college applications. They’re applications for seats at charter schools. [R] Reuters has found that across the United States, charters aggressively screen student applicants, assessing their academic records, parental support, disciplinary history, motivation, special needs and even their citizenship, sometimes in violation of state and federal law.”

Question: Should a student be denied an education because a parent is either incapable of or not willing to support that child’s school?  Isn’t this illegal?

Charter schools have also been found to have stricter than normal disciplinary policies.  Many charter schools employ zero tolerance discipline programs for minor or first-time offenders and often require parents and student to sign contracts governing their conduct and or academic performance.  Expulsions have also been found to be higher in charter schools than in traditional public schools.

In the summer 2017 edition of the Harvard Graduate School of Education publication ^{5}, Ed., the following were found to be true about charter schools:

“after 25 years and some 6,000 schools, charters still on average produce results roughly equal those of the public schools to which they set out to be better alternatives.  Nationwide, low-income students, especially black and Hispanic, tend to benefit from charters the most, studies show.  But for white and Asian students, as Finn notes, “the effects are generally neutral or negative.”

“Nationwide, charters lose 24 percent of their teachers each year, double the rate of traditional public schools. Why? Longer hours and less pay, for one. But charters, in genera,l are also less apt to retain teachers for decades, and more apt to embrace a startup-like culture”

In Trump-land, charter schools hold a special place in the heart of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.  DeVos has championed charter schools and voucher programs for decades even to the point of wasting more than a billion dollars on grants for charter schools that have failed.  In an April 10, 2019 testimony before the House Education Committee, an exchange between Congresswoman Haley Stevens of Michigan and DeVos revealed how Devos is managing funding in relation to charter schools:

STEVENS:” So your budget proposes to eliminate billions of dollars in K-12 programs, from professional development for teachers and principals, to after school programming, to mental health services, and one of my personal favorites: STEM education. And obviously, we’ve heard you talk about some of the hard decisions that you’ve had to make. Yet, somehow, you found $60 million for an increase in the federal charter school program. I just really wonder if charter schools are the answer here, whereas it really should be the Title I funding. A recent report by the Network for Public Education found that more than $1 billion in charter school program funds have been given to support charter schools that never opened or they’ve closed — they kind of abandoned the children and families. Since 2010, 25 schools in Michigan that have received $1.7 million in charter school funding just never even opened. And the Inspector General found waste, fraud, and abuse due to the frequency of school closures in the charter school program. Can you just explain for me the mark of effective programs here, and can you justify the proposed increase for the charter school program, and on what measures or studies you have been using?”

DeVOS:” Let me first comment on the study you’re referring to. I’m not sure you can even call it a study. We’re looking more closely at it of course, and anything that is truly waste, fraud, or abuse we will certainly address. But the reality is that the study was really funded by and promoted by those who have a political agenda against charter schools. And the other reality is that there are currently over one million students on wait lists for charter schools in the country. So, we want to see more charter schools, not fewer. More students that can access options that are right for them, not fewer.”

The Study referred to in this exchange is “Asleep at the Wheel,”^{6} published in March of 2019 by the Network for Public Education which advocates for policies supporting publicly funded school districts.

The findings and conclusions of the report are as follows:

1. Hundreds of millions of federal taxpayer dollars have been awarded to charter schools that never opened or opened and then shut down. In some cases, schools have received federal funding even before securing their charter.
2. The Charter School Program’s (CSP’s) own analysis from 2006-2014 of its direct and state pass-through funded programs found that nearly one out of three awardees were not currently in operation by the end of 2015.
3. The CSP’s grant approval process appears to be based on the application alone, with no attempt to verify the information presented. Schools have been approved for grants despite serious concerns noted by reviewers.
4. Recommendations by the Office of the Inspector General have been largely ignored or not sufficiently addressed.
5. Grants have been awarded to charter schools that establish barriers to enrollment, discouraging or denying access to certain students.
6. The department does not conduct sufficient oversight of grants to State Entities or State Education Agencies, despite repeated indications that the states are failing to monitor outcomes.
7. The CSP’s grants to charter management organizations are beset with problems including conflicts of interest and profiteering.
8. Under the current administration, while Congressional funding for the CSP rises, the quality of the applications and awardees has further declined.
9. Numerous grant recipients claimed they would try to enroll high percentages of minority and disadvantaged students, even while their programs and policies were designed to draw from advantaged populations.
10. The report found troubling examples of CMO’s that received massive grants that engaged in practices that push-out low-performing students, violate the rights of students with disabilities and cull their student bodies through policies, programs and requests for parental donations.
11. The Education Department’s office of inspector general has over the years issued reports citing problems with the program, most recently in 2016. It found that of the 33 schools it reviewed, most had conflicts of interest with the organizations managing them, known as charter management organizations (CMOs).
12. The Education Department took little or no action on recommendations to fix the problems identified in the 2016 Education Department report or the previous ones from the inspector general.

These findings prove that charter school funding cuts deeply into the funding for traditional school districts and established programs that benefit students and teachers.  In doing so, the funding is mismanaged and wasted and is open to cronyism, conflicts-of-interests and corruption.  Basically, over the course of the past 30 years, the majority of charter schools have either failed or have been unable to out-perform the very schools that they were designed to be an alternative to.

With such dismal results, what is the reason behind the continued funding for charter schools?  Are there logical reasons for the continued waste of taxpayer dollars?  Aside from the evidence provided in “Asleep at the Wheel” which basically deals with federal funding of the charter school industry and studies done by the Harvard Graduate School of Education, there is large and varied opposition to charter schools.  This opposition is based upon evidence that has shown that there is widespread fraud and racketeering in the test-obsessed charter school sector, or how nonprofit and for-profit charter schools increase segregation, are run by non-elected officials, often perform poorly, oppose teacher unions, selectively enroll students, and have high student, teacher, and principal turnover rates.

Despite this evidence, there is growing political support for charter schools.  As evidenced by the Trump administration’s latest budget which will eliminate billions of dollars for K-12 education funding while increasing charter school funding to $500 million up from $440 million in 2019 based upon the US Department of Education Fiscal Year 2020 Budget Summary.^{7}

When all of the evidence that finds charter schools are not the “miracle cure” to our education systems problems is examined one has to look outside of the evidence for answers to this debacle of wasted government spending.  The only answer is political.

This administration under Donald Trump with Betsy DeVos at the helm of education, like Republican administrations before it, is for the privatization of government services.  One of the most lucrative sources of revenue is education.  It is also a never-ending source of revenue.  Although only about 15% of charter schools are for-profit schools, this 15% is far more successful at the operation of a business than the not-for-profit charter schools.  This statistic, for people that argue that education should be operated as a business, is the data set for arguing their case.  To support their position by allowing the privatization of our education system would be to create a disaster on steroids.  To Betsy DeVos and Donald Trump, the education system is just another opportunity to milk the government at the expense of the taxpayers and our children.

While there has been no scientific studies that the support privatization of our education system, there is plenty of evidence that proves that charter schools whether they are not-for-profit or for-profit are not the solution.  Although privatization of our education system is not openly being professed by politicians, the campaign to do so is accelerating and being waged in a covert manner.  As stated earlier, there are charter schools that are successful as is the case with many private schools that do not have to comply with all of the laws and regulations that govern public schools.  And, it is these few examples of success that are being used much like the Ronald Reagan commissioned report “A Nation At Risk” to mislead the public in this covert push to privatize our education system.

https://www.gofundme.com/xplicit-news

Linked Sources and Documentation

1. American Racism aka the Republican Party: http://www.xplicitnews.org/2019/03/13/american-racism-aka-the-republican-party/
2. A Nation at Risk, pdf: https://www.edreform.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/A_Nation_At_Risk_1983.pdf
3. Brown v. Board of Education: https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/history-brown-v-board-education-re-enactment
4. Reuter’s Article: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-charters-admissions/special-report-class-struggle-how-charter-schools-get-students-they-want-idUSBRE91E0HF20130215
5. Harvard Graduate School of Education: https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/ed/17/05/battle-over-charter-schools
6. Asleep at the Wheel: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/03/25/report-us-government-wasted-up-billion-charter-schools-still-fails-adequately-monitor-grants/?utm_term=.00bd676fae6a
7. US Department of Education Fiscal Year 2020 Budget Summary, pdf: https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget20/summary/20summary.pdf

Copyright © 2019, Glen Reaux, all rights reserved