8 November 2004
Bernadette Medige
Privatization of Public Education, part 5: The Corporate Agenda
Board of Education Passes One Year Moratorium
The Buffalo Board of Education voted on Wednesday night to impose a one-year moratorium on district-sponsored charter schools and set up a task force to study the issue. It would have made sense if the old board had studied the issue prior to jumping into the Renaissance Schools initiative, looking at other states that have had charter schools longer. But the newly elected board includes members who solidly oppose charter schools, signaling a mandate to reconsider the impact charter schools have on the district. They are asking some pointed questions about the financial impact on the district, tracking money paid out to them by the district, and issues of equity.
The one-year moratorium, sponsored by at-large board member Catherine Collins, follows the recent failure of a three-year moratorium sponsored by West District representative, Ralph Hernandez. Central District member Janique Curry abstained from that vote, and the measure failed. Ms. Curry was widely criticized for her abstention. However she supported the one-year compromise. In fact, at an Executive Affairs Committee meeting scheduled two days earlier specifically to hear arguments (at which this writer spoke for the opposition), Ms. Curry was very clear that she felt some time should be taken, suggesting one year because she felt three years was too long – in order to get some answers to the many questions raised that evening. It’s right there on Cable 22 almost every night, along with charter-neutral CFO Gary Crosby’s dismal financial prognosis if the city continued granting charters.
Questionable Study Supports Charter School Expansion in New York
Just days earlier, the Buffalo News carried a story about the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), a centrist think-tank, advocating the expansion of charter schools. The PPI cited early promising results in New York City and around the state. The report states that charter schools show test scores show more rapid improvement over public schools. Well they should: they attract families whose parents by virtue of making any education choices for their children demonstrate that they are involved and value education. Charter school also may kick out kids who threaten to lower their test scores or exclude children with special needs, leaving increasing concentrations of difficult to teach children in the public schools.
But the reality is they don’t. The 2003 results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in math and reading found that charter schools lagged behind traditional public schools, and specifically when scores of similar students were compared. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) published the NAEP results because the NAEP decided to withhold them until they could put a favorable spin on it. This is still true of earliest states to pass charter school legislation 13 years ago, so Chris Jacobs’ argument at the executive affairs committee meeting, that they are too new to show results and blaming the public schools that charter students came from, don’t wash.
The report also trots out that nebulous statistic found in virtually every state (or other pro-charter organizations) evaluation of charter laws that statewide, charter schools serve proportionate numbers of minority and low-income students. It is typical of pro-charter organizations to cite such statistics without comparing individual schools, which paint an entirely different picture: that minorities and low-income children are not necessarily attending the same schools as the white or affluent, exacerbating the inequity in public education.
The Corporate Money Behind the Propaganda
It is important to note that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded the Progressive Policy Institute study. This is the same foundation that recently poured $1 million into Washington State’s Referendum 55 that called for the creation of charter schools. This was Washington’s third statewide referendum on the issue. The last time, it was bankrolled by Microsoft co-founder and Seattle Seahawks owner Paul Allen, who stood to gain financially through his heavy investment in Edison Schools and other education companies. He changed his strategy to making contributions to political candidates, and a charter law was passed, but enough signatures were quickly gathered to put it back to a third referendum.
The corporate interests pulled out all the stops to get this one passed. In addition to the Gates’ contribution, Donald Fisher, founder of The Gap and Wal-Mart heir John Walton have also kicked in a million each. Allen and Amazon also have contributed $100,000 each, as have 15 other out-of-state businesses. According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer three weeks before the vote charter school supporters had raised $3.8 million in cash and $44,300 in in-kind contributions. It is likely that amount increased as the date drew nearer.
Fisher is chairman of KIPP, the not-for-profit Knowledge is Power Program, into which both he and Bill Gates have invested millions. KIPP operates the KIPP Sankofa charter school in Buffalo and whose methods are questioned in a Washington Post online debate by our neighbor to the east, superintendent of Fairport Schools William Cala. The Walton family has been heavily involved in charter school and school voucher efforts, and is poised to make as big an impact on “public” education policy as they have in retail. Allen has partnered with Edison Schools to create online education programs.
Opponents had raised $866,561 and $248,928 in in-kind contributions. The National Education Association (NEA) kicked in $500,000 and $200,000 came from the state teachers union, the Washington Education Association (WEA). These numbers are likely to have increased as Election Day approached.
It should be noted that the NEA represent almost 100,000 individuals and the WEA over 76,000. Additionally, the Reject R-55 Coalition had 41 community organizations, which includes several unions, the Washington Democratic Party and several county and district Democratic groups, a significant break from the National Democratic Party, which supports charters. This paints a stark contrast to a handful of billionaires and calls into question the influence that wealth can buy. The Approve-55 coalition consists mainly of individuals with business ties, newspapers (which stand to make money when charter schools advertise) and far fewer and smaller grass-roots organizations, mostly groups that advocate tax cuts.
Much criticism has been lobbed at teacher’s unions for opposition to charter schools. Many charter school supporters support them specifically to undermine unions, and believe teachers have purely selfish motives. In their defense, I believe being on the front lines of education makes them more credible in than corporate profiteers. There would be a huge public outcry if the public schools spent $3 million defending themselves. The teachers are demonstrating their commitment to public education by advocating for the children. Locally, I have heard BTF President Phil Rumore speak against charter schools, but I have never heard him address the union-busting issue; his focus has been squarely on the detriment to the children and the classroom who lose out on programming due to charter school payouts.
The People Couldn’t Be Bought
Washington voters rejected charter schools in every single county in this third statewide referendum on the issue. Statewide 58.57% opposed charter schools. Ironically, a surge toward rejecting R-55 coincided with a media blitz of TV and radio advertisements supporting it (Windows Media Player required, of course).
Credit the Washington League of Women Voters, which exposed that the ads were based on lies, prompting two television stations to pull pro-charter advertisements off the air when they discovered the ads exaggerated the state's overall dropout rate and significantly inflated the dropout rate for students of color. The ad also cited the non-existent "WA State Education Agency" as the source.
The opposition won by going door-to-door, putting up signs and using direct mail. Washington State won by being given the opportunity for lengthy public discourse and the democratic process that New York didn’t have when our charter law was passed. I’d be interested in knowing what business interests were lining the pockets of the three-men-in-the-room in Albany.
Back to Buffalo
A study funded by an organization with a demonstrated interest in its outcome will yield a favorable outcome to that source. Bill Gates got what he wanted from the PPI study. The PPI states as part of its mission, “The Institute believes in adapting the progressive tradition in American politics to the realities of the Information Age by moving beyond the liberal impulse to defend the bureaucratic status quo and the conservative bid to dismantle government.”
Just an aside: Did I miss something? When did “liberal” become synonymous with “defending the bureaucratic status quo”?
This is just one of many issues that need to be questioned by the Board of Education during the next year: What role do corporations play in fueling demand for charter schools? What is in it for them, how will they profit? Collins asked in the Executive Affairs Committee meeting how much Buffalo Public Schools money was going to for-profit corporations outside of Buffalo. Nobody could answer that.
The Buffalo Board of Education needs to understand the enormous role corporations play in swaying public opinion, paying for charter school advocate organizations, websites, publications and politicians who will pass charter legislation. They need to question their motives. Then they need to ask, are they rendering themselves obsolete by allowing this rhetoric, and not facts, to dominate policy that they are in fact elected to create? The public that voted in new board members that are asking these questions deserve answers.
All people need to understand the importance of public education and the risks of privatizing. Alex Molnar, director of the Education Policy Studies Laboratory (EPSL) at Arizona State University and the Commercialism in Education Research Unit (CERU), examines the benefits and costs of for-profit public education management organizations and concludes they are “unlikely to ever succeed in improving the overall quality of public education. The for-profits do, however, seem quite capable of harming existing public schools”. An essay by Canadian Murray Dobbin, comparing charter schools in the US, UK, New Zealand and Alberta, outlines the influence of neoconservative/neoliberal free-market ideology as Ontario considers charter schools. A network of Canadians based in British Columbia is worried enough to be fighting to keep education out of free-trade agreements.
Charter school proponents need to understand that we “liberals” don’t embrace the status quo, which is why we don’t want money diverted from the enormous task of making schools work for all children.
Let’s spend the year of moratorium productively! Start reading.
Previous segments in this series:
Part 1:The Privatization of Public Education (19 April 2003)
Part 2: Segregation, Desegregation, Resegregation (2 May 2003)
Part 3: How Charter School Legislation Undermines Public Education
Part 4: The Conservative Agenda (1 September 2004)
Copyright 2004 by Buffalo Report, Inc.