There are times when something is better than nothing. When it comes to the charter school bill in front of the legislature, this is not one of those times. Nothing is the better, or, to put it another way, the least bad option.
It looks like the charter school bill making its way through the legislature isn’t going anywhere. After it passed the Senate, House Speaker Rusty Bowers stopped the bill from getting a hearing in committee. Bowers said he doesn’t have the votes to pass it and he’s probably right.
The bill’s purported goal is to clean up the corruption and profiteering running rampant in some charter schools. People who have been paying attention have known about this for years but a series of articles in the Arizona Republic exposed the seamy underbelly of the charter world to more people, including some Republican politicians who have done their best to look the other way. Not all charters are guilty. Many are run with the primary intent of educating their students, not fatten people’s wallets. But as The Republic demonstrated, the bad charter operators are truly bad operators.
The bill’s sponsors claim its purpose is to increase charter transparency and lay down some regulations, making it harder for people to game the system. Actually, it does very little, and it does that badly.
Before we look at the bill itself, let’s take a look at what’s been going on around the bill to see what we can learn.
Here’s one clue to what’s in the bill: when it passed the Senate 17-13, all the Republicans voted for it. All the Democrats voted against it after trying to amend it to give it more teeth. Seeing as how Republicans created Arizona’s charter schools a few decades back and have protected charters from greater regulation and accountability ever since while Democrats have been the ones calling for more transparency and regulation, it makes you think the bill is meant to act as a fig leaf to cover up the naked corruption taking place in some charters, not improve the charter school system.
Here’s another clue about the bill: it was created with the help of the Arizona Charter School Association, a private nonprofit whose purpose is to promote charters and make sure nothing gets through the legislature it doesn’t approve of. The ACSA gets half its yearly funding, $1.5 million, from the Walton Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the family that brought you Walmart. The Walton Foundation spends about $190 million a year on education, mainly promoting a privatization/”education reform” agenda.
Final clue: the bill was sponsored by Republican Sen. Kate Brophy McGee. This is one of those “With friends like Brophy McGee, you might as well hang around with Rep. Eddie Farnsworth” situations. (Farnsworth, the poster child for charter school profiteering, recently made between $10 million and $30 million by selling his for-profit chain of charter schools to a nonprofit company run by his friends.)
Brophy McGee had stiff competition last election from Christine Marsh, a former Arizona Teacher of the Year who was running on a pro-education platform. To counter Marsh, Brophy McGee said she was Shocked! Shocked! at the charter corruption revealed in The Republic and promised to sponsor legislation to clean things up. Brophy McGee eked out a win, then got together with the ACSA to write the weak bill passed by the Senate.
What’s in the bill?
It says charters must have boards with at least three members, and one of them cannot be a part of the operator’s family. That leaves room for two family members and a friend on the board. Not much of a change.
It also says charters can’t buy goods or services from family or members of the board. The exception is if the board decides the purchases are in the charter’s best interests. That means the current system of buying from friends and family is still in place so long as the board—you know, the two family members and a friend—gives it a thumbs up.
The only good part of the bill is that the Attorney General can prosecute people who violate the rules for buying goods and services, such as they are.
But you can toss out all the new rules when it comes to Charter Management Organizations. Many charters contract with CMOs to do their hiring, buying and general accounting. Some CMOs control the curriculum as well. In other words, CMOs basically run some charters, especially the large charter chains. The bill says its rules don’t apply to CMOs, which means the biggest operators in the charter business can keep on doing business the way they always have.
If the bill passes, Republicans can say, “See, we did what you wanted. We reformed charter schools.” That would be the end of any possibility for serious reform. Better the bill goes away. That leaves the possibility of working on some genuine reform next session when the legislators have an election looming before them.
This article appears in Mar 21-27, 2019.
the times they are a changing! peter, paul and mary.
Well, David, at least you don’t disguise it. Your intention is to come up with legislation that harms the charter school movement.
You toss around the these numbers 10 to 20 million and other numbers as though they were meaningful. They are not. Connecticut spends upwards of $14,000 more per student than Arizona, the equivalent of $14 billion per year in corruption. And, they have lower test score for every demographic that, when computed across years implies a lower productivity of perhaps 20%. That lower productivity is perhaps in the range of $2 billion per year for a total corruption of $16 billion.
That $10 to $20 million in equity by one charter owner was created over 20 years. He built a system that relative to other public schools, was worth an extra $10 to $20 million. What did he do inside his schools? Simple things really, every day. He used Saxon math text books for all 20 years. The U.S.Department of Education funded a multi-million dollar study to determine whether textbooks alone can impact academic gains. They found that Saxon Math and another text book, Math Expressions alone worth an extra 5% in academic gains.
That’s the lesson to be learned from his sale of the charter school chain, not that we need to engage in some spiteful expression of jealous rage to take away the profit motive from educating our children.
20 years times Connecticut’s corruption is $340 billion. And, it’s not equity, its pure burden on taxpayers.
When you add the burden on taxpayers, Connecticut has lost 14,000 jobs since 2000 while we have gained over 400,000.
What’s the corruption cost there? Incalculable.
Typical Huppenthal mushed up mess of illogical statistics, numerous non sequiturs and outright lies. Thank you Arizona voters.
At least there are no personal attacks on this thread….
“But if The Republic had invested a mere fraction of the same effort that it did in its alternative schools analysis to disclose issues in the graduation data that it has repeatedly touted in its campaign against charter schools, it would have done a far greater public service.”
It seems liberals in and out of the media just can’t stop lying.
https://arizonadailyindependent.com/2019/03/26/az-republic-owes-retraction-of-its-charter-findings-or-return-of-its-journalism-award/
Public Ed, telling the truth as Frances Perkins has done is not a personal attack. Unless one has an allergy to the truth.
Yeah right Wiley bud and those weren’t personal attacks on the Koch Bros until they changed parties. It may be some bodies opinion but neither are truth. The left has become so intolerant.
Didnt David Safier say he was giving up blogging? And then, shortly after that, that he was not giving it up, but would only post occasionally? And look what we see now: posts multiplying like rabbits. He is just as frequent and repetitive (and as misleading, ideologically driven and propagandistic) as he ever was. (Sigh.)
Dear What happened to giving up blogging, DS?: Thank you for being a loyal and careful reader.
Public, what are you talking about? When did Charles & David Koch (who the phrase Koch Brothers commonly refers to) switch parties? From which party to which party?
All charter schools are not bad, but some are cash cows at the taxpayers’ public trough.
All charter schools should therefore simply and quietly open their books for responsible policy makers and taxpayers to see, just like public schools must do as thoroughly required.
To continue to refuse to report public funding is not just ethically wrong, but also unfair, dishonest and duplicitous.
Why the hiding? How many tax dollars are these people farming year after year after year?
Taxpayer dollars should never be dark money.
Frances Perkins Response
You say outright lies. But, in making that statement, who is telling truth? Your empty accusation of a lie or my putting forth facts?
I threw out facts. If you are going to accuse me of lying, at least prove one of them incorrect.
Test scores by demographic comparison between Connecticut and Arizona.
___________________________Arizona_________Connecticut
Jobs Created
Since 2000________________400,000________-14,000 Bureau of Labor Statistics
Spending
per student________________$7,501_________$20,800 National Education Association, Rankings, 2017
Charter School
Students__________________185,000_________10,000 Numerous Sources
8th grade math scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress
Demographic
Black___ ____________________272 ____________258
Hispanic ____________________269_____________263
White _______________________296 ____________295
Asian _______________________316 ____________311
8th grade math Scores by
Mothers education
High school dropout ________265 ___________259
High school graduate _______269 ____________262
Some college _______________285 ____________274
College graduate ___________296 ____________282
I know its painful for you to look at data in which a state which spends so much more per student does so pale by comparison.
Are you saying that Benjamin Franklin schools don’t use Saxon math?
Are you saying that the “What Works Clearinghouse” of the U.S. Department of Education didn’t conduct a $20 million study on text books that indicated that Saxon Math and Math Expressions have a positive effect on student achievement in contrast to the other studied text books?
Benjamin Franklin Schools deployed basic fundamentals in education over two decades to build a clientele which appreciated higher academic gains and better relationships with parents. Last time I looked at data for their schools, the perception of excellence by parents of their students was more than double and a half national averages.
What are you saying Frances? Or, are you just throwing mud hoping that some people will believe you?
As for me, as Superintendent, I set up and ethic of treating school districts as customers and holding my organization accountable based on net excellence. Do you even know what that is? You calculate the percentage of teachers, special ed directors, principals, superintendents etc who rate your services excellent and subtract the percentage who say you are doing a poor job.
We were improving a the rate of 7 percentile points a year the fastest pace I’ve ever observed in any organization. By comparison, the rating of schools by parents across the nation has gone down 12 points in the last 8 years.
When I left, the subsequent Superintendent dismantled that system. The agency went back to government as usual.
You think that was a good thing? Pretty sad.
If only public education would have stayed in their lane , we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
Just reading this today…and the corresponding commentary.
Does John Huppenthal know that someone is impersonating him in these forums? I’m sure he’d be embarrassed to see the non sequitur rambling that has being posted under his name.