“Charter schools were a movement, but now charter schools are an industry. They have lobbyists – they walk around in thousand-dollar suits, some of them.” – Dan Gaetz, Florida freshman senator (R) and former Okaloosa school superintendent (see http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/11/neo-liberalism-the-leveraging-of-charter-schools-with-public-and-private-funds/)
No Child Left Behind
George W. Bush was the first to authorize federal funding to stimulate charter school development in the No Child Left Behind Act. NCLB also strengthened requirements that states implement minimum standards testing to be eligible for federal education funds. Unbeknown to most Americans, this policy was actually initiated by Clinton, although not stringently enforced. As attorney and progressive education reformer Danny Weil (*see below) points out, the true purpose of NCLB wasn’t really to improve the performance of low income minority students – or it would have made some effort to guarantee their school districts more equitable funding. Its main purpose was to use standardized tests to massively highly the poor performance of these schools – to further bolster support for the burgeoning school privatization movement.
Bush junior wisely left responsibility for school voucher programs to the states. Uptake of school vouchers by low income minority parents has been spotty. This is really no surprise, given that vouchers (limited to the “per pupil equivalent”) cover only a fraction of the tuition charged by private schools.
“Throwing Money” at Charter Schools
The low per pupil equivalent – which ironically highlights progressives’ claims of serious underfunding – has also been a major problem for the charter school movement. According to the Education Policy Studies Laboratory (http://www.lwvny.org/advocacy/education/charter_sch_bib032307.pdf), no charter school is likely to succeed without substantial for-profit or non-profit funding to supplement meager per pupil funding limits. What I find even more ironic, in view of the conservative rallying cry of not “throwing money” at public schools, is the vast amounts of private sector money being invested in supposedly public charter schools.
Make no mistake, charter schools are big business. Large charter school chains like Green Dot, KIPP, Alliance Schools and YES Prep Public Schools are quickly squeezing out their community-based competitors. Moreover, owing to generous support from the US Department of Education, the non-governmental financing sector for charter schools has grown leaps and bonds. Presently 25 private, non-profit organizations collectively provide over $600 million in direct financial support to charter schools. In addition, Standard and Poor and Moody’s list over 70 rated charter school bonds totaling over $1 billion issued in various states.
These private funding sources leverage a variety of federal monies to supplement low state and local “per pupil equivalents.” In addition to Title I funding, the US Department of Education has awarded $50 million of grants through two programs administered by the Office of Innovation and Improvement: the Credit Enhancement for Charter School Facilities Program and the State Charter School Facilities Incentive Grants Program. In addition there are four federal programs other administered by other federal agencies that charter schools can access for their facilities needs: the Public Assistance Grant Program (administered by FEMA), the New Markets Tax Credit Program and the Qualified Zone Academy Bond Program (both administered by the US Treasury), and Community Programs (administered by the Department of Agriculture).
*Danny Weil is the author of the groundbreaking 2009 expose The Charter School Movement: a Reference Handbook. He has published several eye opening chapters in Counterpunch http://www.counterpunch.org/weil08262009.html and Dissident Voice http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/11/neo-liberalism-the-leveraging-of-charter-schools-with-public-and-private-funds/
To be continued, with a discussion of the role of conservative philanthropists like Bill Gates in the school privatization movement.
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.
Donate