Tag Archives: charter schools

Education

Oklahoma’s Poor Need Much More than Charters Can Give

charter school oklahoma city
What was once Harding High School in Okla. City Public Schools is now Harding Charter Preparatory High School, authorized by the district.| Photo by Brett Dickerson

There has been a surge of anti-public-education talk in the past several weeks. Why?

Legislation to allow the governments of Tulsa and Oklahoma City to establish their own charter schools has come back to life as an amendment to another bill in the Oklahoma Legislature.

And the bill’s promoters want to make their case that the two biggest urban districts in the state are horrible, dystopic places that deserve abandonment instead of support and renewal. Continue reading Oklahoma’s Poor Need Much More than Charters Can Give →

Journalism & Writing

Blogs Are Critical to Re-establishing Public Schools

charter school oklahoma city
What was once Harding High School in Okla. City Public Schools is now Harding Charter Preparatory High School, authorized by the district.

Over the last ten years, bloggers have kept the issues of who controls schools at the forefront when so many big money interests want desperately to have us look the other way.

One advantage that school raiders have in taking public schools away from the public and turning them over to investor-owned charters is that the traditional news sources are hobbled from reporting accurately and fully.
Continue reading Blogs Are Critical to Re-establishing Public Schools →

Education

So You Want Evidence of Choice and Charter Problems?

closed charter schools
This is from an auctioneer’s web site announcing a real treasure trove of bargain basement prices for equipment bought at full price by a charter school with state taxpayer’s money.

So, you think that you want to expand “school choice” for parents by passing proposed legislation that would allow charters and private schools to take tax money with little of the financial or quality safeguards that publicly controlled schools now have? 

Continue reading So You Want Evidence of Choice and Charter Problems? →

Education

Charter’s Don’t Do It Better or Cheaper

students, laptops, security, chaters
A student takes a test on a laptop in a New Orleans charter school. Photo by Dinah Rogers, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

The hard spin that investors put on their own charter corporations is that they do education better, and for cheaper than those bad public schools. But, with some years of experience behind us now, it is clear that charters do neither.  
Continue reading Charter’s Don’t Do It Better or Cheaper →

Education

Investors Ready to Liquidate Public Schools

investors, public schools, stocks, charter schools,
A busy day on the NYSE. Investors in this arena have their eyes on public schools conversions to private schools. Photo by Ben Hider/NYSE Euronext

Plans are under way for investment corporations to execute the biggest conversion – some call it theft – of public schools property in U.S. history.

That is not hyperbole. Investment bankers themselves estimate that their taking over public schools is going to result in hundreds of billions of dollars in profit, if they can pull it off. Continue reading Investors Ready to Liquidate Public Schools →

Education

Hofmeister Answers Questions About Contributors-Charter Schools-ALEC

In June, as the primary was getting closer, I suggested a series of questions that anyone should ask our Oklahoma State Superintendent candidates.

The questions were raised across two posts, one on June 16th and the other on June 25th, and represented issues about campaign finance, the influence of ALEC, and charter schools.

Continue reading Hofmeister Answers Questions About Contributors-Charter Schools-ALEC →

Education

It’s Time for “Disruptive Change” Within the Ranks of Charter School Profiteers

Leaders in the corporate, hedge fund controlled, charter outfits love to use the phrase “disruptive change” as code for “we are taking over from those slow, stupid public school administrators and teachers because we can do it better.” But judging from their last few years’ track records, it’s looking like they are past due for some “disruptive change” within their own operations to root out the theft of tax dollars and short-changing of students in dire need of a true education.

Continue reading It’s Time for “Disruptive Change” Within the Ranks of Charter School Profiteers →