The Choice We Face Read online

  12. Julie Underwood, “Under the Law: Segregation and Secession,” Phi Delta Kappan 100, no. 5 (2019), 74–75; Nikole Hannah-Jones, “The Resegregation of Jefferson County,” New York Times Magazine, September 6, 2017.

  13. Hannah-Jones, “The Resegregation of Jefferson County”; Robert Carter, “Group Lays out Plan for Gardendale Schools to Split from County,” North Jefferson News (Gardendale, AL), April 23, 2013; EdBuild, “Fractured.”

  14. Underwood, “Under the Law,” 74–75; Alex Johnson, “Court Overturns Alabama Town’s Plan to Secede from Local School System,” NBC News, February 13, 2018, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/court-overturns-alabama-town-s-plan-secede-local-school-system-n847796; EdBuild, “Fractured.”

  15. EdBuild, “Fractured.”

  16. James E. Ryan, “Brown, School Choice, and the Suburban Veto,” Virginia Law Review 90, no. 6 (2004): 1635–47.

  17. Christopher M. Span and Ishwanzya D. Rivers, “An Intergenerational Comparison of African American Student Achievement Before and After Compensatory Education and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act,” Teachers College Record 114, no. 6 (2012): 1–17; Nikole Hannah-Jones, “The Problem We All Live With: Part One,” This American Life, National Public Radio, July 31, 2015, https://www.thisamericanlife.org/562/the-problem-we-all-live-with-part-one; Rucker C. Johnson and Alexander Nazaryan, Children of the Dream: Why School Integration Works (New York: Basic Books, 2019).

  18. General estimate compiled by Fabricant and Fine, Charter Schools and the Corporate Makeover of Public Education, 28–30; Walton Family Foundation, “Walton Family Foundation Announces Major Investments to Fuel High-Quality School Growth Nationwide,” press release, June 19, 2018, https://www.waltonfamilyfoundation.org/about-us/newsroom/major-investments-to-fuel-high-quality-school-growth-nationwide; Walton Family Foundation, “Building Equity Initiative Overview,” press release, April 4, 2018, https://www.waltonfamilyfoundation.org/about-us/newsroom/building-equity-initiative-overview; Howard Blume, “Backers Want Half of LAUSD Students in Charter Schools in Eight Years, Report Says,” Los Angeles Times, September 21, 2015; Arianna Prothero and Francisco Vara-Orta, “As Eli Broad Steps Down, Will His Influence on K–12 Education Last?,” Education Week, October 16, 2017, https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/as-eli-broad-steps-down-will-his-influence-on-k-12-education-last/2017/10; Carolyn Phenicie, “Gates Foundation Announces $92 Million Going to School Networks Working to Boost High School Graduation, College Enrollment,” 74, August 28, 2018, https://www.the74million.org/article/gates-foundation-announces-92-million-going-to-school-networks-working-to-boost-high-school-graduation-college-enrollment; and Schneider and Berkshire, Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door.

  19. Moriah Balingit, “Billionaire Bill Gates Announces a $1.7 Billion Investment in U.S. Schools,” Washington Post, October 19, 2017; David M. Herszenhorn, “Billionaires Start $60 Million Schools Effort,” New York Times, April 25, 2017.

  20. Mercedes K. Schneider, School Choice: The End of Public Education (New York: Teachers College Press, 2016), 75–78; Abby Jackson, “The Walmart Family Is Teaching Hedge Funds How to Profit from Publicly Funded Schools,” Business Insider, March 17, 2015, https://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-is-helping-hedge-funds-make-money-off-of-charter-schools-2015–3.

  21. Fabricant and Fine, Charter Schools and the Corporate Makeover of Public Education, 66.

  22. Robert L. Rose, “Johnson Controls to Buy Prince Automotive Unit,” Wall Street Journal, July 19, 1996; “Amway Reports 2015 Sales of $9.5 Billion USD,” February 3, 2016, https https://www.amwayglobal.com/newsroom/amway-reports-2015-sales-9-5-billion-usd; “Interview with Betsy Devos, the Reformer,” Philanthropy, http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/topic/excellence_in_philanthropy/interview_with_betsy_devos; Erica Green, “To Understand Betsy DeVos’s Educational Views, View Her Education” New York Times, June 10, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/10/us/politics/betsy-devos-private-schools-choice.html.

  23. American Civil Liberties Union, “Background on Betsy DeVos from the ACLU of Michigan,” https://www.aclu.org/other/background-betsy-devos-aclu-michigan; Corinne Cathart, “Betsy DeVos: Everything You Need to Know,” ABC News, November 23, 2016, https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/betsy-devos/story?id=43745520.

  24. National Center for Education Statistics, “Public Charter School Enrollment,” https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgb.asp; “Just the FAQs—School Choice,” Center for Education Reform, https://edreform.com/2011/11/just-the-faqs-school-choice; National Center for Education Statistics, “Private School Enrollment,” https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgc.asp; Council for American Private Education, “Facts and Studies,” https://www.capenet.org/facts.html; Brian D. Raty, “Research Facts on Home schooling,” National Home Education Research Institute, March 23, 2020, https://www.nheri.org/research-facts-on-homeschooling; National Home Education Research Institute, “Number and Enrollment of Public Elementary and Secondary Schools,” https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_216.20.asp?current=yes; Gary Miron, Christopher Shank, and Caryn Davidson, Full-Time Virtual and Blended Schools: Enrollment, Student Characteristics, and Performance (Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center, 2018), https://nepc.info/sites/default/files/publications/RB%20Miron%20Virtual%20Schools%202018_0.pdf; US Census Bureau, “U.S. School Spending per Pupil Increased for Fifth Consecutive Year, U.S. Census Bureau Reports,” press release, May 21, 2019, https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2019/school-spending.html.

  25. Gordon Lafer, Breaking Point: The Cost of Charter Schools for Public School Districts (Oakland, CA: In the Public Interest, 2018), https://www.inthepublicinterest.org/wp-content/uploads/ITPI_Breaking_Point_May2018FINAL.pdf; Brian Washington, “How to Prevent Charter Schools from Draining away Public School Funding in Your Community,” Education Votes, National Education Association, May 27, 2018, https://educationvotes.nea.org/2018/05/27/how-to-prevent-charter-schools-from-draining-away-public-school-funding-in-your-community; “Public Elementary and Secondary Charter Schools and Enrollment, by State,” National Center for Education Statistics, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_216.90.asp.

  26. Derek Black, Bruce Baker, and Preston Green III, “Charter Schools Exploit Lucrative Loophole That Would Be Easy to Close,” Conversation, February 19, 2019, https://theconversation.com/charter-schools-exploit-lucrative-loophole-that-would-be-easy-to-close-111792.

  27. Dave Yost, State of Ohio, Franklin County, Public Interest Report, Community School Facility Procurement (Columbus: Office of the Auditor of the State, 2019), https://ohioauditor.gov/auditsearch/Reports/2019/Community_School_Facility_Procurement_Public_Interest_Report.pdf; Black, Baker, and Green, “Charter Schools Exploit Lucrative Loophole.”

  28. Keith Benson, “Renaissance Schools Don’t Make Camden Public Schools Better for Our Kids,” Philadelphia Inquirer, January 1, 2018.

  29. Center for Public Democracy and Integrity for Education, Charter School Vulnerabilities to Waste, Fraud, and Abuse (May 2014), https://populardemocracy.org/news/charter-school-vulnerabilities-waste-fraud-and-abuse; Noliwe Rooks, Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and the End of Public Education (New York: New Press, 2017), 161–63. For more on the Center for Public Democracy and Integrity for Education, see https://populardemocracy.org/about-us.

  30. John Oliver, quoted in Valerie Straus, “John Oliver Hysterically Savages Charter Schools—and Charter Supporters Aren’t Happy,” Washington Post, August 22, 2016.

  31. Rooks, Cutting School, 2, 49–78; Anderson, Education of Blacks in the South.

  32. Bruce Fuller, Richard Elmore, and Gary Orfield, Who Chooses? Who Loses? Culture, Institutions, and the Unequal Effects of School Choice (New York: Teachers College Press, 1996); Erica Frankenberg, Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, and Jia Wang, “Choice Without Equity: Charter School Segregation,” Educational Policy Analysis Archives 19, no. 1 (January 10, 2011), http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/779; Julian Vasquez Heilig, Amy Williams, Linda McSpadden McNeil,
and Christopher Lee, “Is Choice a Panacea? An Analysis of Black Secondary Student Attrition from KIPP, Other Privately Operated Charters, and Urban Districts,” Berkeley Review of Education 2 no. 2 (2011): 153–78; Valerie Straus, “Do Self-Selection and Attrition Matter in KIPP Schools?,” Washington Post, June 14, 2011; New York City Independent Budget Office, “Staying or Going? Comparing Student Attrition Rates at Charter Schools with Nearby Traditional Public Schools,” Schools Brief (January 2014), https://ibo.nyc.ny.us/iboreports/2014attritioncharterpublic.pdf; Robert Bifulco and Helen F. Ladd, “The Impact of Charter Schools on Student Achievement: Evidence from North Carolina,” Education Finance and Policy 1, no. 1 (Winter 2006): 673–82; Ira Nichols-Barrer, Brian P. Gill, Philip Gleason, and Christina Clark Tuttle, “Does Student Attrition Explain KIPP’s Success?,” Education Next 14, no. 4 (September 2014), https://www.educationnext.org/student-attrition-explain-kipps-success.

  33. Frankenberg, Siegel-Hawley, and Wang, “Choice Without Equity”; Courtney A. Bell, “All Choices Created Equal? The Role of Choice Sets in the Selection of Schools,” Peabody Journal of Education: Issues of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations 84, no. 2 (2009): 191–208.

  34. Aiko Kojima, interview with the author, August 21, 2020.

  35. Stephanie Love, interview with the author, November 22, 2019 (minutes 32:00 and 11:12).

  36. Rooks, Cutting School, 4.

  37. David Stovall, “Charter Schools and the Event of Educational Sharecropping,” in Sanders, Stovall, and White, Twenty-First-Century Jim Crow Schools, 41.

  38. Deborah Meier, “Choice Can Save Public Education,” Nation, March 4, 1991, 252–53, 266–68, 270–71.

  39. CREDO (Center for Research on Education Outcomes), National Charter School Study Executive Summary 2013 (Stanford, CA: Center for Research on Education Outcomes, Stanford University, 2015), https://credo.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj6481/f/ncss_2013_executive_summary.pdf; CREDO (Center for Research on Education Outcomes), “Urban Charter School Study Report on 41 Regions” (Stanford, CA: Center for Research on Education Outcomes, Stanford University, 2015), 26–31, https://urbancharters.stanford.edu/download/Urban%20Charter%20School%20Study%20Report%20on%2041%20Regions.pdf.

  40. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, “CREDO Study: Urban Charter Schools Making Significant Positive Impact,” https://k12education.gatesfoundation.org/blog/credo-study-urban-charter-schools-making-significant-positive-impact.

  41. CREDO, “Urban Charter School Study Report on 41 Regions.”

  42. Frankenberg, Siegel-Hawley, and Wang, “Choice Without Equity.”

  43. Mark Binelli, “Michigan Gambled on Charter Schools. Its Children Lost,” New York Times Magazine, September 5, 2017.

  44. Julian Vasquez Heilig, “Policy Brief: Should Louisiana and the Recovery School District Receive Accolades for Being Last and Nearly Last?,” Network for Public Education, August 28, 2015, https://networkforpubliceducation.org/policy_brief_louisiana.

  45. Alexandra Usher and Nancy Kober, “Keeping Informed About School Vouchers: A Review of Major Developments and Research,” Schott Foundation for Public Education, July 2011, http://schottfoundation.org/resources/keeping-informed-about-school-vouchers-review-major-developments-and-research; Martin Carnoy, “School Vouchers Are Not a Proven Strategy for Improving Student Achievement,” Economic Policy Institute, February 28, 2017, https://www.epi.org/publication/school-vouchers-are-not-a-proven-strategy-for-improving-student-achievement.

  46. American Civil Liberties Union, “Background on Betsy DeVos from the ACLU of Michigan.”

  47. Andrew Ujifusa, “See Betsy DeVos’ Donations to Senators Who Will Oversee Her Confirmation,” Education Week, December 1, 2016, https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/see-betsy-devos-donations-to-senators-who-will-oversee-her-confirmation/2016/12.

  48. Andrew Ujifusa, “Betsy DeVos-Led Group Should Pay $5.3 Million Campaign Fine, Dem. Senators Say,” Education Week, December 14, 2016, https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/betsy-devos-led-group-should-pay-5-3-million-campaign-fine-dem-senators-say/2016/12; Randy Ludlow, “Group Once Led by Trump Education Secretary Nominee Owes $5.3 Million to Ohio,” Columbus Dispatch, November 23, 2016.

  49. Paul Bowers, “Frustrated with School Board, Charleston Power Players Aim to Shake up November Election,” Post and Courier, June 7, 2018; Paul Bowers, “In Charleston School Board Race, One Dark-Money Group Spent Big and Won,” Post and Courier, March 2, 2019; Annie Waldman, “How Teach for America Evolved into an Arm of the Charter School Movement,” ProPublica, June 18, 2019, https://www.propublica.org/article/how-teach-for-america-evolved-into-an-arm-of-the-charter-school-movement; Valerie Straus, “From South Carolina to California, Charter School–Loving Billionaires Are Plowing Money into Midterm Local and Education Races,” Washington Post, November 5, 2018; “Teach for America-South Carolina Receives $5,000 Grant for STEM Educators,” Teach for America, press release, December 2, 2016.

  50. Eric Brunner, Joshua Hyman, and Andrew Ju, “School Finance Reforms, Teachers’ Unions, and the Allocation of School Resources,” Review of Economics and Statistics, July 2, 2020, 473–89; Matt Barnum, “Are Teachers Unions Helping or Hurting Schools? Here’s What the Newest Research Tells Us,” Chalkbeat, April 15, 2019, https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2019/04/15/teachers-unions-schools-wisconsin-funding-research.

  51. Friedman and Friedman, Two Lucky People, 349.

  52. Dave Umhoefer, “For Unions in Wisconsin, a Fast and Hard Fall Since Act 10,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, November 27, 2016; Sabrina Tavernise, “Ohio Public Worker Bill Keeps Bargaining but Bars Strikes,” New York Times, March 1, 2011; Jim Leckrone, “Ohio Governor Signs Anti-Union Bill,” Reuters, March 21, 2011.

  53. Amanda Ripley, “Rhee Tackles Classroom Challenge,” Time, November 26, 2008, http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,1862444,00.html; “The Education of Michelle Rhee,” Frontline, PBS, January 8, 2013, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/education-of-michelle-rhee/transcript.

  54. “D.C. Deal with Teachers Union a Model for U.S.?,” All Things Considered, NPR, April 7, 2010; Valerie Straus, “Michelle Rhee’s Empty Claims About Her D.C. Schools Record,” Washington Post, January 31, 2012; Sam Dillon, “A School Chief Takes on Tenure, Stirring a Fight,” New York Times, November 12, 2008.

  55. Diane Ravitch, “The Mystery of Michelle Rhee,” in Reign of Error, 145–55; Waldman, “How Teach for America Evolved.”

  56. Raynard Sanders,” The New Orleans Public Education Experiment,” in Sanders, Stovall, and White, Twenty-First-Century Jim Crow Schools, 15–16; Campbell Robinson, “Louisiana Illegally Fired 7,500 Teachers, Judge Rules,” New York Times, June 21, 2012.

  57. Anna M. Phillips, “California’s Broken Charter School Law Has Defied Reform. Can Newsom Break the Gridlock?,” Los Angeles Times, March 29, 2019.

  58. Jason McGahan, “How Wealthy Charter-School Advocates Have Shaped the Race for California Governor,” Los Angeles Magazine, June 4, 2018, https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/governors-race-2018; Ryan Menezes and Maloy Moore, “Track the Millions Flowing into California’s Race for Governor,” Los Angeles Times, November 5, 2018.

  59. Seema Mehta and Ryan Menezes, “A Few Rich Charter School Supporters Are Spending Millions to Elect Antonio Villaraigosa Governor,” Los Angeles Times, May 14, 2018; McGahan, “How Wealthy Charter-School Advocates Have Shaped the Race for California Governor”; Anna M. Phillips, “California’s Broken Charter School Law Has Defied Reform. Can Newsom Break the Gridlock?,” Los Angeles Times, March 29, 2019.

  60. David Zahniser, Anna Phillips, and Howard Blume, “Why Didn’t School Board President Ref Rodriguez Just Write Himself a Big Check?,” Los Angeles Times, September 17, 2017; Howard Blue, Sonali Kohli, and Joy Resmovits, “Ref Rodriguez, Facing Criminal Charges, Resigns as L.A. School Board President,” Los Angeles Times, September 19, 2017.

  61. Kyles Stokes, “Complaints Piling up Against LAUSD Board Member Ref Rodriguez,” KPCC (“The Voice of Southern Calif
ornia”), October 18, 2017, https://www.scpr.org/news/2017/10/18/76774/complaints-piling-up-against-lausd-board-member-re.

  62. Mary Bailey Estes, “Charter Schools and Students with Special Needs: How Well Do They Mix?,” Education and Treatment of Children 23, no. 3 (August 2000): 369–80; Joseph R. McKinney, “Charter Schools: A New Barrier for Children with Disabilities,” Educational Leadership 54, no. 2 (October 1996), 22–25; Gary Miron, “Charters Should Be Expected to Serve All Kinds of Students,” Education Next 14, no. 4 (Fall 2014), https://www.educationnext.org/charters-expected-serve-kinds-students; State of Denial: California Charter Schools and Special Education Students (California Teachers Association and United Teachers Los Angeles, 2019), https://www.utla.net/sites/default/files/report_-_final.pdf.

  63. Paul Tough, “What It Takes to Make a Student,” New York Times Magazine, November 26, 2006; Sam Dillon, “2 Entrepreneurs in World of Education Are Leading the Way on Change,” New York Times, June 19, 2008.

  64. Daniel J. Losen, Michael A. Keith II, Cheri L. Hodson, and Tia E. Martinez, “Charter Schools, Civil Rights and School Discipline: A Comprehensive Review,” Civil Rights Project, March 15, 2016, https://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/resources/projects/center-for-civil-rights-remedies/school-to-prison-folder/federal-reports/charter-schools-civil-rights-and-school-discipline-a-comprehensive-review.