Reply #10: Charter Schools are "Toyota 20 years ago"

[Starry Messenger]

Article from 2007 from Elizabeth Green. I haven't checked yet, but I'm pretty sure it's the same Ms. Green who wrote the notorious NYT article we discussed here recently. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Teachers-t.html

http://www.nysun.com/new-york/how-new-generation-of-reformers-targets-democrats/55537/

Teachers' unions may give a big boost to the Democratic Party, but so do those working in finance. If Democrats for Education Reform can convince them to press issues like length of the school day and merit-based teacher pay, it could force a dramatic swing in the party itself.

Last week, Mr. Curry made his pitch to the Fortress Investment Group's head of global investments, Mike Novogratz, in a meeting in Mr. Novogratz's Midtown office. Leaving, Mr. Curry wondered whether Mr. Novogratz, whose company recently went public and made him a fortune, would sign on. He seemed to have bought the sell — about leverage, and the possibility of enormous change from a relatively small amount of money. But would Mr. Novogratz, a major Democratic fund-raiser, be wary to "break any glass"? Mr. Curry found the answer in his e-mail inbox: "I'm in." Mr. Novogratz has pledged $50,000 to Democrats for Education Reform.

Last week the group hosted a dinner for State Senator Malcolm Smith, the minority leader, one day before he was scheduled to attend a fund-raiser hosted by the president of the United Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten. "Nobody's going to be bought here," Mr. Williams said. "Any reasonable person that wants to become the Senate majority leader should be talking with Randi. We just want him to be talking to us too."

As investors, the group's leaders spend their days searching for hidden diamonds in the rough: businesses the market has left for dead, but a savvy investor could turn for a profit. A big inner-city school system, Mr. Tilson explained, is kind of like that — the General Motors of the education world. "I see very, very similar dynamics: very large bureaucratic organizations that have become increasingly disconnected from their customers; that are producing an inferior product and losing customers; that are heavily unionized," he said. A successful charter school, on the other hand, is like "Toyota 20 years ago."

What happens when the Charters turn into the Toyota of today? :(

And what happens when these rich guys get bored and take their toys and go home?

http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/article.asp?article=1616&cat=149

Patrick Byrne, son of Geico insurance rescuer John J. Byrne, today owns Overstock.com which I'm sure we've all heard of. He's a disciple of Milton Friedman and is a "venture philanthropist" in schools here and abroad. Here's him talking about what he did with a school in Calcutta.

PHILANTHROPY: Has your work funding school choice efforts in the United States given you any perspective on your funding of private education overseas?

MR. BYRNE: Yes. I used to support a school for orphans and kids with physical disabilities in India. It had about 600 kids from the slums of Calcutta—as poor as you can get. All of the instruction was in English, and the students were performing at an amazingly high level. Well, soon enough, some middle-class families began to see that these poor kids from the slums were speaking better English than their children. Before you knew it, middle-class and even wealthy families were trying to get their kids into this school that was originally set up for the poorest of the poor.

Now, in India you need a special license to run a school that teaches in English. And what started happening? The government schools in Calcutta began putting pressure on the state bureaucrat who issues that license. They wanted him to revoke the license of the school I was funding because the parents in the government schools were starting to ask, “Why aren’t our kids getting as good an education?” Of course, the response of the government schools wasn’t to say, “How do we improve our schools?” It was, “Let’s take away their license.”

I eventually withdrew my support for this particular school after its founder passed away—I didn’t want to work with the people who replaced him. But the whole episode was a perfect illustration of what happens when the state has power over the education system.

Yeah, he really cares about them kids. edit to add: er, perhaps I wasn't clear, but abandoning this school when he got bored with it was probably really detrimental to the school and is what will probably happen in this country. This whole movement is founded on right wing principles by libertarian and conservative think tanks. I think that's stupid.