Prescribing Arsenic for A Stomach-Ache

That's what replacing poor-performing public schools with private charter schools will do. But that's what a bunch of either misinformed or bought-off Louisville ministers are proposing.

From the Courier:

A Louisville group of African-American ministers said Friday that it wants charter schools to replace the 18 low-performing Jefferson County public schools that have been ordered to undergo overhauls.

Private charters do worse than merely fail to improve student learning; they actually perform worse than poor public schools while costing taxpayers more and devastating local communities. The ones that appear to succeed are cheating.

Susie Madrak at Crooks and Liars:

It never ceases to amaze me, that voters keep falling for the same old tricks. An already-expensive school system will magically perform even better when a private company slashes costs in order to skim a layer of profit off the top? It hasn't worked yet. Instead, these for-profit schools continue to manufacture scandal and fraud -- yet the Very Important People on both sides of the aisle continue to push them as a solution. Via Raw Story:

A for-profit school that was hyped by Republican lawmakers as a solution to Tennessee’s education problems recently admitted deleting bad grades to “more accurately recognize students’ current progress.”

SNIP
Democratic state Rep. Gloria Johnson said she was horrified because the school’s instructions amounted to cheating.

SNIP
The Virtual School Act was pushed through by lobbyists and approved by Republican lawmakers in the closing minutes of the May 2011 legislative session. The bill allowed Union County Public Schools to contract with K12 Inc. to set up Tennessee Virtual Academy. In exchange, Union County was expected to keep 4 percent of the $5,387 being sent to the private company for each student.

Democratic lawmakers are now attempting to cap enrollment at 5,000 after 2011 test scores showed that only 16.4 percent of middle school students were proficient in math, and only 39.3 percent were proficient in language arts.

Need more proof private charters are poison?  Here's Laura Conaway at Maddowblog:

Last year the state of Michigan took over the struggling school district in Muskegon Heights. With a promise of "dramatic changes" ahead, the state-appointed emergency manager announced, "[W]e're off to the healing process." He then laid-off the school district's entire staff, and hired a private, for-profit company to run the reconstituted charter system.

How's it going there now? Michigan Public Radio reports that as of last month, just over 10 percent of the Muskegon Heights teachers it checked through public records were not certified to teach. That could be costly for the district, which was already broke. From MPR:

A little quick math and salary records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request show those fines could add up to more than $100,000 in Muskegon Heights for these eight teachers.

Not only that, but the contract between Mosaica Education and Muskegon Heights’ charter school says the company has to follow state laws, including a specific mention of the need for teachers to hold a valid certificate. If it doesn’t, it could be grounds to revoke the 5-year contract worth at least $8.75 million dollars.

But it’s not at all clear that’s something the charter school board, that’s been appointed by Muskegon Heights Public Schools’ Emergency Manager Don Weatherspoon, is considering.

With the old school board long sidelined, the people of Muskegon Heights have no immediate means of weighing in on what happens there anymore.

Kids in poor neighborhoods do poorly in school because of poverty: you can't concentrate in school if you're not getting enough to eat, or enough sleep because your home isn't safe. Charter schools can't fix that. But they are extremely efficient at sucking tax dollars out of public education and into the pockets of education deform hucksters.