Gov.
Gina Raimondo is a big fan of charters
The
evidence is clear that privately managed charters can get higher test scores by
culling, exclusion, and attrition. It’s equally clear that charters drain resources from the public schools that enroll most students.
Most public officials seem to understand that it costs more to run parallel systems, one public, one private.
But
not in Rhode Island, where Governor Gina Raimondo is a big fan of charters (she
was a hedge fund manager before running for governor).
She is eager to expand Achievement First, a no-excuses charter known for high test scores and harsh discipline.
She is eager to expand Achievement First, a no-excuses charter known for high test scores and harsh discipline.
This
article by Linda Borg in the Providence Journal lays out the findings of two
independent studies that warned about the negative fiscal impact of charters on
public schools (one from Moody’s Investors, the other from the Brookings
Institution, which is erroneously described as “left-leaning”).
Borg
should also have Gordon Lafer’s significant study of the fiscal drain of
charters on the public schools of three districts in California. https://www.inthepublicinterest.org/wp-content/uploads/ITPI_Breaking_Poi...
Supporters
of expanding Achievement First cite a report funded by the Arnold Foundation, a
rightwing foundation that zealously supports privatization and opposes public
sector pensions.
Billionaire John Arnold was an energy trader at Enron.
EDITOR'S NOTE: John Arnold was only one example of political funding given to Raimondo and her allied PACs. A former hedge funder herself, Raimondo received broad support from hedge fund oligarchs. She returned the favor by investing more than a billion dollars in public pension funds in hedge funds, often in difficult to break contracts. Her successor as State Treasurer Seth Magaziner tried to pull RI out of hedge funds, but found those contracts to be a major obstacle. - Will Collette
Billionaire John Arnold was an energy trader at Enron.
EDITOR'S NOTE: John Arnold was only one example of political funding given to Raimondo and her allied PACs. A former hedge funder herself, Raimondo received broad support from hedge fund oligarchs. She returned the favor by investing more than a billion dollars in public pension funds in hedge funds, often in difficult to break contracts. Her successor as State Treasurer Seth Magaziner tried to pull RI out of hedge funds, but found those contracts to be a major obstacle. - Will Collette
The recently appointed state commissioner, a member of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change, dismissed the controversy as an “old conversation,” showing her indifference to stripping nearly $30 million from the needy public schools of Providence.
“State
Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green, in an interview Wednesday,
called this an “old conversation,” adding that the expansion plan was approved
by the Rhode Island Council of Elementary and Secondary Education three years
ago after a contentious debate between charter proponents and critics.”
Diane Ravitch is a historian of education at New
York University. Her most recent book is Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement
and the Danger to America's Public Schools. Her previous
books and articles about American education include: The Death and Life of the Great American School
System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform,(Simon
& Schuster, 2000); The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What
Students Learn (Knopf, 2003); The English Reader: What Every Literate Person Needs
to Know (Oxford, 2006), which she edited with her son
Michael Ravitch. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.