Charter Schools, Vouchers, Scholarships



"Civilization is in a race between education and catastrophe. Let us learn the truth and spread it as far and wide as our circumstances allow. For the truth is the greatest weapon we have."  HG Wells

"Education is for improving the lives of others and leaving your community and the world better than you found it."  Marion Wright Edelman

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."  Nelson Mandela

"Whenever people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government." Thomas Jefferson

     These are quotes from people from different times and circumstances. Their messages echo through time and place and inform the present. Our public education system is being systematically dismantled, here is Maine and across the United States. Let us all know that there are businessmen and women systematically chipping away at the public institution created to benefit EVERYONE; created to help EVERYONE reach their highest potential; created to promote our democratic way of life for EVERYONE.

Politicians are helping drain what precious few dollars are left from supporting public education, sometimes knowingly, sometimes unknowingly (I will give some the benefit of the doubt). Here is an example:

-The Maine Legislature approves the operation of charter schools in Maine. The Maine Charter School Commission is created and political appointments are made to this body to approve and monitor charter schools in Maine. Two of those charter schools are Maine Virtual Academy and Maine Connections Academy, another virtual school.

The most recent evaluation/review of the Maine Virtual Academy is summarized on the Maine Charter School Commission website as:

1. Meets Contract agreement for: recurrent enrollment from year to year; financial performance & sustainability (although I noted they are in process for arranging for an audit so this lacks independent verification); governance board performance; adequacy of facilities maintenance (which is an office suite used by faculty for online learning delivery); and transportation (it is hard to determine what exactly the determinants of success are - MeVA reports having no costs for student transportation, ..... but there were field trips..... mmmm);
2. Partially meets Contract agreement for: Student Academic Proficiency; Student Academic Growth; Addressing Achievement Gaps between major student subgroups; post-secondary readiness; school social and academic climate; parent & community engagement (as an online school, it would be interesting to know what 'community' this school is going to engage?).  Arguably, these are the most important success indicators of a school and peppered throughout the report is that MEVA 'did not collect this data'. Why? All other public schools are required to. One of the last recommendations in this report is "increase attention to special eduction enrollment and the provision of FAPE for students with disabilities."
3. Does not meet Contract agreement: Student attendance. Maine's public school average daily attendance is 94%. MeVA average daily attendance rate is 85.6%. This likely affects the student academic proficiency and growth indicators. The last recommendation in the report is "address systemic truancy issues with particular attention to students with disabilities."

While the oversight of the Maine Charter School Commission is positive, the performance of this online charter school mirrors that of others in other states. Part of the application and review process to operate in Maine includes providing evidence of readiness and willingness to operate according to Maine law. It appears to me that the Maine Charter School Commission granted permission to an entity that either was not prepared to comply with Maine law the first day of operation or it was unwilling to comply with the law as it opened its doors to students and families. Why else would this school not collect the very data that is required to determine their level of compliance/success?

The most recent review of the Maine Connections Academy is also summarized on the Maine Charter School Commission website:

This charter school meets all of its contract agreements with the exceptions of:
1. Student Academic Proficiency is noted 'unknown due to unavailable state test scores'. This is no fault of Maine Connections Academy.
(My editorial: All public schools had to wait until spring to receive this state achievement test score data, making the use of the data useless for that school year. Why did most public school children spend upwards of 6-7 hours completing a test whose results would not be available for most of the following school year? My view: millions of taxpayer dollars wasted when these same dollars could have been spent on activities at the local level that could have directly positively improved children's educational experience during that year school spent waiting for the data from the state.)
2. Student Academic Growth in both reading and math is noted as decreased (as measured by the LEAP, a federal achievement test) from the previous year.
3. Student Attendance contract agreement is partially met.  Daily average attendance did not meet the state average daily attendance rate.There are three other interesting target goals, which were met, in addition to meeting the average daily attendance rate.  They include a 'retention rate of 70% of students during the school year (they don't want students dropping out during the school year),  a 50% re-enrollment of eligible students from one year to the next, and a continuous enrollment of students for multiple years. These are not only for the benefit of students, but it is for the bottom line profit margin, too. One might ask: is a 30% drop-out rate during the school year acceptable? Is a 50% drop-out (or 'not invited back') rate acceptable? This is the real eye opener - even though this virtual academy met most of their performance targets. Nationwide, this is the pattern with virtual schools resulting in less and less student diversity enrolled.

Recently, the entire Little Rock, Arkansas school district was taken over by the state. The elected board was removed. In swooped the Walton family (yes, the Walton family who owns Walmart) to buy Little Rock Garland School. The school will likely be converted to a charter school. Walmart donates millions to Teach for America. Charter schools then cozy up with Teach for America and use new inexperienced graduates who will work for much lower wages to staff  charter schools. Considering that most regular public school teachers are on probation and mentored for 2-3 years to prove, and continuously improve, their skills, these Teach for America pre-professional staff only stay for a few years in the charter schools and then move on. There is no union to support them. There is a never ending supply of cheap (inexperienced!) labor for charter schools. Where does the money saved go - a lot of it goes into 'owners' wallets as 'profit'. Taxpayer, public monies siphoned away from the public school to 'follow the child' to the school of their choice. Then the 'profits' of the charter school go into the pockets of private businessmen, who donate millions to political efforts to continue the drain on the real public schools and resulting strain on taxpayers.

Chicago public schools are in similar disarray, being closed and converted to charter schools with the same financial consequences. Arkansas and Chicago schools are but a tiny fraction of public schools across our country experiencing this hostile takeover. Mississippi has more students attending charter schools than regular public schools. Maine can learn many preventative lessons from the stories from other states. 

Let us all be well informed about charter schools, in Maine and across the US. Let us all know the truth about charter schools. Let us all learn about the charter school movements in other states. Let us "all spread the information as far and wide as our circumstances allow." We will then know what to look for and guard against in Maine charter schools, current and those to come in the future.


Next up: The hot topic: school vouchers; 'scholarships' created using public/taxpayer dollars and other political moves to drain away money from public schools.