Are community schools privatizing public education from within through partnerships? If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, isn’t it a duck?
It’s hard to distinguish the Biden administration’s Full-Service Community Schools and Charter School difference (see below).
Americans fail to invest in schools and children have unmet health care needs, so schools become reliant on wealthy partners who’ll fund schools and wrap-around healthcare services for children.
The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy writes:
School districts are so underfunded and desperate for money, that they have developed a kind of Stockholm syndrome, in which they honor and praise the very same corporations that are starving our schools by not paying their taxes.
Charity is not a replacement for government. When we fund schools through taxes, we have democratically elected representatives who decide how to best spend those funds for the common good. In contrast, with charitable contributions, corporations decide what is best for our schools and dictate how to use their donations.
1. Privatization From Within
In this Truthout article, Donald Cohen, co-author with Allen Mikaelian of the book The Privatization of Everything, writes:
. . .privatization embeds private interests into the public things that matter most, like the schools that teach us and our children, the public transportation we rely on to get around, and the energy that powers our homes and businesses. These private interests have different goals than the public. Social responsibility and preventing negative externalities are priorities only when they improve profits.
That’s why we must insist that, in a democratic society, we get to decide that some things should be free of private interests.
Community schools might have nice partners who share decision-making. Sometimes charter schools and private schools do too. Unfortunately, it doesn’t mean that the school continues to be public.
It divides society further into poor and wealthy schools, partly the intent of school privatization.
2. Communities in Schools
The nonprofit Communities In Schools (CIS), funded by corporations, a dropout prevention program, recently received $133.5 million from Mackenzie Scott, ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, seen next to Bill and Melinda Gates, charter school, and privatization supporters.
The Gates Foundation gave $9.9 million to Communities in Schools for Performance Learning Centers (PLCs) in four states.
According to Our Future West Virginia:
CIS IS a highly funded, and branded, incorporated non-profit whose net assets after expenses in 2018 totaled $51,421,073; its largest funders include Abbvie, a large pharmaceutical company, Altria, one of the country’s largest tobacco companies, American Express, AT&T, and Bank of America. CIS serves both public and charter schools, leaving the embrace of charter schools very much on the table alongside CIS’s implementation.
Scott, the Gates Foundation, and other wealthy donors donate to CIS, which doles out funding to school districts as it sees fit, including providing their own school staff.
Public schools become reliant on Communities in Schools and wealthy partners who say how schools should run, how funding will be distributed.
3. Relying on Social Services and Social Impact Bonds
Wealthy partners often invest in community schools with Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) or Pay for Success (PFS).
Professors Martin Carnoy, Stanford University, and Roxana Marachi, San José State University, wrote Investing for “Impact” or Investing for Profit? Social Impact Bonds, Pay for Success, and the Next Wave of Privatization of Social Services and Education.
They say:
Recent legislation means that education leaders need a good understanding of SIBs: Pay for Success (PFS) financing structures are embedded in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), and through the Social Impact Partnerships to Pay for Results Act (SIPPRA), millions of dollars are likely to soon be distributed to support SIB arrangements. Therefore, we urge education leaders to recognize that such projects have been designed to (a) turn public services into centers for the extraction of private profit; (b) view individuals from a deficit lens, as in need of being “fixed” with narrow/short-term metrics of success; (c) amass vast amounts of data that can be used for predictive profiling of targeted communities, and (d) remove community voice and control from governance of public services.
No matter how well-intentioned private investors may appear to be, they are ultimately governed by private interests. No matter how easily and often those private interests can be rationalized as aligning with public interests, that is unlikely to be the case.
4. Biden Administration’s Community/Charter Push
The Biden administration calls them Full-Service Community Schools here. In 2021, the U.S. Department of Education published, How Charter Schools Can Leverage Community Assets through Partnerships.
Community schools are charter schools!
Community partnerships empower charter schools by strengthening their capacity to serve the needs of students, families, and staff through deliberate partnerships with community-based entities. The autonomy that charter schools are afforded uniquely equips them with the flexibility to engage partners and even design schools for which one or more partnerships are a key design element–such as with traditional public schools/districts, industry partners, colleges, universities, or other educational or community institutions
For the purposes of this paper, we consider a community partnership to be a mutually beneficial and supportive relationship between a school or charter management organization (CMO) and at least one organization or provider based in their community that enhances academic offerings at the school and/or helps address issues of mutual concern. While some charter schools are based on a model that makes reciprocal involvement with their communities part of their approach to learning, community partnerships can expand the capacity of any school to deliver on its mission, values, and goals.
5. Continuous Data Collection
The Aspen Institute, supportive of school privatization, includes a report about partnerships. They emphasize collaboratively developing clear goals and metrics that align with the vision, including a commitment to share data that can drive continuous improvement.
Collecting data on student academics and social-emotional learning is a big part of community schools with partnerships.
________
Community schools are a new way to make charter schools; the concept is rapidly increasing.
To save public education, we need to meet the healthcare and educational needs of children with public funds and not be reliant on corporate assistance.
If corporations want to donate to schools, there need to be strict protocols as to who determines how that money is spent.
However, if community schools continue as they stand today, it will be a slippery slope to school privatization and the end of public education.
Additional Posts about this Topic
Charter/Community Schools & Partnerships: Privatization Ending Public Education (nancyebailey.com)
How REAL Community Schools Differ from Charters Who Adopt that Label (nancyebailey.com)
I believe there is a different model that can solve these problems. It is the Lebron James, I Promise School, Akron, Ohio model.
It is a public school re-enforced with private philanthropy, in this case from Lebron James to his former community public school. It is very hands on and expansive in the services they provide to not only student but their parents.
My organization EEC (www.EnlightenEducationCo-op.org) is similar but simpler and easily scalable. It uses private philanthropy from many sources to hire retired teachers on a parttime basis to assist struggling public school teachers who request our help. This goes to the heart of the issue of the need for more “boots on the ground.”
You sound well-meaning and I appreciate that and your comment, but I have to disagree.
The school and Lebron James may also be well-meaning, but it is a charter school. It’s also a selective school despite the fact that taxpayers apparently pay $8 million for the school. https://www.universitymagazine.ca/heres-everything-lebron-james-promise-school-will-offer/
So tax dollars flow to the school, instead of the Cleveland public schools, but not all children are accepted into the school.
Also, as I noted, there are good charter and private schools! But we have to decide if we want democratically public schools funded and truly owned by the public, or semi-private charters and private schools.
Your organization sounds different where you’re supplying a need that already exists for teachers.
You are right. I did overlook the fact that enrollment in the I Promise School is selective, but I thought it was by lottery, not testing. Please correct me if I’m wrong. Unfortunately, education outcomes are often determined by the lottery of life, where and to whom you are born!
We need to correct these inequalities by redirecting resources where they are most needed. We can correct these injustices though taxation and challenging those blessed with abundance to voluntarily share more. I think both approaches are needed to speed the day when a young person from a poor environment finds the same opportunities that others have.
Marginal tax rates of 91% after WWII helped build our middleclass. Now taxes favor the rich and the middleclass is disappearing.
Thank you for your role in helping reverse this trend. It is a privilege to partner with you in that effort.
Also, to answer your question, lotteries seem fair but there are all kinds of ways to get around them. Students who have poor behavior or disabilities might be counseled out later. I’ve seen charters that demand parent participation.
We can create great public schools for the poor that address inequalities.
At 82, I don’t have too many bullets left in my gun. So I’m choosing my targets carefully. That is why EEC doesn’t consider curriculum or any interference at all with the public schools that would do fine if we trusted and paid the teachers properly and provided enough of them. Until we can find a way to properly finance the public schools especially in low income neighborhoods, we will always have a problem. I ran for US Congress 5 times in 3 states against incumbents and the ‘system.” Now that income equality is so extremely I am trying the other door. I know we should properly fund schools with tax dollars and let the military industrial complex live off cookie sales. But I am hoping that the billionaire class will do some preemptive giving before the pitch forks come out.
What students most need today, is the wisdom and caring that seniors can bring to the table. Because many students have only one distracted parent and extended families have long been on the decline, having a retired teacher in the classroom changes the environment by what we call the “grandparent effect.” If I were a billionaire, I would jump at the chance to fund our project. It is simple, relatively inexpensive and provides what no amount of computers or new curriculums can do,
I have repeatedly written about the importance of older teachers continuing their work in the classroom if they desire. But while your program is well-intentioned, the U.S. shouldn’t have to rely on any organization to fund its teaching workforce.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jerrybarca/2018/08/12/stunning-criticism-of-lebron-james-and-the-funding-for-the-i-promise-school/?sh=136d7f6c22d5
I think we need to encourage, not discourage celebrities to support public schools. It only becomes a charter school when the non-public entity makes all the decisions and takes money out not puts money in.
Bravo, LaBron James!
I have to again disagree with you. I have already explained why. Celebrities can certainly support public schools financially, but we as a society should not have to depend on them for schools. What if they run a school we don’t approve of?
You are supporting charter schools. What if James instead worked with the Cleveland Public Schools to steer his donation into fixing school buildings, helping children from disadvantaged backgrounds, and pumping up programs like art and music? Think how that would have helped all the students and teachers in the public school system.
Don’t get me wrong, LeBron James obviously has a kind heart, and I’m sure his school helps a lot of students, but we should not have to rely on celebrities for great schools for poor children. It worries me that in some places they call his school a public school. I think this blurs the lines between a public school truly owned by the community and charters that follow the vision of the charter owner.
Another benefit of the Enlighten Education Co-op approach is that it would be a voluntary form of UBI (Universal Basic Income) for retired teachers who would receive approximately $25,000/year for about 20 hours a week of classroom assistance.
Surely retired teachers have given more than they received during their working years. It would be nice to look at it as a partial remedy to income inequality!
The difference between CIS and EEC (Enlighten Education Co-op) is that we do not interfere with the education process. We simply trust the teachers and their retired teacher assistants to do what is needed. So the money spent is easily accounted for in that it only goes to the retired teachers, about $25/hr or $25,000 per year. Unfortunately, this hands off method has attracted few funds to date. Help!
O.K. I don’t usually permit organizations to plug their companies. But as I pointed out you aren’t like CIS. Right now schools need teachers and I actually taught for a while part-time and loved it. So I wish you well.
Thanks for stretching your boundaries for me. We are a struggling non-profit and for three years now, having retired as an airline pilot, I have been trying to get this plane in the air without much success and no pay!
If you can help schools hire qualified teachers, even parttime, you’ll be doing a good service.
You are right! As charter schools lose traction, they have embraced the community school concept to broaden their base. If the concept were genuine, it would be great. But it’s too susceptible to more swindle from the financial sector.
Better to focus on fair labor standards, universal healthcare, and affordable housing.
Thanks, Laurie. Agreed. It’s unpopular though, partly because community schools sound good, and also because, and this is a huge dilemma, children have to rely on public ed. for healthcare in community schools.
I really see this as the possible end for public ed.
It’s clever that CIS uses a real need to open doors, that is the health care crisis. And I agree that we should not have to depend on philanthropy for either public education or health care. The reality is that we don’t have an electorate that properly values democratic institutions. Many just call it socialism and dismiss it. Having tried the electoral process too many times, I have come to believe that the only hope for the US is to create better informed voters Unfortunately, that process is going in the wrong direction. Maybe you are right, that public education is almost finished about the same time the oligarchy and corporatocracy complete its rule. But let’s not throw in the towel. Fight to the last person standing.
This is a national emergency, and not wanting to encourage the wrong solutions, a drowning person, or starving person can’t quibble over whether his rescuer has the right motives. We need higher taxes on those who can afford it and philanthropy if it is not disguised as money making schemes. I don’t see the I Promise School as taking away; I see it as adding to. We are all in this boat together. Let’s use all resources available to solve our problems. America needs an overall boost in morale. Sometimes our academic infighting feels like a wet blanket.
Nancy, thanks for publishing your thoughts. Here is my proposal to de-colonize the Community Schools concept:
A Transformational Community School supports wrap-around service provider entities, and agencies needed to sustain the community slowly “withdraw” and enable the school-community-families-citizens to control their own destiny/ies. Children and families then have an array of supports from within the community which they have helped “grow” and establish directly at their school. For example, a doctor or nurse working in the school-based clinic would also mentor students or community members to come into the medical profession. The doctor/nurse and the school/community would encourage these persons to return to the community to live and practice.
http://vorcreatex.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Transformational-Community-Schools.pdf
Thank you, John. Not sure I agree with all of it or understand exactly, but it is interesting. Thanks for sharing. The word transformational is especially worrisome to me, because it is used so often by those wanting to privatize schools.
Nancy, I want to make community schools actually a community and the concept we have now is colonial because it promotes the dependence on the providers and others who come to work at the school from outside the community. I want to de-colonize the concept and make it the role of each provider (counselor, nurse, etc) or teacher, principal, etc to work themselves out of a job and find someone from within the community school community to take their place…so that eventually the majority of those working at the community school are from the community…here in Indianapolis, those who brought and support local comminuty schools are not products of a community school…I want to hear about the benefits of community schools from graduates of a community schools…and hopefully those who went on to the university and are back livng/working in the community and the school…does this help?
Salon investigates: The war on public schools is being fought from Hillsdale College
In a 3-part investigation, Salon shows how this tiny Christian college is leading the right-wing fight on education
By Kathryn Joyce, Kathryn Joyce is an investigative reporter at Salon. March 16, 2022
“Teaching is our trade; also, I confess, it’s our weapon.” Those are the words of Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, a small private Christian college in Michigan that, in recent years, has quietly become a driving force in nearly all of the country’s ongoing fights around education. During the Trump years, the college functioned as a “feeder school” sending alumni into the administration and the offices of its allies on Capitol Hill. Hillsdale officials led Trump’s controversial 1776 Commission, established to create a “patriotic education” alternative to contemporary scholarship on America’s racial history. The school’s lecture series and magazine serve as a testing ground for the right’s most ambitious and outlandish ideas: that diversity isn’t a strength but a “solvent” that destroys national unity; that Vladimir Putin is a populist hero; that Republicans should aspire to lure so many children out of public schools that the entire system might collapse.
To that end, the college has inconspicuously been building a network of “classical education” charter schools, which use public tax dollars to teach that systemic racism was effectively vanquished in the 1960s, that America was founded on “Judeo-Christian” principles and that progressivism is fundamentally anti-American. In late January, the governor of Tennessee announced plans to partner with Hillsdale to launch as many as 50 such schools in that state — something public education advocates fear could be a tipping point in the fight to save public education.
In this three-part investigative series, Salon looks at Hillsdale’s multifaceted and far-reaching role in shaping and disseminating the ideas and strategies that power the right. In an era of book bans, crusades against teaching about racism, and ever-widening proposals to punish teachers and librarians, Hillsdale is not just a central player, but a ready-made solution for conservatives who seek to reclaim an educational system they believe was ceded decades ago to liberal interests. Taken together, these linked trends — and the deep-rooted conservative network supporting them — amount to a vision of things to come if Republicans succeed in what they describe as a “war” that “will be won in education.”
Part 1
How this tiny Christian college is driving the right’s nationwide war against public schools
Part 2
Coming to a school near you: Stealth religion and a Trumped-up version of American history
Part 3
The far right’s national plan for schools: Plant charters, defund public education
Thanks for sharing, Peter. There’s much concern about Hillsdale College. Here’s the link to the Salon report.
https://www.salon.com/2022/03/16/salon-investigates-the-on-public-schools-is-being-fought-from-hillsdale-college/
“Kind hearts” are bloodied by charter school propaganda daggers.
Don’t forget vouchers. De Vos is currently on a mission in Michigan to make sure vouchers pass.
Absolutely! She never left! Thank you, Gayle.