Sounds innocuous, doesn't it? What's not to like about a charter school district that promises achievement? And what does a bill in the North Carolina state legislature have to do with Illinois?
Good questions, both of them. But before we get to them, let's pick up on something Governor Rauner let slip the other day. It may give us another dot or two we can connect.
During a media availability outside Monday afternoon outside his office in the Thompson Center state office building in Chicago, Rauner reiterated his belief that the Chicago Public Schools are in trouble because of the "teachers union having dictatorial powers, in effect and causing the financial duress that Chicago public schools are facing right now," according to the Chicago Tribune. Leaving aside the fact that his sentence doesn't quite scan grammatically (which, in fairness, may be the Trib's fault rather than Rauner's), it provides a context we need for what came next -- and why it was practically ignored.
Apparently in answer to a question on another issue in the day's news, Rauner also said: "... he opposed proposals to create an elected school board in Chicago, something the CTU backs, citing Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s efforts to challenge the union. Chicago is the only school system in the state with an appointed board of education and Rauner said he believed voters in other school districts should have the option of choosing an appointed school board."
(I'm quoting here from the post on Capitol Fax, BTW, since the Trib puts its stories behind a paywall.)
Interested yet? The man is talking about appointed school boards downstate. But ... but ... but ... how could that happen? If you think closing a rural high school is contentious, try closing down a rural school central office.
But there is a way. And it's being discussed right now, as we speak, in North Carolina. Says Lindsay Wagner of NC Policy Watch: "The proposal [is] to create an ‘achievement school district’ that wrests control of low-performing schools away from local school boards and into the hands of charter operators."
If North Carolina adopts the proposal, and odds are it will for a variety of reasons, it have statewide application. When a state creates a special school district of this nature, "low-performing" schools -- on the high-stakes standardized tests favored by the school reform lobby -- can be reassigned to a statewide charter district operated by a private-sector contractor. There is precedent for this in Tennessee, and Ravitch finds it troubling. In today's post she says:
The sad irony is that the “achievement school district” in Tennessee, the model for this proposal, has been a dismal failure. it promised to move the state’s lowest performing schools to the top 20% in the state. Of the original six schools that were taken over because they were among the state’s bottom 5%, all are in the bottom 6% or lower. None has met the goal of dramatic–or even modest–test score gains.
Could an "achievement school district" come to Illinois? It's hard to say, but I think it could. We have "low-performing" schools downstate, and in the past we have had downstate school districts on a "financial watch list." So we have precedent for state intervention in downstate schools, and with achievement school districts we have a mechanism for splitting individual schools away from the messy realities of the communities where their children live.
And we have troubling hints like Rauner's little aside during Monday's availablity on the 16th floor of the Thompson Center. According to a 2012 story on the progressive Alternet website, online charters, "virtual classrooms" and privatization are among the real hot items in the charter school world. And Rauner is part and parcel of that world. Stay tuned.
