Schooling Alone

The Costs of Privatizing Public Education

Curtis J. Cardine

Schooling Alone is a look at the history of public education and the current state of the efforts to privatize our public schools. This work looks at who is really choosing and what we, as members of a democratic republic, are losing as privatization of our publicly funded institutions moves forward. There is a difference between a capitalist economic theory and the values of a democratic republic. This work asks the reader to consider what our values regarding public education should be.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 210 • Trim: 6¼ x 9⅛

978-1-4758-5001-7 • Hardback • October 2019 • $80.00 • (£62.00)

978-1-4758-5002-4 • Paperback • October 2019 • $40.00 • (£30.00)

978-1-4758-5003-1 • eBook • October 2019 • $38.00 • (£30.00)

Subjects: Education / Educational Policy & Reform / Charter Schools, Education / Administration / General, Education / Educational Policy & Reform / Federal Legislation, Education / Current Issues

Schooling Alone

The Costs of Privatizing Public Education

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

Schooling Alone is a look at the history of public education and the current state of the efforts to privatize our public schools. This work looks at who is really choosing and what we, as members of a democratic republic, are losing as privatization of our publicly funded institutions moves forward. There is a difference between a capitalist economic theory and the values of a democratic republic. This work asks the reader to consider what our values regarding public education should be.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 210 • Trim: 6¼ x 9⅛

978-1-4758-5001-7 • Hardback • October 2019 • $80.00 • (£62.00)

978-1-4758-5002-4 • Paperback • October 2019 • $40.00 • (£30.00)

978-1-4758-5003-1 • eBook • October 2019 • $38.00 • (£30.00)

Subjects: Education / Educational Policy & Reform / Charter Schools, Education / Administration / General, Education / Educational Policy & Reform / Federal Legislation, Education / Current Issues

Author

Curtis J. Cardine has served as a teacher, principal, corporate officer, and superintendent in New Hampshire public schools and Arizona charter schools. He is currently a research fellow for the Grand Canyon Institute, author and a nationally recognized expert on charter and public school finances and governance.

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1: Chartering Schools

Chapter 2: An Entitlement Mentality

Students as Business Assets

Chapter 3: Something Happened

Selling the Charter School Concept

Chapter 4: De-professionalizing American Public Education

Repealing Labor Laws

Take Care of Business

Chapter 5: What about the Sermon on the Mount?

Chapter 6: The Good Old Days

Chapter 7: Public or Private

Chapter 8: A Contracted Service

Chapter 9: “All Politics is Local”

Chapter 10: Deregulating a Public Good

Chapter 11: The Myth of Self-Correcting Free Markets

Chapter 12: Financial “Tells”

Comparing Market Sectors’ Debt

Chapter 13: Espoused Theories vs Theories in Use

Consumer Choice without Consumer Responsibility for that Choice

Chapter 14: Retirement Heist

Chapter 15: Investing in the General Welfare

Privatization Creep

Chapter 16: Market Meltdown

The Issue with Long Term Leases with a Related Party

Chapter 17: Controlling the Nation’s Educational Agenda

Chapter 18: The Economics of School Choice

Chapter 19: False Analogies

Chapter 20: Capitalism and Democracy

An Economic versus a Political Theory of Action

Historical Context

Personal Financial Responsibility is an American Value

The “Greatest Generation” got it Right

Scientific Management

Chapter 21: A Corporate Culture

A Financial House of Cards

Real Estate Acquisition Companies

Exacerbating the Debt Problem

Long Term Leasing Commitments with Related Parties

Underwater Real Estate Holdings

Overleveraged Long Term Debt and Commitments

Chapter 22: Is this Any Way to Run a Business?

Double Standards for Fiscal Accountability

There are No Fail Safes Built into the Model

Defining Unsustainable Losses in a Growing “Free Market”

Theoretical Safeguard

Threatened Educational Capital Sources

Backpacks full of Debt guaranteed by Students’ Backpacks full of Cash

Chapter 23: Lost Political Capital

Chapter 24: The Role of the Federal Government in Public Education

Precedents for Federal Involvement in Education

Origins of the Federal, State, and Local Control Debates

Chapter 25: The Goals of an American Public Education

Communities Matter

Celebrate all of our Successes

Chapter 26: Cashing In - Greed is “Good”

The Profit Motive: A Case in Point

The Theory of the Firm

New Rules

Chapter 27: An Educational Vision versus an Economic Theory of Action

Chapter 28: Philosophical Dissonance

The Fight for Equalized Opportunity Funding

Chapter 29: Enough Already

Reviews

Cardine, an educator and research practitioner, builds on ideas of public education chartering developed by the late Ray Budde of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, to critique the financial models that support the development of US charter schools. The title and focus is analogous to Robert D. Putnam’s Bowling Alone (CH, Dec'00, 38-2454), representing a decline in societal cohesion. Accordingly, Cardine views the rise of over 7,000 publicly supported charter schools with over 3,000,000 students as a phenomenon primarily serving school districts that already excel, causing a loss in the common political and social capital formed by community public schools. Cardine describes how charter schools treat teachers as contractors with salary and benefits below the level of neighboring schools, are a tool for deprofessionalizing public education, and fit into the current political movement for deregulation of public goods and services. Charter schools are thus often profit-oriented businesses, with 10 charter groups controlling three-quarters of enrollments, and only 23 percent have local governing boards. As the author concludes, charter providers should “run their charters as a vital part of their communities’ educational choices in a democratic republic in partnership with our publicly governed public schools.” Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals.

— Choice Reviews

In Schooling Alone, Cardine’s passion for the public good is palpable. He lays bear the tensions between the penchant for free markets and the universal commitment to public education via a detailed examination that demonstrates where the once well-meaning idea of school choice has gone awry. He takes on some of the most challenging issues in education policy, such as the societal implications of parents’ “freedom to choose” and the adverse economic implications of charter school operators “running schools like businesses.” It’s a warning about what’s at stake in the unfettered expansion of school choice policies.
— David R. Garcia, PhD, Associate Professor, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State University

Curt Cardine believes in quality education and the original idea of charter schools led by innovative teaching professionals. In Schooling Alone he unveils how charter schools have become a for profit industry where corporations make money off children and both government and the market fail to provide sufficient oversight. While we have some wonderful charter schools as initially intended, Cardine shows how the system is failing to remove the bad actors.
— Dave Wells, PhD, Research Director, Grand Canyon Institute

Schooling Alone

The Costs of Privatizing Public Education

Curtis J. Cardine

Schooling Alone

The Costs of Privatizing Public Education

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