Slaying Goliath by Diane Ravitch

Author:Diane Ravitch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2020-01-20T16:00:00+00:00

Amy Frogge, a parent and lawyer, was twice elected to the Metro Nashville Board of Education, despite being outspent by opponents who favored charter schools.

Commissioner Huffman punished the recalcitrant Metro Nashville school board by withholding $3.4 million from its public schools (but not its charter schools).

The day after Amy Frogge’s election to her local school board, she got a call from The Wall Street Journal, and that was her first inkling that she had stepped into a national brawl. She ran for the school board to make the public schools better but soon realized that debates over charters completely dominated the board’s agenda. Out-of-state charters were competing with the public schools for money and students, and she didn’t see how that helped to improve the public schools. She provided the deciding vote, and a 5–4 majority on the board again voted against allowing Great Hearts to open a charter. Only five months after her election, she addressed the education committee of the state legislature and urged it not to give the state the power to impose charters against the will of local boards, which would have been a dream come true for the Disrupters, who oppose democratic control by local school boards. She pointed out that the existing charters had empty seats, and the city did not need more charters. What it truly needed was more funding for its existing public schools.

Frogge emerged as an articulate critic of privatization and Corporate Disruption. In her role as a board member, she wanted expanded recess time, more time for art and music, less time devoted to testing, and increased funding for the schools, but these issues were overshadowed by the persistent struggle between the school board and the state over charter expansion. She courageously stood up to the right-wing governor, the legislature, the state commissioner, and Mayor Dean, who were all pushing for more charters in Nashville. The local newspapers criticized her as “divisive” and “shrill” for taking a stand (these are the words applied to women who speak out but not to men, who are seen as “forceful” and “strong”). The newspapers grew tired of her complaints about the large amounts of outside money that poured into school board races.

In 2014, Frogge asked for time to deliver her thoughts to the board about charter schools. She asked her colleagues to consider the “endgame” in the drive for more charters. She spoke of profiteering, corporate intrusion, the exclusion of low-scoring students, and increased segregation in charters. And she worried about the disruptive effect of charters on communities.

In this excerpt, Frogge summarizes the risk that charters pose to school districts:

Last year, I voted against charter schools because of fiscal impact, and I’m inclined to do the same this year unless we come up with a plan. If we are going to pay more for charter schools, we need to figure out what else to cut from the budget….

Although there are many involved in the charter school movement who have excellent

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