California School Accountability Report: Conflict over classrooms in SF
In the Public Interest's pick of recent news about the ongoing effort to privatize public education in California.
September 2018
In the Public Interest
Democracy, shared prosperity, and the common good
In the Public Interest is a comprehensive research and policy center on privatization and responsible contracting.
In the Public Interest
Democracy, shared prosperity, and the common good
In the Public Interest is a comprehensive research and policy center on privatization and responsible contracting.
Featured Article
Report: The Cost of Charter Schools for Public School Districts May 2018Featured Article
Report: Fraud and waste in California’s charter schools March 2018Research Brief: How charter schools impact public school district budgets
Public school districts and the students they serve are undermined by laws and practices that prioritize charter school growth over educational opportunities for all students.
February 2018
California School Accountability Report: Board of Education overrules communities once again
A charter off to a bad start in the Montebello Unified School District, students protest school discipline in La Mesa, and more.
January 2018
How we got to having to rely on GoFundMe campaigns to keep Baltimore students from freezing
The Right's push to make everyone afraid of higher taxes has drained public budgets, which strangles public goods and services.
January 2018
California School Accountability Report: More charter school fraud
Northern California charter school administrator found using public money to buy firearms, how a handful of billionaires are bankrolling Oakland's education elections, and more.
December 2017
Statement on California State Board of Education’s closure of Celerity charter schools
OAKLAND—In the Public Interest Executive Director Donald Cohen issued the following statement on the California State Board of Education’s unanimous decision last week to close two Los Angeles charter schools managed [...]
May 2017
Featured Article
Report: The Failure of Policy Planning in California’s Charter School Facility Funding April 2017What a Victory Against Wall Street in Nashville Means for Students in Massachusetts
A win against pro-charter school organizations in Nashville means good things for public education advocates in Massachusetts.
August 2016
Without Planning and Oversight, Charter Schools Hurt Neighborhood Schools
Allowing charter schools to open with little consideration for other public schools and the surrounding community is fueling a crisis in American public education.
July 2016
“School Choice” Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be
All of the rhetoric from charter school advocates about “school choice” only obscures the real choice.
July 2016
Academica’s Florida Real Estate Operations
"Academica's Florida Real Estate Operations" provides analysis of for-profit charter school operator Academica’s role as a landlord to schools in Florida.
June 2016
California’s Latest Gold Rush is Public Education
Billionaires and investors are doubling down on charter school expansion, even as evidence mounts that the schools destabilize public school districts.
June 2016
Policy Brief: The Cost of Charter Schools for Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD)
A research brief proposing equitable solutions to mitigate the negative fiscal impact of charter schools on the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).
May 2016
Cashing in on Student Failure
Despite receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from California’s taxpayers, California Virtual Academies (CAVA), owned by publicly traded K12 Inc., is failing key tests used to measure educational success.
May 2016
Chicago’s Teachers Just Stood Up for Children Everywhere
Friday’s teacher strike in Chicago was also a protest against a growing national problem, the privatization of our public education system.
April 2016
Charter Schools Suspend Black Students and Kids with Disabilities More
New data shows that black students are four times as likely to be suspended from charter schools as white students. [...]
March 2016
How Competition Hurts Children in Detroit’s Schools
If charter school growth continues unchecked and Detroit's traditional schools lose more students, it will be even harder for the public school system to pay down its debt and afford fixed costs
February 2016
The Public Pays Twice for Some Schools
Many current policies allow new actors into public education who skim profits from the system, pocketing money that might otherwise be spent on direct services for children.
December 2015
Yes, ‘Virtual’ Charter Schools Exist–and They’re Growing
While high quality virtual charter schools can be useful for certain students, the majority of kids need teachers to interact with and classmates to socialize and study with.
November 2015
Billionaires Can’t Teach Our Kids
Billionaire Eli Broad plans to raise and spend $490 million to create enough privately operated charter schools to house half of the city’s public school students. [...]
October 2015
Charter Schools Have Failed More than Traditional Public Schools
According to the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), since 2000, charter schools have failed at a much higher rate than traditional public schools.
October 2015
The Market Shouldn’t Decide Who Gets Educated, We Should
Rather than the public good it should be, higher education has become a market product accessible to those who can afford it, harming America in the process.
September 2015
Who Can Live on $8.50 an Hour?
When contractors aim to maximize profit, students often face dirty classrooms, unreliable bus routes, and strained, underpaid workers.
September 2015
Tell Walton Family to Hold Charter Schools Accountable
For over 20 years the foundation operated by Wal-Mart heirs has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the growth of charter schools and prioritized quantity over quality and ideology over good public policy.
June 2015
Featured Article
The Public School Accountability Agenda March 2015Introducing the Charter School Accountability Agenda
The Charter School Accountability Agenda is an 11-point program for reform that will ensure charter schools are fulfilling their role in education as lawmakers intended. [...]
March 2015
Why I’m in Sacramento
It’s too easy for kids to fall through the cracks in CAVA’s current online schooling system so we are calling on California to immediately increase oversight of online education. Despite the state having passed some of [...]
February 2015
Featured Article
Virtual Public Education in California: A Study of Student Performance, Management Practices and Oversight Mechanisms at [...] February 2015Charter School Reform Poll Memo
Click here for full PDF of Poll Memo A new survey shows that Americans overwhelmingly favor a series of proposals to reform charter schools. Proposals garnering broad support include initiatives to strengthen charter school [...]
February 2015
Privatizing Chicago
It didn't start with the parking meters. It didn't even start on Mayor Rahm Emmanuel's watch. But the privatization of public services and assets in the city of Chicago is reaching a fevered pitch and more people than ever [...]
January 2015
Front Page News
Recently the Washington Post published a front-page story about Jeb, FEE, and how the organization pushed privatization-oriented education policies that benefited their big corporate donors. The article was based on [...]
January 2015
Fighting Back Against Charter School Fraud
Inadequate audit techniques, insufficient oversight staff, and a lack of basic transparency have created a charter system that is ripe for abuse in the Keystone state. But there is hope. A new report provides a detailed [...]
October 2014
New Standards for a Changing Education System
When charter schools first appeared in the 90’s, they aimed to experiment with innovative educational strategies to later implement in all public schools. Fast forward to today, charters have grown into a national [...]
September 2014
Charter School Vulnerabilities to Waste, Fraud, and Abuse
This report echos the warning issued by the OIG and to inform the public and lawmakers of the mounting risk that an inadequately regulated charter industry presents to our communities and taxpayers.
May 2014
Do Poor Kids Deserve Lower-Quality Education Than Rich Kids? Evaluating School Privatization [...]
This report evaluates the “blended learning” model of education exemplified by Rocketship and seeks to understand how the “school accountability” legislation debated during the most recent legislative session would [...]
April 2014
More Dangerous, More Costly: An Analysis of Transportation Outsourcing
By analyzing safety inspection and financial data gathered by Minnesota state agencies, this report finds that outsourcing transportation services leads, on average, to higher safety inspection failure rates and higher [...]
March 2014
Cashing in on Kids
In today’s new education environment, it is important that public schools put the students’ interest above corporate interests. This is exactly the goal of Cashing in on Kids, a new project from In the Public Interest in [...]
February 2014
The Latest Hot Topic in Schools
School privatization is a hot topic these days. Unfortunately many of the debates about public education ignore the important role of school support services and the people who do the work—the bus drivers, cafeteria [...]
November 2013
America’s Highest Paid Government Workers
Corporations that take over public services often slash wages and benefits for their workers to save money. But the CEOs of these companies are making millions from taxpayer-funded contracts, making them the highest paid [...]
November 2013
For Our Kids
If your school district is considering outsourcing, it's up to us to make sure the best interests of our kids is the top priority. [...]
November 2013
Featured Article
Making the Grade? Questions to Ask About School Services Privatization September 2013Exposing Corporate Influence on Education Policy
Colin Woodward of the Maine Sunday Telegram was awarded the prestigious 2012 George Polk Award for Education Reporting for his special report on the profit motive behind virtual schools in Maine.
March 2013
Is Administration Leaner in Charter Schools? Resource Allocation in Charter and Traditional Public [...]
The study, which examines school spending in Michigan, found that charter schools spend nearly $800 more per pupil on administration and $1,100 less on instruction, said David Arsen, MSU professor of education and lead [...]
April 2012
Pushing Working Families into Poverty: Assessing the New Haven Plan to Privatize the Public [...]
This report assesses the major cuts in wage and benefits that the city of New Haven's proposal to privatize public school custodial services will impose currently employed custodians, including the impact on the families of [...]
March 2011
Public Good vs. Private Profit: Imagine Schools, Inc. in Ohio
This report examines Imagine Schools, Inc., the nation's largest for-profit charter school management company and found that it has a poor record of performance in Ohio and a business model that includes elaborate school [...]
May 2010
Hard to Swallow: Do Private Food Service Contractors Shortchange New Jersey Schools?
This report covers school nutrition programs at ten New Jersey public school districts that retain food service management companies (FSMCs), identifying and commenting upon the processes the districts used to select FSMCs, [...]
April 2010
AAPS and the Privatization of School Support Functions
This report describes how a policy decision to extend a management-only service contract to include staffing responsibilities affected the Ann Arbor Public Schools food service budget and operations.
March 2010
Serving Students: A Survey of Contracted Food Service Work in New Jersey’s K-12 Public Schools
This report uses government data and focus groups to provide a unique look at contracted food service workers in public schools in New Jersey and nationally.
May 2009