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The Druid Hills Charter Cluster (DHCC) proposal has come under scrutiny by the DeKalb County Board of Education, who in the end, will approve or reject the proposal to turn seven schools into charters that will work independently from the county’s education system.

Who Benefits?

I wonder who will benefit from the DHCC charter cluster?

How will the teachers benefit from a new set of rules and regulations that will be used to scrutinize their teaching by an appointed board of directors, who will eventually be comprised by a set of cronies that recommend each other to the board?

How about the students? Will they receive a better education from a cluster that is intent on out performing the present system by using the students as test-taking measuring sticks?

And the parents? They’ll be told that the new arrangement will give them more choice, and that by hiring an out-of-state management company, decisions will be more local and beneficial than they are now. (No, I am not sure if the management company will be from out-of-state, but the odds are 50/50 that it will).

How about the board of directors and the charter management company? How will their management of the public schools in the DHCC differ from the elected school board of education of DeKalb County?  What benefits will they realize?

Tell me, who will really benefit from this arrangement, and what is driving the movement?

Questionable Concerns

In a recent article (“Charter plan prompts questions”) in the AJC that was essentially a critique of the Druid Hills Charter Cluster, I pulled out a few questions included in the article, which was based on the Executive Summary of the DeKalb County School Board review of the DHCC petition  (and I’ve added a few questions of my own). Here are the questions to think about:

• Why should the board of education approve a proposal that would essentially take $29 million from the district’s funds?
• Why doesn’t the charter proposal identify pre-K programs for the affected schools?
• Why are students who need “more support” being shuttled to schools outside the Druid Hills Cluster Dome (See Figure 1)?
• How do you explain that only 82 of the 482 employees in the cluster responded to a survey about the proposal? Is there really backing from the faculty and administration of these schools? How can this proposal move forward when there is evidence that the 82 employees who responded to the survey were from Druid Hills High School and Middle School, and Fernbank Elementary, which has the smallest proportion of poor students?
• In what way will the curriculum be different from the curriculum already offered in DeKalb County?
• Who is Matt Lewis, and what are his credentials, other than being a parent in this cluster, to lead the charge to create this cluster of schools?
• What evidence is there that the majority of teachers support this effort?
• How will the Druid Hills Cluster prevent the potential of dividing the community by race, nationality, neighborhood, or disability?
• Were parents proportionally represented in the discussions, votes, and internal discourse among the group led by Matt Lewis?

Figure 1. Druid Hills Charter Cluster Dome is comprised of 7 schools, 5 elementary, 1 middle and 1 high school.  It is the first attempt to create a “cluster” of schools under one dome in Georgia.  Image Source: CBS News

Clusters and Domes

On August 19, I wrote one of several posts about the Druid Hills Cluster.  I’ve read and commented on the Druid Hills Charter Cluster proposal, which you can read here.  When I wrote that piece, I received a number of comments from readers who were not particularly thrilled that I objected to DHCC proposal. They thought my comments were insensitive to the local organizing group, and talking about what were really “national” problems at the local level I was jeopardizing the education of the children and youth in the DHCC.

Two comments were from a reader identified as Anonymous, who disputed GSU Professor Carey’s observation of the vote on the proposal held in August at Druid Hills High School. Dr Carey, who is an expert on voting and the politics surrounding voting, especially in Third World Countries, suggested in an article in the AJC that the voting process might be in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

DeKalb County, a school district of 138 schools and 100,000 students, has been under siege from many quarters over the past decade. One of its former superintendents was indicted on four counts of racketeering, including bribery and charges of falsifying a public document. In February, 2013, Governor of Georgia removed six members of the DeKalb County School Board as a result of a report from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools identifying many problems including a non cooperative board, questionable staff hirings, and fiscal irresponsibility. Six of the nine school board members were removed. The school district has also had one superintendent after another, culminating with the assignment of Michael L. Thermond, (a former legislator) as interim superintendent. The removed board members were replaced six board members appointed by the Governor until the next election.

There is a move to break apart the DeKalb School district primarily motivated by “concerned” parents.  The Druid Hill Charter Cluster is the first effort of its kind to lasso several schools into a cluster that would operate like a single charter school.  Of course this would mean that all the funds to run this privately managed charter on public property would be paid for by citizens of DeKalb County and the Georgia.

Another effort afoot in the county is the establishment of Dunwoody as a separate and free-standing school district, domed off from the rest of the county.  Dunwoody, with a population of more than 46,000 people, officially became a city in 2008, and there is now a strong movement to set up its own school system.    The racial make up of Dunwoody is 69.8% White, 12.8% African-American, 0.3% Native American, 11.1% Asian, and 10.3% Latino and Hispanic.  However, the present racial make up of Dunwoody High School is 42% White, 31% African-American, 7% Asian, 1% Native American, and 17% Latino and Hispanic.

Dunwoody, which is located northwest of Druid Hills, is using the argument that having its own district would mean better education for its students.  Other groups are emerging, so that there is a strong movement to either charterize parts of the district, or essentially for some parts to secede.

What we are observing in DHCC is an un-democratic activity that purports to represent the opinions and needs of thousands of parents and children.  If there is not a broad cross-section of constituents involved in the DHCC, then what we are witnessing is simply another attempt by school choice advocates to privatize public education.

DeKalb School Board Critique of DHCC

After reading the charter petition results of the 1st review and executive summary of the Druid Hills Charter Cluster petition by the DeKalb School Board, it seems that the Board is leaning toward rejecting the petition on multiple grounds.   After studying the petition and reading the Board analyses, there is nothing new in the cluster that isn’t happening in DeKalb County Schools.  DeKalb already has a viable Science, Technology, Engineering & Math curriculum, an International Baccalaureate Program, and Montessori program.  As pointe out in the review, the DHCC seems to be duplicating programs now offered in DeKalb Schools.  And here is one more thing.  The DHCC, starting in grade 9, says it will “reassign” students who need more support to neighboring schools (outside the cluster) further reinforcing one of the criticisms of charter schools–denying the very students they intended to help.

We come back to the question that we posed at the beginning: In DeKalb County, Georgia, in whose interests are these changes served?  Students?  Parents? Teachers? Administrators? Charter Management Companies? Parents who want to control who goes to their schools?

What do you think about the Druid Hills Charter Cluster idea?  Who do you think the cluster will serve?