Charter schools tend to suck money out of public school systems, leaving the public schools—the ones that educate all kids, not just the ones they find desirable—with fewer resources. They tend to drive resegregation. They often leave out kids with disabilities. But in North Carolina, Jeff Bryant reports, charter schools are working within the state’s harsh ranking system for schools to create a brutal, unequal zero-sum game for schools:
One reason charter schools tend to be whiter and wealthier is because the state's school rating system incentivizes them to be, college professor Dana Thompson Dorsey told me in an interview at her office at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (Dorsey now works at the University of Pittsburgh).
North Carolina's A-F grading system for schools is so closely correlated with the income of the students in the schools, that schools with whiter, wealthier enrollments generally get better ratings. “It's a bottom line approach to education,” she told me, that encourages schools to be more selective of students they enroll and retain.
In the case of charters, the state allows them to forego offering free transportation, free meals, and after school programs that lower-income parents need, Dorsey explained. If you’re a parent who relies on those things, she said, “you don’t enter the lottery to get into the charter. It doesn’t fit your wallet.”
North Carolina may create the conditions for this to be especially bad, but parts of this system are replicated in all too many states.
● Another one for the “Uber is evil” files: Uber failed at overturning a British ruling that the company would have to give its drivers basic rights like the minimum wage. And it’s appealing that failure.
● The tech industry is notoriously bad about diversity, but this report is still shocking: Reveal’s Will Evans finds, among other things, a company with a management team of 11 men and one woman (with “no apparent racial diversity”) and a board of 10 men and one woman fighting a shareholder resolution calling on the company to offer up details about its current diversity and what it’s doing to improve that. And Palo Alto Networks isn’t the only company that’s had to be so pressured:
Lam Research Corp., which has a resolution up for a vote Nov. 8, argued that the government-mandated diversity data “is not reflective of our diversity and could be misinterpreted in ways that could hinder our efforts for greater diversity and inclusion.”
Lam indicated that the numbers could look so bad they would make recruiting harder: “Disclosure of such information could hinder our efforts to attract, engage, retain and promote diverse employment candidates and employees if it is misconstrued, including by such candidates and employees,” its opposition statement said.
The executive team of the semiconductor equipment supplier is made up of eight men and one woman, who serves as chief legal officer and secretary. Lam’s social responsibility report insists the company is “committed to fostering diversity” but instead of a race and gender breakdown, it provides the percentage of new hires who were veterans or college graduates. Lam didn’t respond to Reveal’s inquiries.
This report is second in a series on Silicon Valley’s sorry diversity numbers.
● "Some kids are not orphans because of this": How unions are keeping workers safe around the world.
● TJ Maxx employees in Puerto Rico are still getting paid at the stores closed by Hurricane Maria.
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● Like so many other workplaces, unions are reckoning with sexual harassment, with several top union staffers fired or resigned.
● Students at a Florida high school walked out to protest their district’s decision to deny teachers pay raises.
● Turkish workers who made clothes for Zara still haven't been paid after a factory owner disappeared with the money. And Zara’s parent company isn’t rushing to make the workers whole.