Michael Petrilli Wants Virginia and He Wants Her Bad
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute labels itself as “America's leading education reform think tank,” and Michael Petrilli is its CEO. Amazon’s About the Author declares him “one of the nation’s foremost education analysts.” As such, his work has influenced state education systems in Ohio, DC, Maryland and others; however, many critique Fordham’s support of vouchers, charters, and other efforts to redirect public money away from public school students.
In spite of his successes, for many years Petrilli has cast a longing eye from his 16th Street NW office in D.C. across the river toward Virginia because the Commonwealth has spurned the ardent seduction of school choice. With just 8 charter schools (if you don’t count Glenn Youngkin’s 12 fledgling Lab Schools), and very limited Education Savings Accounts rather than carte blanche vouchers, Virginia has lived up to her namesake as virgin territory.
Fordham Institute and Petrilli’s allies have been very successful at conversions of public schools to charter schools in Maryland and DC with almost ½ the DC schools now charters and 37 charters in Baltimore alone. Ohio has 324 charters. Fordham and Petrilli insist his ideas improve districts like DC and Maryland, by shifting schools to charter and “choice” free-for-all if you win the lottery. But Virginia still has not succumbed.
Then Glenn Youngkin was elected Governor and rolled out his day one Executive Order One. It was like a lowered ladies’ fan and come-hither look for Mike Petrilli. Since then Mike has been deeply involved with Glenn Youngkin’s Virginia.
From advising on the much disliked and whitewashed History standards to this year’s new Accountability and Accreditation regulations, Petrilli has been there each step of the way.
He has been so involved that when his friend Secretary Aimee Guidera called for support defending the Virginia Department of Education’s controversial Accreditation & Accountability regulations, he came to the rescue with messaging against Virginia’s schools in an OpEd in the Richmond Times Dispatch titled Most Schools in America are Off Track and Virginia Is No Different.
Amber Northern, Petrilli’s Senior Vice President, was Fordham’s emissary on the disastrous rewrite of Virginia’s History standards. Afterward she both bragged and minimized that influence in a Fordham blog This summer Northern was rewarded with an appointment to the Virginia Board of Education. One of Petrilli and Northern’s jointly written articles “Which large school districts provide fertile terrain for charter growth?” lists Virginia Beach as a targeted district. Ironically, it doesn’t list Fairfax or the other northern Virginia districts Youngkin has made direct targets in his culture war policies.
There are problems with the story Michael Petrilli tells Virginia. After all, phrases referencing Virginia public schools as “putting lipstick on a pig,” is not very endearing. The Baby, you’re a failure. Let us show you how it’s done narrative doesn’t hold up under scrutiny, and isn’t making Virginia feel very attracted to him or his policies.
Virginia’s performance continues to be highly competitive or outstrip those of states and regions using Fordham’s philosophy and techniques. For instance US News says Virginia has the highest graduation rate in the country hovering between 91-92% in recent years.
One month before the Fordham style A&A regs were approved on August 28, CNBC said this about Virginia and her schools.
“At the K-12 level, Virginia offers some of the most individualized K-12 instruction in the nation, with an average of 10.9 students per teacher last year, according to the National Education Association. That appears to be translating to solid test scores.” They rate Virginia as the number one education system in the nation and the reason Virginia has been first for business for 5 out of 6 years.
A further look at graduation rates reveals, in DC the four-year graduation rate for DCPS is 75.27 percent, an increase of roughly 3 percent over last year and 16 points lower than Virginia. The four-year graduation rate for DC public charter schools is 79.38 percent, a slight decrease from the rate of 80.1 percent last year.” Maryland falls between DC and Virginia’s rate at between 85-86%, only 5-6 points lower than Virginia.
Testing scores reflect a similar problem for Fordham’s charter heavy states. Maryland’s average National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) 4th grade math score of 229 was lower than 35 states. While DC came in even lower at 223. Virginia’s average was 236, one point over the national average. However, on 8th grade NAEP and reading the states all cluster at or near the national averages. Still, not a compelling argument that charters substantially elevate the whole state or cure achievement gaps.
To make matters worse for Petrilli, the number of charter applications across the nation are leveling off, in some districts like DC numbers of charter students are dropping, and voucher plans are crashing and burning in state after state, including budget crises and corruption problems.
Finally, Fordham and Mike Petrilli don’t just want Virginia. They need her to support their payroll. IRS forms show a non-profit that went from $7 million in donations two years ago, $3 million of which they have spent, to $1 million in donations in the recent year. With Petrilli’s $350,000 annual salary, $50 thousand annual expense account, and a big staff each paid six digits salaries, those coffers will have to be refilled. Perhaps it will be easy with all the large donors Fordham has, on the other hand it may be harder without a successful privatization of schools in Virginia.
We know Virginia’s beautiful, but Michael please don’t be a stalker. Virginia does not consent to your advances. She has repeatedly rejected privatization and taking public money from public schools.
Please take a hint and back off.
Caveat: Glenn Youngkin, Aimee Guidera, and Mike Petrilli continue to use NAEP scores as the authoritative measure of education performance of Virginia’s schools. For the record, those tests are given every three years to only 1.9% of Virginia students. The NAEP, for these and a variety of other reasons, cannot be used as a statistically valid measure of state performance.
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