There was a great comment from a teacher in New York who speaks to the problems with this gentrification. The 1% have adopted a formula for legitimacy that places 20 under-served families in what will become the affluent school. I thought this was a Baltimore formula but as this New York comment suggests, this is being used nationwide. The principal selects the 20 families according to parental involvement and cooperation.......all others are encouraged out. Those selected out have been going to temporary charter schools and will go again to others as the dynamics move them further from the city midtown and downtown and to predominately vocational schools. I spoke with a young man in my neighborhood asking why he wasn't in school in early afternoon. He was in a school program that had him going to another building for a computer lab every afternoon. He was underwhelmed with going and hated the format.
Midday with Dan Rodrick's, a local Baltimore public radio show had an 'wealth inequity' program that spoke to the standard explanations for today's corrupt and criminal environment and public distrust in most institutions. The best part came at the end when a Maryland educator spoke, much to Rodrick's chagrin, addressing the education reform in Maryland. She was apart of the discussion/development of the Maryland State Assessment and asked the question that is the gorilla in the room regarding assessments: how can you use the results of these tests to determine teacher effectiveness or school funding when you have affluent schools getting financial donations boosting resources and parents paying to have their children take copious test-prep courses for the MSA while under-served students sit in front of computers completing standardized units and nothing else? This teacher said that the administrator of this development session just looked at her like it was a rhetorical question that simply didn't matter. OF COURSE THERE IS INEQUITY.....GET OVER IT!
That is not democratic education and we will not 'GET OVER IT'. We will get rid of these politicians allowing this to happen. Mayor Rawlings-Blake is the one that gives complete control of Baltimore schools to Gov. O'Malley and O'Malley is the one that adopts these Race To The Top directives without ever bringing it to the public. Did you hear Obama use the words 'charter schools', 'vocational schools', or online education when he campaigned in 2008 with his mantra of building strong schools? He would not have been elected if he had as Democrats have always fought this. America has always seen the school house as the center of a community and it is unbelievable that politicians would allow a small group of CEOs to create a complete remake of that treasured public asset with no public comment or approval.
VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT!!!!!!
New York City teacher's comment to Mayor Bloomberg:
Is Mayor Bloomberg saying that if a child doesn`t attend a charter school they don`t get an education? Mayor Bloomberg, please come to my class where I teach students who in 6,7 and 8 grade are learning the Latin alphabet along with learning how to speak, read and write in English. Not to mention that some have serious learning disabilities, besides the fact that they are ELLs.According to the regulations supported by your administration next year they will all be taking the state tests : ELA and Math You are giving students 2 years of grace period and let them sink. You brought this system to the brink of chaos, just to come up with a `different version` that will save us all. Just by reinventing the wheel every other year, success won`t be achieved. Today you are blaming the public school, the teachers and the UFT, tomorrow it will be another name but the same people working. Teachers in charter schools don`t come from Mars, they don`t have a different training, they went, like the rest of us, to colleges to get a degree in education. So, what the major difference is between the public and the charter is the PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT because you give them a free hand to pick and choose their students. Please let me handpick my students and only teach the kids whose parents care about them. But, then what will happen to the kids who need us the most? The kids whose parents are on different continents? hospitalized or in refugee camps? Kids whose parents can`t afford a hot meal or a jacket? Or the time to sit down and ask their own kids how their day was? It is time for you to face the reality .
WHAT A DISGRACE!!!!!!
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REPUBLICAN STATES HAVE ALREADY TURNED THEIR CHARTER SCHOOLS TO ONLINE EDUCATION.......WHY PAY FOR SCHOOL INFRASTRUCTURE AND A TEACHER IN EVERY CLASSROOM WHEN STUDENTS CAN JUST SIT AT HOME OR IN AN AUDITORIUM AND DO COMPUTER UNITS?
N.C. School Districts Fight Online Charter School by Dave DeWitt
June 25, 2012
One of the fastest growing segments of the charter school movement is online charter schools. For-profit company, K-12 Inc., runs online charters in more than two dozens states and wants to expand to North Carolina. But it's run into fierce opposition from public school districts there
MY RESPONSE TO NPR'S STORY BELOW:
Race To The Top was about privatizing public education and this is one of many examples of the push by Republicans and Third Way Democrats like Obama to do just that. Opening the Department of Education to 'innovation' in education when we have a successful model in our schools in the 1950s - 1970s shows it is just a push to privatize yet another public institution. Teach for America and union-busting will be necessary for market efficiency and low-wage teaching options!
Obama says these schools will provide opportunities to climb the income ladder-------REALLY?????
March 28, 2012
by Eyder Peralta
Anyone who watched Nursery University — a documentary about the trials and tribulations of getting your toddler in the "right" pre-school — won't be surprised by this story.
Still, it's worth noting. The Wall Street Journal's Smart Money reports today that more parents are borrowing to pay for their kids' K-12 education. The whole piece is an interesting read, so we encourage you to click over. But here's how the Journal came to this conclusion:
"Though data is scarce, private school experts and the small number of lenders who provide loans for kindergarten through 12th grade say pre-college loans are becoming more popular. Your Tuition Solution, one of the largest lenders in this space, says demand for the upcoming year is already up: This month, the total dollar amount of loans families requested rose 10% compared to a year ago; at that pace, the company expects its total funding to rise to $20 million for 2012-13. Separately, First Marblehead, which exited the market in 2008, reentered last year as demand for loans began to rise.
"Much of this demand is coming from high-income families. Roughly 20% of families that applied for aid to pay for their children's kindergarten through 12th grade private school education had incomes of $150,000 or more, according to 2010-11 data, the latest from the National Association of Independent Schools. That's up from just 6% in 2002-03. Those who don't get approved for free aid, like grants, increasingly turn to loans, experts say."
The Journal spoke to some parents who said they do this because they believe a better grade school education will put their kids on a path to a better college.
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California and New York are the leaders in charter school creation. This review of its system ten years ago, when the system was fledgling like Maryland's now shows the problems and solutions identified. Maryland's charters are not transparent so in many cases the public does not know what is happening or if the reports they receive are accurate. Maryland has a systemic problem with accountability and one does not have to stretch to be concerned as to how that relates to its charter schools. If you listen to teachers and parents today........there is not much to like about many charter schools. Below we see an update on charter concerns......IT IS LONG AND BORING BUT IT GIVES YOU INSIGHT AS TO WHERE MARYLAND IS GOING:
Three California charter school reform bills would change how schools are run July 8, 2011 |
By Adolfo Guzman-Lopez
Three charter school bills making their way through the state legislature would significantly change the way charter schools are run.
The promise of charter school advocates has been to create better-managed, publicly funded campuses that outperform traditional public schools.
A large portion of the state’s 823 charters have fallen short.
State Sen. Joe Simitian says he and Assemblywoman Julia Brownley want poor performing charters to close their doors.
"We’re also concerned about the fact that charter schools, frankly, while they have the flexibility of fewer rules and less need to abide by various state regulations, sometimes operate with less transparency," Simitian says. "And I think what we’re hoping for here is that the same conflict of interest rules and the same open government rules that apply to other local schools, local school districts, would apply to charter schools."
Another bill would ensure charters don’t enroll only high performers at the expense of students struggling to learn English and kids with learning disabilities
REPORT 2002-104 SUMMARY - NOVEMBER 2002 California's Charter Schools: Oversight at All Levels Could Be Stronger to Ensure Charter Schools' Accountability HIGHLIGHTS Oversight of charter schools at all levels could be stronger to ensure schools' accountability. Specifically:
- The four chartering entities we reviewed do not ensure that their charter schools operate in a manner consistent with their charters.
- These chartering entities' fiscal monitoring of their charter schools is also weak.
- Some charter schools assess their educational programs against their charters' measurable student outcomes, but others do not.
- The Department of Education (department) could, but does not target its resources toward identifying and addressing charter schools' potential academic and fiscal deficiencies.
- Finally, although two new statutes attempt to add accountability, without the chartering entities and department increasing their commitment to monitoring, these new laws may not be as effective as they could be.
- Establish a process to analyze their actual costs of charter school oversight.
- Compare the actual costs of oversight to the fees charged and, if necessary, return any excess fees charged.
- Use the mandated-costs reimbursement process as appropriate to recover their unreimbursed costs of overseeing charter schools.
California State Auditor, Bureau of State Audits
555 Capitol Mall, Suite 300, Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 445-0255