LA school board members asks why privatized charter schools aren't held accountable

[yurbud]

You know something is fishy when the same people who insist on testing regular public schools every other week, and using the results as an excuse to fire teachers or even close schools don't seem to care much about how their preferred replacements are doing.

They could save everyone a lot of time and trouble and just let public school teachers "innovate" the way they allow charter schools to, and save the micromanaging for professionals who need it, like the sociopaths on Wall Street.

Zimmer has the temerity to ask where the charter movement is going in Los Angeles. What is the end game? Who is looking out for the 86% of students who are not in charters? What are the consequences of "co-location" (i.e., giving charters free space in a public school, taking classrooms, facilities and resources away from the public school students)?

***

Zimmer points out that the 232 charters in the city of Los Angeles enroll 14.5% of the district's students, yet the board approves charters without more than five minutes of deliberations.

Only 7 of the city's 232 charters participate in the LAUSD data system, making it hard to know who they are serving and what they are doing.

He notes that charters are supposed to be incubators of innovation, yet they share nothing with public schools, and the board has no process by which to evaluate and share any best practices incubated in charters.

http://wp.me/p2odLa-1S0

[Angry Dragon]

1. Follow the Money

[yurbud]

3. that's what politicians are doing

[abelenkpe]

2. K&R nt

[Mnemosyne]

4. K&R nt

[JDPriestly]

5. I'm with Zimmer, and I am a parent, not a teacher.

I trained to be a teacher but frankly couldn't take working in the classroom with children.

Teaching is extremely difficult. I don't know why the newspapers and politicians pick on teacher so much unless they want to destroy teachers' unions as the last bulwark of worker dignity.

[yurbud]

7. I trained to be a teacher and loved the kids but hated the micromanaging

I teach community college now and the structure is the difference between night and day: instructors as a group decide what the broad course objectives are, and are individually free to decide how to get there.

That is pretty much the way it has always been, and it's why people enjoy the learning part of college more than high school.

If someone had a good high school or grade school teacher, there's a very good chance they would be fired if their principal knew they were doing the things that you remembered that made them good.

[awoke_in_2003]

6. Soon, only the elites...

will be educated. The dark ages are returning