KIPP charter school invades NY public school with "A" grade....read the views of both sides.

[madfloridian]

It's amazing how much difference there is in the view from the charter school advocates who are moving into the high school almost forcibly....and the view from the public school students who are being displaced.

It shows a mindset of entitlement that private charter advocates would gloat at moving into a public building....sending the public school students to classes in the lunchroom.

First the view from those sympathetic with the public school PS 195.

Grassroots Education Movement: How the charter end game will hurt public schools

There are several important reasons why charter schools not only harm public school children, but are a direct threat to public education as we know it. The harm is not ideological in nature, it is direct. I just attended the expansion hearing of KIPP into PS 195 in Harlen this Monday - and it is heartbreaking to hear that PS 195 students have class in the cafeteria. The teacher must ask the other students who are having lunch to quiet down, so instruction can happen. And if this isn't unbelievable enough, KIPP is expanding from its current grades of 5-8, to K-8.

More than a few PS 195 teachers got up to demand that KIPP teachers stop threatening charter school students with the admonishment,"Do you want to be like them?" The lesson hammered into these children every single day in that partitioned environment is one of segregation. The public school students are made to feel less, and the charter school children learn that personal advantage gained by harm to others is not only an entitlement of their talent, but a necessity.

But let's assume the above injustices to public school students were not happening, and charter schools obtained their own space - there is still a troubling aspect to the charter school movement - and that is its endgame. If the ultimate goal is to help the vast majority of minority students; and we can believe the sincerity of the billionaires and politicians who are steering this movement, than I'll support charter schools full heartedly.

The actions of these NYC charters however tell a much different tale than the benevolent words they speak. They are invading spaces of A rated schools (examples, ps. 15 in Redhook Brooklyn, ps 123, and ps. 195 in Harlem, etc.) If the claim is to want to help the neediest children, then why are they choosing building with A rated public schools that are successfully helping their communities. And when you see the comparisons between the two co-located schools in the same building, why is it, that the charter school has significant lower special ed and ELL students than it's counterpart - when they both seemingly draw from the same community?

"Do you want to be like them?" What a terrible question. Insulting public school students and teachers in their own building. I believe it.

KIPP prides itself on its discipline methods. These methods would not have been acceptable in a public school environment. They are tactics of humiliation.

And the blogger points out that there is more to this charter invasion than appears on the surface.

So the fight to defend public education against charter schools, is more than about space, teacher unions, or a lottery system; it is to stop the manipulation of Black and Latino communities as chess pieces in a game to benefit the elite classes in our society. While the struggling parents in impoverished areas are positioned to fight each other for the scraps of space and funding that has been allotted by our society, the privileged lay waiting in the sidelines until all the energy is sapped out - and the doorway to unregulated access to taxpayer money opens.

NOW read the blog of a charter school advocate who apparently attended the same meeting.

Amazing KIPP event

Note the tone of celebration.

As I noted in my last email (http://edreform.blogspot.com/2010/02/iraq-soldier-comments-on-daughters-red.html), at these hearings the union and the regular public school (which always thinks it owns the building) usually organize protests to create media coverage and headaches for the charter school, the DOE, Bloomberg and Klein. As expected, the union and IS 195 are opposing the DOE giving KIPP Infinity Elementary the space being vacated by the high school, so we were expecting a big protest last night and, in response, organized KIPP students, parents and staff to turn out. And did they ever turn out!

KIPP ROCKED THE HOUSE! Our students and parents packed the room to the rafters and, one after another, took the microphone and told story after story about how KIPP had changed their life (or their child's life). Many speakers choked up. It was INCREDIBLY POWERFUL! And it was a brilliant example of advocacy in action. We need to be doing a lot more of this if we're going to win this war…

My comment to blogger...actually the public owns the building. KIPP does not. They are profiting from taxpayer money.

Note to blogger: The public high school is not "vacating". They are being forced out.

They are moving into a public school building, paid for with taxpayer money. KIPP charters get money from taxpayers like us.

Yet their advocates are actually celebrating a big "win" over a public school that apparently was carrying an A grade.

Something is very wrong with that picture.

There are no winners in that battle.

[madfloridian]

1. Another NY school being shoved aside by a charter...losing their library.

PS 123 in NYC....fights having building taken over by charter school.

Moved to the basement:

Parents and advocates for P.S. 123, the Mahalia Jackson Academy, have complained that the charter is taking away space without concern for the public school students. William Hargraves, whose niece attends P.S. 123, charged that the Department of Education favors charters over regular public schools.

Harlem Success Academy, whose current enrollment is 361, serves kindergarten through second grade; it eventually plans to expand to eighth grade. P.S. 123 has an enrollment of 630 students this year in pre-kindergarten through seventh grade.

The tensions began when the charter school first moved into the building, but increased this year when P.S. 123 lost its computer room to the charter school, as well as part of its teachers’ lounge and half its library, now devoted to Harlem Success Academy office space, said Hargraves.

P.S. 123 was offered basement rooms to replace some of the space Harlem Success Academy has commandeered, but “there’s no way a kid can learn in that environment,” Hargraves said, describing the basement as “no more than a storage area.” The school squeezed in classes elsewhere in the building.

This is just wrong.

[Hannah Bell]

20. harlem success academy = hedge fund money

BOARD OF TRUSTEES:

Success Charter Network

Chair, Joel Greenblatt, Gotham Capital

Rob Goldstein, Gotham Capital

David Greenspan, Blue Ridge Capital

Gerry House, Institute for Student Achievement

Yen Liow, ZBI Equities

John Petry, Gotham Capital

Jim Peyser, NewSchools Venture Fund

Rich Pzena, Pzena Investment Management



When are people going to get it? Charter schools = the opening wedge in full privatization of public education. Capital needs more "profit opportunities".

By the time this is done, people will be paying the full freight for their kids education, & education from kindergarten to college will be distributed by income.

[malletgirl02]

2. Charter Schools

By taking over the A grade school it shows that charter school advocates don't really care about improving education. They want to privatize it.

[madfloridian]

8. Yes, their agenda is showing.

The corporations have the money to organize parents and get publicity for charter schools, so the playing field is not even. The private companies are getting money from taxpayers and the public school systems are getting less.

I call it a hostile takeover.

[Catshrink]

14. It's like the town hall meetings of last summer.

Who bussed in the "protesters" who shouted down the Congresscritters? Follow the money here. Business wants to get its hands in the public education trough.

[madfloridian]

15. Charter groups like KIPP and Green Dot form their own parent groups...

and give them great financial support. You are right, just like the town hall meetings on health care.

Paid astroturf pretending to be grassroots.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. Pay attention, folks

It will be happening in your community too.

[annabanana]

4. This is a BIG DEAL, folks!

Privatization of the Education System will work out as well as privatization of Social Security would.

Really.

We will not be able to come back from this, and neither will our children & grandchildren.

[madfloridian]

9. You are right. Once this is done, we can't get public education back again.

[lostnfound]

5. Another recommend for a madfloridian thread here.

I think I've given more K&Rs to you than anyone, because the schools are such a CRITICAL shaper of culture, and the extent to which they become tools of class suppression is the extent to which America is being destroyed.

I am a bundle of contradictions, however, because I send my own kid to Catholic school. Given the limited amount of moral influence that I feel that I have over my son (how many hours a day do I get him?), I concluded that I personally need all the help I can get in instilling a sense of right and wrong..the haphazard climate of the public school, with its massive size and its blaring and obnoxious environment (the principal's personality ripples through) -- it didn't seem to be a good fit. I also got a lot out of reading John Taylor Gatto and I dream about homeschooling. But my leanings stem from a desire for dignity, individual liberty, or anti-authoritarian thinking. Like you, I am revolted by Walmart-training-in-the-schools, and by the selling off of public assets.

There is something really wrong with these private schools taking over public resources, and I sense there are not-so-hidden agendas operating nationwide with this activity. One thing that is NOT happening is a movement toward local control over local schools by local parents. This nationwide move to charter schools is another fake grassroots movement. Who selects the principals? Are they democratically elected by the teachers? Are they democratically elected by the parents? Of course not. In an earlier era, schools were subject to local oversight, so they didn't get screwed up nationwide overnight. Long ago, teachers were the ultimate authority over what was taught in the classroom, and many people learned the basics in school and self-educated by READING thereafter.

Madfloridian, John Taylor Gatto suggests at one point that schools should be public in the sense that libraries are public. In a moderately intellectual culture, I think it would be a terrific thing, especially during adolescence. Students would not be strictly restricted by grade level to plod along in an age-based, dense force-feeding of the same curriculum. They could choose what they were interested in. Moderating this type of approach with perhaps six years of a foundation makes more sense to me than kids having so little autonomy and little room to breathe through their developing years. Instead of forcing every high schooler to spend 45 minutes a day in each of 7 subjects, let them get passionate about particular academic areas and they will learn much faster in that area at their own pace. The current system may present a lot of material to a lot of kids, but many end up so turned off that their curiosity shuts down and they shuffle through either treating it as drudgery (the failing students) or as a race with a material prize (the ambitious ones). The educing, the education, of what is inside of them is hit-or-miss.

[NashVegas]

6. They Are Winning, And Will Continue to Win

Mainly, because they have a goal they envision and will fight tooth and nail for - and public school advocates don't. All you/we are fighting for is to remain alive when we should be fighting to utterly destroy them.

[Freddie Stubbs]

7. If you write for a blog about public education, you probably shouldn't make spelling errors

I just attended the expansion hearing of KIPP into PS 195 in Harlen this Monday

[Catshrink]

13. Spelling error or typo? Focus on content.....this is too serious for trivial criticisms.

[Occulus]

53. If you're going to criticize someone's spelling, mongrel, your grammar should be perfect.

Your sentence is a fragment. It lacks concluding punctuation.

Now, go back to the kennel from whence you came and trouble us no more with your Republican mange. This is a topic for adults, and not for flea-bitten curs such as yourself.

[LWolf]

10. When will the war on public education

get as much attention from the general public as the war on terror?

[madfloridian]

11. Never... because the media sets the agenda.

And the war on public education will profit corporations greatly....just as the war on terror does.

It's a pity.

[LWolf]

25. A pity...that's an understatement.

What is the keystone of a healthy, thriving, representative democracy?

Educated citizens.

Wonder why so many seem to vote against their own best interests?

When they don't have to analyze, to interpret, to think for themselves, when they rely on corporate media "talking heads" to tell them what position to take, when education is controlled to keep the public compliant, and provide large pools of cannon fodder and cheap labor,

then the system is broken.

:(

[SutaUvaca]

12. Vultures.

There's seems no end to the blatant greed, even as it swallows up our education system.

All this charter-school-is-good-public-school-is-bad money grubbing steamroller smacks of Scott Peck's observations of The People of the Lie. Racism, greed, we-know-better-than-you attitudes... arrrgh.

Sometimes this country makes me physically ill.

[Catshrink]

16. Just wait. If they are successful in destroying public education

their charters will have to accept the special needs studens they now exclude. The charters will be subject to the same laws all schools are about educating special ed kids. Guess what? Those test scores will start to tank when they have to include all students.

[alp227]

19. Yep, the cycle will never end.

Don't the charter school advocates realize how they're defeating themselves so much, based on what you suggest?

[Nikki Stone1]

17. Madflo, you are one DUer who deserves all your hearts.

And bless yours for keeping us updated.

[noamnety]

18. I appreciate that you included the views of both sides

But I wish you'd picked more representative views to include, and ones that had more substance. It's easy to pick the worst of the worst from an opposing view, and set it up as if it's representative of everyone's view on that side.

I found this soldier's OP Ed to be more thought provoking than some of the comments quoted in the OP:

what I witnessed and experienced was so sad and disappointing. The constituents of PAVE and PS 15 were debating whether there is space in the building for two schools to continue to co-locate. One after the other, parents and teachers from both sides stood up to express their frustrations and concerns about the prospect of this. For the most part the debate was civil and respectful.

The curious thing to me was the number of speakers who don't live in Red Hook and don't have children in either school: a high-ranking representative of the UFT, representatives from Grassroots Education Reform (GEM)- an organization I now know vehemently opposes charter schools, the president from Community Education Council 1, or a high school teacher whose school faces closure. Their commentary against PAVE and its extended co-location was the most incensed. Whose interests are these agitators looking out for?

The building is meant to educate approximately 725 students. This year it has slightly over 500 students enrolled between the two schools. There is no reason this building cannot support PAVE's growth and continued co-location for a few more years. The building belongs to the taxpayers of New York City. It should be celebrated that it is being operated efficiently and that as many students as possible receive a great education inside its walls.

In less than a week, I return to Iraq and more conflict and fighting. My sincere wish is that while I am gone the fighting surrounding PAVE's co-location within P.S. 15 also stops. Petty adult concerns and politics need to be set aside for what is in the best interest in children. Providing children with an outstanding education that will prepare them for college is hard work that requires intense focus. Our children deserve this.

http://edreform.blogspot.com/2010/02/iraq-soldier-comments-on-daughters-red.html

My own thoughts:

1. Forcing students out into a cafeteria to learn should have been a nonstarter. There's no doubt about that.

2. Sometimes we need to be careful what we wish for. There's a teacher in the education forum currently bemoaning the closing of nearly half the schools in her district because their overall enrollment is down 18,000 students in the last decade (4,000 lost to increased charter enrollment, not sure where the other 14000 students went). They are left with buildings which are underutilized, some probably operating at less than half capacity. And the district understandably can't pay for the building upkeep, maintenance, oversight, etc. I understand a community not wanting a dual use school - especially if the owner is being relegated to second class status in their own facility. I'm not condoning that aspect of it. But the residents in Red Hook might want to consider that they are in this same position, operating it sounds like at roughly half capacity. Failing to negotiate a peaceful resolution that works for everyone might have the unintended consequence of having the entire school building shut down due to budget shortfalls.

3. I taught for a few years in a dual use facility. We had most of the building for our high school. A nursery school leased one wing. A church also leased the auditorium on weekends for their services. It meant that we had to continually police up our kids and try to get them not to curse near the day care kiddies. Our assemblies sometimes had a giant banner with a religious cross hanging in the background - an unfortunate addition to any video taped performances, since it made us look like something we most definitely weren't. And there were tensions at times between the two groups. But also it was good for our students to see adults working toward compromises in respectful ways when we had conflicts, and I'm glad our kids never had to witness us adults screaming insults at each other. I hope that the ways we coexisted taught our children some useful lessons - it's the way of the world for different groups to be competing for limited resources, and it's likely that their future will depend on their ability to find ways to share those resources.

[madfloridian]

21. It is hard for me to see both sides of privatizing education.

I taught public school for over 30 years. I was proud of what I did.

There should be NO private schools getting public money or taking over public buildings.

I don't get into to the issue of good or bad schools, I get into the attitude that has been instilled in parents by these corporately funded "grassroots" groups......that their kids have a right to be sent to private school paid for by taxpayers.

It is just wrong.

I could never afford to send my kids to private schools, never even thought about it. Now give me one reason why I should give my taxes to send others' kids and fill the coffers of private EMOs.

[noamnety]

23. Well, they are a public school, not private

entrance is by a lottery system. The parents seem to think their kids are getting a better quality education there than elsewhere.

I guess you should pay your taxes to send others' kids to schools that are at least comparable to the ones you were able to attend. I know that the tax payers paid for me to go to a public school that's better than the ones children are typically attending in Detroit. Knowing my position of privilege, I don't feel I am in a position to judge or resent parents like the soldier who wrote that op ed.

Management is contracted out at PAVE academy, you are right on that, so some portion of your tax dollars are going to that profit. I try to keep that in perspective. If you are paying your taxes, you're already paying for a portion of your education dollars to go to private companies - probably somewhere between a third and a half are already landing there. The largest group chomping up those dollars - even at a public charter - are the health insurance companies contracted for the teachers' benefits. For me, that's the bigger fight because it's causing financial ruin for the public schools at as fast a pace as anything else I can think of.

[tonysam]

24. They're the tool to privatize education

Let's quit being deceptive here.

[madfloridian]

27. Exactly....calling charters public schools is muddying the issue.

You are right.

[madfloridian]

26. Charters run by private companies are NOT public schools.

That is just some propaganda to make the bitter pill of privatization go down better.

Most charters are run by private companies.

[noamnety]

28. Pave Academy is a public school.

I understand you don't like the way their management is structured, and I understand why. But the school is, nonetheless, a public school.

[madfloridian]

29. Not really. No, it is not really. It was founded by a billionaire...

who donated millions to Bloomberg's campaign.

Public schools are built and run by the local school boards, not by billionaires who want to make a profit.

[noamnety]

30. It's still a public school.

The profit motive is alive and well even in traditional public schools.

There are superintendents at those schools making over $300,000 a year - in other words, raking in the tax dollars in an astonishing display of greed. But ... those are still public schools.

Contracting out a portion of the services, whether it's management or custodial work or payroll isn't the determining factor. Nor, unfortunately, is greed. Nor is the personal wealth of the person who decided to open the school - because the schools aren't ultimately chartered by them, they are chartered by a public chartering agency - the NY Dept of Ed, if I'm not mistaken, but some in NY are chartered by the State University. That's what makes it public.

[madfloridian]

32. Contracting out education is not the same as custodial work or payroll.

It is simply propaganda to call them public schools.

[noamnety]

34. They aren't contracting out the education itself.

The teachers are public employees.

Propaganda is declaring a public school "not a public school" even though, by law, it is. If you need to continue to frame it that way again and again to "catapult the propaganda" - I understand that, but I think most of us get that it's a fully public school with some contracted out management, ultimately overseen by and accountable to a public authority who has chartered it.

[madfloridian]

35. The teachers work for PAVE.

They are not held to the same standards as those hired by the public school.

No, it is not accountable. It does not have to follow the same rules as the public schools do.

You need to do some reading. If you don't like what I write, do some more research yourself.

[noamnety]

36. I believe they are public employees

Same as I am a public employee (employed by the state). I checked online and saw that they have the option to pay into the public school employee retirement fund, I saw that at some of the kipp schools where teachers are unionizing through the United Federation of Teachers, UFT was filing for recognition with the state’s Public Employment Relations Board. That sounds to me like they are public employees.

I also looked up some up their hiring notices - same standards as other schools, background checks, NY teaching certificate.

I'm not sure if you are aware that the UFT has itself started some public charter schools in Brooklyn. It will be interesting to see what shifts in attitude come when more and more charters are run directly by teacher's unions.

[madfloridian]

38. Could you please name the charters started by unions?

I know that some of the leaders believed in what Shanker said about teacher run charters. However the powerful money behind the EMOs beats most anything.

Did you read my post about KIPP discipline? That would never fly in a public school.

I am going to back off now because you do not see the danger, and I do. It does no good to go round in circles.

[noamnety]

40. I'm pretty sure that would be "UFT Charter School"

My original source didn't name them, it just said "The successful Green Dot charter schools in California are unionized, as are two charter schools started by the UFT in New York City. In Milwaukee, eight teacher-cooperative schools have been established in which teachers are part of the public school collective-bargaining agreement but also have the authority to run the schools as worker cooperatives."

http://www.uft.org/news/teacher/speak/charter_school_idea_turns_20/

I'm gonna go way out on a limb though and guess that "UFT Charter School" is one of them. You could consider that two if you like. They have an elementary school and a secondary school at two separate locations. They also partnered with Green Dot to establish a school in the Bronx.

Statement from the United Federation of Teachers:

In their original conception, charter schools were to be innovative public schools, freed from the stifling bureaucracy of school districts, professionally led and directed by their teachers and organically connected to the communities they served. Charter schools would be laboratories of educational experimentation, expanding our repertoire of best educational practices. This was the vision put forward by the late UFT and AFT President Al Shanker, when he became one of the very first advocates for charter schools, and it is the vision we relied upon when we started our own UFT Charter School in East New York and partnered with Green Dot to establish a charter school in the South Bronx.

This part speaks to your argument:

"But for too long, teacher unions and progressive educators paid far too little attention to charter schools, incorrectly seeing them as marginal developments. Right-wing ideologues moved into the vacuum created by this inattention, and seized a very significant beachhead inside the charter school movement; from this salient, they have pushed a notion of a charter school at direct odds with Shanker’s original conception. In their world view, charter schools are a wedge to pursue the privatization of public schools and to create schools in which unions are eliminated. In this vision, charters are private schools, supported with public funds."

And this is their ultimate conclusion:

Those who argue that charter schools must be always and everywhere opposed ill serve us in this pivotal struggle. They fail to understand the full dimensions of the challenge we now face, and how deeply charters have taken root in American education. When they proclaim that all charter schools are an embodiment of the right- wing agenda, they surrender without firing so much as a single shot in the crucial battle over the character of charter schools. Their dogmatism would blindly set teacher unions against charter teachers at the very moment that those teachers would be reaching out to unions for our advocacy and our organizational know-how.

The UFT is taking a measured approach which is not based in the myopic views of either side promoting their propaganda.

They don't yell that public schools are awful, public teachers are awful, government is awful, privatized education is inherently better.
And they don't yell that charter schools are pure evil, created as a plot to destroy public education, every charter is run by corrupt money hungry thieves.

Instead, they acknowledge some very real problems in the existing public education system (without condemning the teachers). They identify racial and economic discrimination in the system itself that by design leaves some children without access to an equivalent education. They acknowledge that some of the bureaucracy of large districts is detrimental to effective education.

They acknowledge that some charters need more financial oversight. They push for legislation to cap salaries for management types at public employee levels. Where they find abuse in enrollment biases, they publicize those and push for better legislation to prevent it from continuing.

They want to keep what's working, they pressure their legislators to change what isn't working, they acknowledge that charters are not a magic bullet that will (or should) change the format of all schools nationwide.

[BrklynLiberal]

49. The original UFT Charter School concept is totally unrecognizable

after what the politicians and idealogues have done to it.


http://www.uft.org/news/issues/testimony/chartertestmnyleo42009/

<snip>

Today, we in the United Federation of Teachers remain deeply committed to this original Shanker vision of a public “charter school.” And when it comes to this vision of charter schools, we don’t simply talk the talk. We walk the walk: we have started two charter schools of our own in East New York, and we have partnered with Green Dot to start a third charter school in the South Bronx. We proudly represent educators in nine charter schools in New York City, and our national union, the American Federation of Teachers, represents many more across the country.

The original Shanker conception of a public “charter school” was not ideological and political, but educational. In recent years, however, political ideologues opposed to public education and to teacher unions have sought to turn the charter school concept into its opposite, using it as a vehicle to privatize public education and undermine teacher voice and professionalism. To this end, these political ideologues divisively pit school against school, parent against parent, charter against district, using the politics of conflict. That we will always oppose, as educators and as citizens. Our democracy depends upon public schools, both district and charter, which unite us as Americans.

What is at issue here is not the existence of charter schools, but their character. Charter schools must be “public schools” in the fullest meaning of the term, dedicated to education for the public good and in our common purposes as American citizens. They must serve all and bring us together. They must be a force for improving public education.

<snip>
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
http://www.uft.org/news/teacher/speak/charter_school_idea_turns_20/
Some quotes you forgot to include in your excerpts, inlcuding the first part of that paragraph you quoted.

Can Albert Shanker’s original vision — charter schools that are teacher-led and integrate students of different racial, ethnic, economic, and religious backgrounds — replace anti-union charters that segregate? Of course it can. The successful Green Dot charter schools in California are unionized, as are two charter schools started by the UFT in New York City. In Milwaukee, eight teacher-cooperative schools have been established in which teachers are part of the public school collective-bargaining agreement but also have the authority to run the schools as worker cooperatives.

<snip>

Returning to Shanker’s vision would jump-start the charter school movement and remove the two major impediments to success it faces in the coming decades. By allowing unions to represent teachers, charter schools would eliminate the chief political obstacle to expansion. Moreover, by more effectively tapping into teacher expertise, and putting measures in place to reduce economic segregation of students, charters would have a fighting chance to significantly increase academic achievement. Two decades after Albert Shanker’s vision was unveiled, there is still an opportunity to create teacher-led “Saturn” schools for the 21st century that enhance teachers’ collective voice, help integrate students and improve student learning.

[noamnety]

55. Yes - that's what charters should be. And it's why the union supports the concept.

They are working to unionize a number of charters in New York. That's the trend. It's a good sign that the Kipp schools are starting to unionize.

So push for that. That's what I was saying the union is up to - keeping the concept because it's strong and it fixes some issues regarding access to education where the traditional public system penalizes the poor and locks their better doors to them. And they are working to fix the parts that aren't in the public's best interest.

I'm telling people what the UNION supports - and people are attacking me calling me right wing for it. Unbelievable.

[bertman]

42. Noamnety, in post #30 you say "The profit motive is alive and well even in traditional public

schools.

There are superintendents at those schools making over $300,000 a year - in other words, raking in the tax dollars in an astonishing display of greed. But ... those are still public schools."

Because a school system pays its superintendent $300,000 a year does not make it a profit-making venture. It is just plain wrong to call it that. You are confusing what you obviously consider Overpaid Public School Employees with a system that is set up to make a profit through its operations. Big difference.

[noamnety]

45. From where I sit, there's no difference.

If you're making 300k you are in it for the profit.
That's a true statement whether you are a state employee or the owner of a private management company who makes 300k in "profit" instead of salary. It's the same money either way.

As a tax payer, it's not any matter to me whether that much dough lands in this person's pocket or that person's pocket, it's still obscene, it still costs me the same amount, it still clearly comes at the expense of the children's education.

[bertman]

46. Then you don't understand what profit is. And you don't understand that some professional

educators in this day and age are paid what you consider obscene amounts of money because of their position, experience, degrees, etc. That has nothing to do with profit, and everything to do with the value our school systems place on certain types of administrators.

[JetCityLiberal]

52. right wing talking points 101.

It is about direct accountability for my tax bucks.

pathetic and noted.

Paul

[noamnety]

54. Well, you know, the teacher's union is just full of those right wing talking points.

But I know how people on the left hate the unions, and what they stand for. Right? :D

[Richard Steele]

22. K&R

[axollot]

31. This is privatizing DOE and we all know that corporations only have 1

objective - that is PROFITS above all else. There really needs to be a push back from the community. Private school - private building. Government funding, should make it a NOT FOR PROFIT school - but I'm sure that isnt the case, if it is, it wont be for long. And look how awesome privatizing the prison system is working out.....UGH this country will have generations of Palin-ites at this rate. Sad and scary.
Cheers
Sandy

[madfloridian]

33. Privatizing and deregulating...and a Dem board is excusing ...

and rationalizing it.

It is about profits, and public schools were sticking in the craw of corporations for years....now they will have them.

[axollot]

57. And our children will suffer in the race for profits. Sick, very sick. n/t

[Dinger]

37. I've Said It Before

Anybody, ANY politician who supports this bullshit, LOSES MY VOTE!

[madfloridian]

39. Well, most do support it in our party.

Don't forget that charters were the dream of Al From and the DLC. They are getting their wish come true.

Al From called for charters in 2000

[Dinger]

41. Well Fuck al from And the dlc

That is all.

[bertman]

43. This is an extension of the effort to privatize EVERY element of our government. Make no

mistake about it, they intend to have corporate control over every aspect of our lives. We may as well be petitioning the Boards of Directors of these corporations instead of voting in a voting booth. And by "petitioning" I mean giving payoffs directly to them.

Recommend this thread.

[madfloridian]

50. Yes, it is.

[sulphurdunn]

44. Charter schools should come as no surprise.

They are nothing more than the next logical step in the privatization of the public commons. As representative democracy crumbles before the political and economic blitzkrieg of corporatism, so also must public schools, which are the incubators of democracy. Debates about the efficacy of charters vs. public schools are mere misdirection, employed to spin the fictitious narrative of a public good in a nation where the status quo exists to serve a private agenda that is maintained by money and is immune to popular sovereignty.

[liberal_at_heart]

47. I don't understand why Obama supports charters so much

[Hekate]

51. Maybe Michelle hasn't explained it to him fully. I'm serious. I love the guy, but this is NOT ...

... the answer. Barack Obama had three adults all working to support sending him to the best private school in the Islands, and I am sure that is what he wants for every kid -- minus the steep tuition. It's just that continuing down this path will be the death of public education -- as someone put it, the public commons.

Mr. H and I had to think long and hard before we put our son in a boarding school for grades 9-12, as we are both products of public education from kindergarten through university. I don't know why public school didn't work out for him, but I do know that we have never voted to take money away from public education and steer it toward private schools via vouchers or any other mechanism.

Something has gone terribly, terribly wrong in this country.

Hekate

[noamnety]

56. The thing about this statement:

"Mr. H and I had to think long and hard before we put our son in a boarding school for grades 9-12, as we are both products of public education from kindergarten through university. I don't know why public school didn't work out for him"

is that traditional public schools don't work out for many many kids - but most don't have the resources to do what you did. What would you tell them?

[Hekate]

58. I would tell them what I believe:Defunding underperforming schools will only destroy them completely

Public schools lose funding when parents are given vouchers for charter school and private school tuition. Public schools lose funding when homeschooling parents want to not pay taxes for them. Public schools lose funding when they are punished for "underperforming." This is stupid and shortsighted beyond belief.

There has always been a place in American education for private schools and homeschooling (the pioneers pioneered homeschooling, after all) -- but it was also understood that the adults still had to pay their share of taxes, just as they would for any other public project they didn't personally use.

Schools need a plan and they need money -- i.e. people need to be willing to be TAXED, instead of falling for the Repubs' line about doing away with eeeeevil taxation. Relying on the charity of billionaires to run schools gets you the billionaires' agenda, whatever that is, and how much community input is accepted is contingent on the donors' willingness to accept that input. I have to admit that Andrew Carnegie built public libraries all over the place, though, and generations of Americans benefitted.

Teachers need better salaries, and they should never, ever have to purchase essential supplies from their own paychecks. When I was a secretary I didn't buy my own paper and toner -- I got it from the storeroom.

I would say that the bottom-line for-profit business model ("Schools should be run like a business! Inefficiency! Waste! Give me a cost-benefit analysis of your art program!") is the WRONG PARADIGM FOR EDUCATION, just as it is the WRONG PARADIGM FOR HEALTH CARE.

I would say that instead of asking politicians and businessmen how education should be "reformed" they should take some successful classroom teachers and their principals, put them on sabbatical for a year or so, pay their salaries, and let them tell the politicians what they need.

My kid graduated high school in the mid-1990s. I don't know what to tell anyone else except we spent his college money on that school and it was worth it. He took himself to college when he was ready, and he had the tools to do so, having learned them in high school (just as we had gotten the tools to survive college in the 1960s from our respective public school college-prep courses).

We were not able to save anybody else's kid, and I am sorry for that. By that time I had figured out that public education is something politicians only "care" about every four years when they want to be re-elected, and that the public only cares about if they personally have kids in school -- otherwise public thought on the subject seems to have a huge disconnect between how things get paid for and where the money comes from (taxes, idiots) or not caring because they don't personally have kids in school (the Libertarians I have met feel like that).

I have a lot to say, obviously. I just don't have any power. And I am sorry for that, too.

Hekate

[noamnety]

59. Everything you wrote is well reasoned political theory.

There isn't anything there I could point to as wrong. And yet ... politics isn't theory when you are poor, it's personal.

On a personal level, you had a child who you knew was being damaged in some way by the only public school option that was available to you. And like any good parent would do, you used the resources you had to put him in an alternative setting that worked for him, that made him successful. He deserved that.

That's at the heart of the division at the Two Americas. Abstract political theory is that if you have money, your son deserves to have the option of getting an education that works for him. Abstract political theory is that if students come from poor families, they don't deserve access to the same options your son had.

[Hekate]

60. You are exactly right that all I have to offer is abstract political theory. The sad thing is...

... or rather one of many sad things, is I had to reinvent this particular wheel (of theory) for myself because all of my assumptions about K-12 education were pretty shattered. Our district was supposed to be "good," with AP courses and everything. I didn't know that California had spent itself down to 48th or 49th in the nation during those years.

I think I left out that his older sister dropped out of HS after cutting most of sophomore year. The school never bothered to call us to clue us in that a 15 year old wasn't there. The school counselor tried to step up after I pitched a fit, but said that he had 600 other students to take care of and that our daughter wasn't setting lockers on fire. She would just quietly go to home room and then leave. :grr: (Postscript: She's now a 34 y.o. mother and operates a respected preschool. She has no health insurance though.)

Of COURSE it's personal. It's as personal as chronic hunger in a society that throws food in the dumpster. :cry:

Hekate

[BrklynLiberal]

48. Thanks once again for all that you do regarding this issue.

Charter schools are an abomination...they spell the end of US public education...privatizing everything is the goal of those who have only profit in mind....corporatocracy at its most disgusting.