Free Republic

America's first charter school opened in Minnesota in 1992. Sixteen years later, there are 4,128 charter schools educating 1.24 million students in 40 states and the District of Columbia. Another 300 to 400 are expected to open in the coming school year. Charter schools are public schools, but they are very different. The Center for Education Reform's 2008 Annual Survey reports that responding charter schools are one-third smaller than conventional public schools, with about 348 students, compared with 521. They spend less—about $7,625 per student, compared with $9,138 in public schools—and they receive only about 61% of the per pupil...

Charter Communications is sending letters to its customers informing them of an "enhanced online experience" that involves Charter monitoring its users' searches and the websites they visit, and inserting targeted third-party ads based on their web activity. Charter, which serves nearly six million customers, is requiring users who want to keep their activity private to submit their personal information to Charter via an unencrypted form and download a privacy cookie that must be downloaded again each time a user clears his web cache or uses a different browser... Deep packet inspection allows an ISP to monitor not only its users...

The bottom line is clear, says Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl: The Catholic Church can no longer afford to run a full complement of inner-city parochial schools serving a population that is, by an overwhelming majority, non-Catholic. So, facing a deficit of about $50 million over the next five years, the church is moving to convert at least seven D.C. elementary schools into secular, taxpayer-funded charter schools. "We simply don't have the resources to keep all those schools open," Wuerl said in an interview with Washington Post reporters and editors the other day. "We have exhausted the resources available to us."...

ST. LOUIS — Charter Communications officials believe a software error during routine maintenance caused the company to delete the contents of 14,000 customer e-mail accounts. There is no way to retrieve the messages, photos and other attachments that were erased from inboxes and archive folders across the country on Monday, said Anita Lamont, a spokeswoman for the suburban St. Louis-based company. "We really are sincerely sorry for having had this happen and do apologize to all those folks who were affected by the error," Lamont said Thursday when the company announced the gaffe. Charter, one of the nation's largest cable...

Southeast Asian leaders have adopted a landmark charter that seeks to integrate the region even as a contentious debate about human rights in Burma poisoned the atmosphere of the meeting. Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) signed the charter at a ceremony Tuesday in Singapore, which gives ASEAN legal identity for international negotiations, and sets out common rules for talks on trade, investment, environment and other fields. It also calls for the establishment of a human rights agency, but that agency lacks any mechanism for enforcing human rights standards. The charter still needs to be approved by...

Asean members hope to adopt the charter formally later this year Ministers from South-East Asian countries have reached agreement on a landmark draft charter. The document gives the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) a set of binding rules for the first time in the bloc's 40-year existence. The agreement comes after nearly two years of deliberations among members. It includes a contentious provision to set up a commission monitoring human rights in the region - despite strong misgivings from some Asean countries. Credibility boost With governments in the region running the gamut from fully-fledged democracies to a military...

Newspaper says suspected cheating common at charter schools AUSTIN — Suspected cheating on the state's standardized test is particularly prevalent at the state's charter schools, according to an analysis of test scores by The Dallas Morning News. The study flagged answer sheets from classrooms that had many more answers in common than experts say would happen by chance. In the top 50 most egregious cases of likely cheating, 37 of them took place in charter schools, which make up only 2 percent of the state's campuses. One charter school, Jesse Jackson Academy in Houston, was home to the most...

Public charter schools - separate and unequal Monday, June 4, 2007 By MARY JO MCKINLEY The state must do much more to ensure that thorough and efficient isn't an empty promise. CHARTER SCHOOLS are closing the achievement gap among New Jersey's poor urban schoolchildren, yet they continue to be treated as second-class citizens when it comes to receiving state education funding at levels enjoyed by other elementary and secondary schools. A new report by the Education Law Center supports this troubling conclusion. Charter schools in New Jersey predominantly serve students in the state's most at-risk Abbott districts, the report...

The Department of Education researchers “adjusted” the raw NAEP data ... Peterson substituted better criteria, such as the parent’s level of education and whether another language is spoken in the home, and found that “when student characteristics are estimated consistently across school sectors, a private-school advantage relative to public schools is evident at all grade levels in both math and reading in all estimations but one.” In most cases, the private-school advantage dwarfed the much more modest edge that elicited the cries of hallelujah from Weaver and his liberal allies.

It was a packed house for a historic court case. But if folks came in search of clues to how the state Supreme Court justices might rule on the validity of Knox County's charter, they left empty-handed. The state high court's five justices - Gary Wade, Janice Holder, William "Mickey" Barker, Cornelia A. Clark and the retiring Riley Anderson - fired off plenty of questions for the slew of attorneys arguing various points on the charter, term limits and application of term limits. None of those queries, however, revealed the justices' leanings in a case that some contend could rend...

Knox County's entire form of government is being put to the ultimate legal test today. The state Supreme Court will hear this afternoon arguments for and against the validity of Knox County's charter, the guiding force for the way citizens in Knox County are governed. Also on the Supreme Court platter will be the validity of an amendment to the charter that created term limits. Up in the air is whether the high court will go farther and opine as to which officeholders those term limits would apply if valid. As rare as the issue before it is, it is...

Dissolving the Knox County charter would gum up the government's purchasing machine and wind up costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars because of computer upgrades, an increased workload and personnel costs. Deputy Law Director Mary Ann Stackhouse outlined the problem to Knox County Chancellor John Weaver during a hearing Monday morning on the legal fate of the charter, which Weaver ruled invalid June 9. While listing the effects of dissolving the charter, Stackhouse told Weaver the procurement code would be invalid if his charter ruling becomes final. Right now, she said, the procurement code allows purchases of less than...

Illegal immigration, racism, education, Democrats and their creation of the KKK... Clark Baker ties it all together in this short smackdown of a local Los Angeles moonbat: Annie and I disagree about the merits of Academia Semillas del Pueblo, LAUSD’s deliberate attempt to discredit the charter school movement by granting a charter to racist and incompetent administrators. In our latest exchange, Annie exposes herself for the moonbat she is. ANNIE: You cannot compare a KKK school to Academia Semillas del Pueblo. The Klan is NOT about white pride, it's about hatred of other races. That's completely different. Unless you believe...

A federal judge said today he would cut through the confusion surrounding the Knox County charter by asking the Tennessee Supreme Court to rule on the charter's validity as soon as possible. Senior U.S. District Court Judge James H. Jarvis said he wants the state Supreme Court to settle the matter once and for all so he can hear a lawsuit challenging the county's adult business ordinance. Though a federal judge, Jarvis can ask the state's highest court to intervene to settle a matter of state law that is crucial to the federal lawsuit. Under court rules, Jarvis can send...

They have called. They have written. And, boy, are they mad. "They" are the residents of Knox County, and they haven't been shy about registering complaints about the charter fiasco that threatens to scuttle ordinances and torpedo term limits. They've been contacting Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale's office with comments during the week since Chancellor John Weaver ripped up the county charter. "They're angry over the charter verdict and they're angry over the term-limits issue," Ragsdale spokesman Dwight Van de Vate said. Weaver ruled last Friday that the charter, including its term-limits provision, is incomplete and wasn't properly filed with...

Confusion over the validity of Knox County's charter spilled over into its courtrooms Wednesday, with one lawyer alleging an appointed General Sessions Court judge shouldn't be allowed to preside over cases. It's the first direct challenge to a county government action since Chancellor John Weaver tossed out the charter Friday. In papers filed late Wednesday afternoon, lawyer Gregory P. Isaacs argues that General Sessions Court Judge Jimmy Kyle Davis shouldn't hear cases because he was appointed by County Commission under the authority of the charter. Weaver tossed out the Knox County Charter on Friday, ruling that it was "incomplete, invalid...

Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale said today he would most likely ask Chancellor John Weaver to stay his ruling invalidating the county charter so officials can address any insufficiencies in the document. If that doesn't work, the county could appeal Weaver's ruling, he said. Either way, he's asked County Commission Chairman Scott Moore to call a special meeting of commissioners on Monday to chart a course of action. "We want to work with commission to keep the charter form of government," Ragsdale said. Any tack they take apparently won't have an effect on the August general election, however. The same...

A chancellor ruled today that Knox County’s charter is "invalid and ineffective," meaning the county would revert to the form of government outlined in the state constitution. The ruling also invalidates term limits, which restricts the number of terms an elected official may serve. Appeals from the various parties are expected. The county won't lose any offices authorized when the government changed form in 1990, Law Director Mike Moyers said in an earlier interview, including his own. That's because the charter language regarding those offices, like many of the ordinances passed during the past 16 years, mirrors the language in...

WASHINGTON, April 24, 2006 – The Pentagon Channel has launched "Pentagon Channel In Flight," a military news and information service that will be aired on military charter flights worldwide. "Pentagon Channel In Flight is another way in which we can introduce servicemembers to the Pentagon Channel and provide them with the timely military news and information that they need to do their jobs." said Allison Barber, deputy assistant secretary of defense for internal communications. Pentagon Channel In Flight will air on participating military charter flights, including Air Transport International, ATA, Continental Airlines, Delta Airlines, Miami Air, North American Air, Omni...

More than a dozen D.C. public school system central office administrators are taking home base salaries of at least $150,000 per year, compared with just one official earning that much two years ago, according to an analysis of payroll records. The salary information, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, shows 14 central administration officials receiving a base pay of at least $150,000 in fiscal 2006, including five officials making $170,000 or more. By comparison, pay records approved by the Board of Education in July 2004 show only one administrator -- former interim Superintendent Elfreda Massie -- earning at least...

Cable industry disputes FCC's findings on pricing NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The cable industry joined forces with Walt Disney Co. (DIS) Wednesday to point out flaws in a recent Federal Communications Commission study that concluded it would be beneficial for consumers to pick and pay for channels separately. The companies released findings from two separate studies, both of which said consumers would be worse off by following the FCC's recommendation. The FCC concluded last month that viewers' bills could decline by as much as 13% if they were allowed to pick their own channels, reversing the agency's earlier view under...

One exciting thing about the free market is that you can't predict what the market will create. Big-government advocates tell you exactly what will happen when their plans work (as if they actually would work!), but we who trust the free market can only say that people will compete and good ideas will win. We do know that competition works. It works because it gives people the chance to be creative...

At closed meetings in hotel suites in Beirut and Damascus, Hamas has been developing a new charter that is designed to showcase a more moderate and non anti-Semitic face, one of those advising on its content has told The Jerusalem Post. Yet this new document, acknowledged Dr. Azzam Tamimi, 51, the Hebron-born director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought in London, would still call for an end to the Jewish state and the creation of a Palestinian state on all of mandatory Palestine. It would, he said, provide for the possibility of a long-term hudna (cease-fire accommodation) with an...

Hamas shows extent of its 'moderation' New charter reportedly in the works, but it still calls for Israel's demise By Ryan Jones February 17th, 2006 The international community is about to get what it is asking for – a moderation of Hamas' current positions, though the changes will not make Israel and its true allies very happy. The Jerusalem Post has learned that the terrorists will mark their rise to power by presenting a new charter, minus the many anti-Semitic diatribes present in the current charter, but which continues to call for the elimination of the Jewish state as a...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 27 — A large-scale government-financed study has concluded that when it comes to math, students in regular public schools do as well as or significantly better than comparable students in private schools. The study, by Christopher Lubienski and Sarah Theule Lubienski, of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, compared fourth- and eighth-grade math scores of more than 340,000 students in 13,000 regular public, charter and private schools on the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress. The 2003 test was given to 10 times more students than any previous test, giving researchers a trove of new data.

Selling out religious freedom Lorne Gunter National Post Thursday, January 12, 2006 Back in December, 2003, Paul Martin's government asked the Supreme Court about the constitutionality of same-sex marriage. At the time, a CBC interviewer asked Mr. Martin whether he would shield churches, synagogues, mosques and temples from any decision requiring them to perform same-sex marriages in the name of equity and human rights. Would he invoke the Charter's notwithstanding clause to spare places of worship and the priests within from having to perform marriages that violated their religious beliefs? "Oh, yes I would," the PM shot back without...

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (AP) - California State University, San Bernardino has refused to allow a Christian group to organize on campus, saying it would discriminate against non-Christians and homosexuals. The Christian Student Association's proposed constitution included a statement on sexual morality and required members and officers to be Christian. State law prevents student groups at public universities from excluding people based on religion or sexual orientation. "We are not permitted to charter them under Title V," said Christine Hansen, director of student leadership and development in the office of Student Affairs. She was referring to a section of the state...

Buffalo's charter schools-often considered the great unknown in public education-decisively outperformed the city's traditional public schools on four key student assessment tests over the past four years. Not only are their test scores superior, but several charter schools experienced far greater rates of improvement than traditional public schools.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Sunni Arabs voted in surprisingly high numbers on Iraq's new constitution Saturday, many of them hoping to defeat it in an intense competition with Shiites and Kurds over the shape of the nation's young democracy after decades of dictatorship. With little violence, turnout was more than 66 percent in the three most crucial provinces. The constitution still seemed likely to pass, as expected. But the large Sunni turnout made it possible that the vote would be close or even go the other way, and late Saturday it appeared at least two of a required three provinces...

DetroitROBERT THOMPSON wanted to give away $200 million to help children escape some of America's worst public schools. But for three years the successful businessman turned education philanthropist suffered the wrath of Michigan's Democratic establishment for his politically incorrect charter-school proposal. Then finally in August, Thompson found an ally willing to accept his charity. The nonprofit Skillman Foundation will join him in creating the first of 15 planned charter high schools in Detroit. The schools' goal is a "90/90 system"--that is, a graduation rate of 90 percent (up from the city's current 50 percent) and a college admission rate of...

The Performance Institute 3675 Ruffin Road, Suite 110, San Diego, CA 92123 858-503-6787 • fax 858-503-6753 • www.performanceweb.org www.sandiegobudget.org NEWS RELEASE Institute to Bring Most of Charter Reforms Proposed by City Attorney to June 2006 Vote of the People For Immediate Release CONTACT: Erica Mendelson August 17, 2005 Office: 858-503-6787 or cell: 619-306-1798 mendelson@performanceweb.org SAN DIEGO – Performance Institute President Carl DeMaio has released the following statement in response to a proposal put forward yesterday by City Attorney Mike Aguirre to remedy the city’s financial crisis and end this current state of paralysis: "The Performance Institute praises the City Attorney...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 9, 2005 – The children of Husseiniya, a town north of here, play among heaps of trash, lakes of standing groundwater and open sewage. Several miles away, in northern Baghdad, U.S. Army Col. David Bishop, commander of 3rd Brigade, 1st Armored Division; Ayad al-Safee, the deputy minister of technical affairs for the Ministry of Municipalities and Public Works; Nanjar Manshed, the Istaklah district advisory council delegate; and representatives of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers signed a charter Aug. 1 that will ensure the citizens and children of Husseiniya have a brighter and healthier future. Husseiniya is...

Harvey M. Sapolsky, who directs the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told some unpleasant home truths to Canadians last month in a full-page article published in the National Post. There has been little response to it, either officially or editorially, and that is significant. "Canada is a security risk to the United States," wrote Sapolsky. "Anti-Americanism is the unstated essence of the modern Canadian identity." But there are reasons for this. After the Second World War, when Canada's historic British connection began to decline, "the threat of being absorbed, not by a conquering but by a...

In using his constitutional power yesterday to appoint John Bolton as America's ambassador at the United Nations, President Bush spoke of "the goals of the United Nations Charter, to advance peace and liberty and human rights." He reminded Americans that we are at war. "This post is too important to leave vacant any longer, especially during a war," Mr. Bush said. The U.N. Charter speaks of "promoting and encouraging respect for human rights" and "fundamental freedoms for all." Yet today's United Nations is filled with, and many key committees dominated by, totalitarian states that openly violate these fundamental human rights....

At one end of the street stands the United Nations; at the other end stands the United States Congress. At issue: whether the U.N.'s diplomatic immunity trumps the subpoena power of the U.S. Congress.Volcker has persistently blocked congressional efforts to secure information about the multi-billion-dollar oil-for-food scandal. The genius of the American system of governance is the checks and balances built into the government by the U.S. Constitution and the ultimate authority of the electorate, which can dump the entire government on election day. The U.N. is accountable to no one.

'Victory' for foes of same-sex marriage Expert opinion: 'Gay rites not protected under the Charter' Heather Sokoloff National Post Friday, April 29, 2005 Opponents of same sex-marriage claimed a major victory yesterday after a respected constitutional expert issued the legal opinion that Parliament could define marriage as a union between a man and a woman without contravening the Supreme Court's comments on the issue. According to Eugene Meehan, a former national president of the Canadian Bar Association and former executive legal officer of the Supreme Court, Canada's highest court has not required Parliament to amend the traditional definition, nor...

ST. LOUIS -- A former Charter Communications Inc. executive sentenced last week to probation in a plot to dupe investors through fraudulent cable television disconnect practices said in a court document that Charter Chairman Paul Allen was aware of the scheme. Former Charter Vice President James "Trey" Smith III on Wednesday filed a counterclaim against the suburban St. Louis company in a dispute over legal fees related to the accounting scandal involving the nation's third-largest cable TV company. Smith was among four ex-executives sentenced April 22 in federal court in St. Louis, where he received two years of probation...

Area coalition seeks to cap number of charter schools Residents asked to use postcards to lobby lawmakers By Margo Rutledge Kissell Dayton Daily News DAYTON | About 35,000 Miami Valley residents will receive postcards this week trying to persuade them to urge lawmakers to keep the cap on the number of privately operated charter schools in Ohio. The Coalition for Public Education's direct-mail campaign will target people living in the legislative districts of state Rep. Dixie Allen, D-Dayton, and state Sen. Steve Austria, R-Beavercreek. The postcards and 60-second radio ads also seek to have residents demand more accountability of charter...

The Kyoto Protocol, which came into effect on February 16, 2005 in a blaze of celebrations, proves the power and might of obscure Canadian, Maurice Strong. As one of its prime architects, Strong helped lay the groundwork for Kyoto at the United Nations 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Under the Kyoto Protocol to that year’s UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), industrialized nations are to reduce their combined emissions of six major greenhouse gases during the five-year period from 2008 to 2012 to below 1990 levels. Never mind that Kyoto mandates reductions in carbon dioxide emissions to...

Excerpt - WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Funds of billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros reported in a regulatory filing new stakes in media titans News Corp. (NWS) and Time Warner Inc. (TWX). [snip] Among other newly reported stakes, Soros Fund Management LLC disclosed holding 1.26 million shares of cigarette maker Altria Group Inc. (MO), about 2.5 million common shares of computer titan Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) and 10,000 Class A shares of Charter Communications Inc. (CHTR), the cable company controlled by Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) co-founder Paul Allen. [snip] The quarterly filing of Soros Fund Management's stockholdings disclosed that the funds held 209,272...

The AFT's conclusion: "Charter schools are underperforming." Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), often called the nation's report card, show students in charter schools doing less well than the nationwide public-school average, which includes middle-class students from well-heeled suburbs. Similar results are obtained within selected states. Big deal. These results could easily indicate nothing other than the simple fact that charter schools are typically asked to serve problematic students in low-performing districts with many poor, minority children. Indeed, if the AFT believes these findings, it must also concede that religious schools excel. According to the same NAEP...

Amberell Photography and Digital Imaging“D-Day” for Father’s Rights — F4J march through London to deliver demands to Tony Blair. What would it take to see the following headline emblazoned across the top of page two of the New York Times: “Family law system is evil”? Would you settle for this headline on the front page of the Boston Globe: “The outlaw fathers fighting back” (The Scotsman, May 29, 2003)?The former partial headline (completed by: “… say men charged over Blair flour bombing”), appeared in the May 21 London Telegraph, accompanied by a photograph of Ron Davis and Guy Harrison,...

Hi all, I am years ahead of myself here, since I currently have no kids and am not planning to start trying until the beginning of next year. Even so, I've found myself thinking a lot about how my husband and I will educate our kids. The schools in my area are actually fairly well respected, but I've looked at their curriculum and suggested methods and it's a lot of stuff that seems completely irrelevant to an education. Mostly it's about teaching them to love everybody and to feel good. That's not what school is for - that's what parents...

Charter schools are flourishing in Colorado, many of them with genuine and ungrudging support from their local school districts. But in a few places, school boards are putting up fierce resistance to letting parents choose the kind of education they want for their children. Charter schools that face such resistance should have a more accommodating alternative, and we urge the legislature to act this session to provide it. Perhaps the most intransigent district may be Steamboat Springs, which is currently in court defending its policy of defying the state Board of Education's ruling that it must approve a charter school...

EU plans charter flights to speed up deportations By Stephen Castle in Brussels 24 January 2004 Charter flights are to be used to repatriate failed asylum-seekers and other illegal immigrants under a new €30m (£20m) initiative announced by EU ministers. A new European agency for border control will co-ordinate returns by EU member states in an effort to help stem the rising numbers of economic migrants crossing borders. While control of the repatriation policy will remain with national governments, the agency will arrange charter flights if groups of countries have sufficient numbers of people to return to make economic sense....

<p>Charter schools in California are working and should be allowed to expand. That's the conclusion of a report, "Assessing California's Charter Schools," released Tuesday by state Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill.</p> <p>The report said, "Two statewide evaluations of charter schools in California have concluded that they are meeting original legislative intent - expanding families' choices, encouraging parental involvement, increasing teacher satisfaction, and raising academic achievement, particularly for certain groups of disadvantaged students."</p>

SALEM - A flier the School Department sent home to parents about the new Salem Academy Charter School was "entirely inappropriate" and had claims that were untrue, according to the Massachusetts Department of Education. Several top state education officials reviewed the flier, which was printed by the Salem Public Schools and warned parents about signing up for the new public charter school that will open here in September. "It is not illegal to (send out the flier), but it is improper and entirely inappropriate," said Heidi Perlman, a state education spokeswoman who conferred with the department's general counsel, Rhoda Schneider....

LOS ANGELES – Former Los Angeles Unified school board President Caprice Young will lead the newly minted California Charter Schools Association, which plans to open a San Diego office, it was announced today. The CCSA is designed to strengthen and expand California's charter school movement. The association said it will point the way in bringing high-quality charter schools to every California community and providing quality educational choices to parents, teachers and all students. Young will be chief executive officer. "Charter schools offer the best path to the meaningful reform of public education," she said. "This launch is all about supporting...

Article 1. Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the greater Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation. Article 2: Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.Article 3: The Palestinian Arab people possess the legal right to their homeland and to self-determination after the completion of the liberation of their country in accordance with their wishes and entirely of their own accord and will. Article 4: The Palestinian identity is a genuine, essential, and inherent characteristic; it...

A man accused of storing child pornography on his computer has been cleared after it emerged that his computer had been infected by a Trojan horse, which was responsible for transferring the images onto his PC. Julian Green, 45, was taken into custody last October after police with a search warrant raided his house. He then spent a night in a police cell, nine days in Exeter prison and three months in a bail hostel. During this time, his ex-wife won custody of his seven year old daughter and possession of his house. This is thought to be the second...