Keyword: charterschools
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School boards are not permitted to use taxpayer money to oppose the charter schools amendment, Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens wrote in a letter to Superintendent John Barge Wednesday. His letter – which followed complaints about boards’ actions on that issue — doesn’t appear likely to end the argument. Rather than provide clarity, the letter itself became a sort of political Rorschach test, with amendment supporters and opponents interpreting it in starkly different ways. And superintendents and board members said they plan to press the case against an amendment they believe will lead to more charter schools and less money...
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Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis walks, talks and barks like a rootsy Occupy Wall Street activist. But this Big Labor loudmouth who's leading the abandonment of nearly 400,000 schoolchildren in the Windy City is just another power-grabbing union fat cat. Instead of academic excellence, she rails about "social justice." Instead of accountability, she fumes about "profits" and curses merit pay. Lewis has marched with the Occu-clowns denouncing capitalism and promoting "socialism (as) the alternative." She raves: "Occupy Wall Street and the whole concept of the 99 percent is an extraordinarily important movement." And she earned praise as a "fist-in-the-air,...
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Is it possible for charter schools to increase educational options and diversity in the public school system but decrease diversity overall; to spend less money than regular public schools but cost taxpayers more overall, and to outperform regular public schools but decrease achievement overall? Unfortunately, it is not only possible but is happening in cities across the nation. This mix of intended and unintended outcomes is what’s known as the “charter school paradox,” which hints at the uneasy place these relatively new educational options have in our society. But it is only a paradox if we take a narrow view...
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Fethullah Gülen is a Turkish imam, considered one of the most influential imams in the world, no doubt due to his brilliant creation of taxpayer funded chartered schools with more than a whiff of Islam in the curricula - in the United States. The experiment started with full U.S. taxpayer funding. Gülen Charters is the largest charter school network in the U.S. There were 134 U.S. Gülen charter schools in 2010, in 26 states with 45,000 students. They continue to receive taxpayer dollars and have the distinction of being the nation's largest users of H1B visas. Teachers with poor English...
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Two thousand years ago, somebody (like the future Alexander the Great) who wanted to learn from a famous philosopher (like Aristotle) had to visit him in person, or vice versa. Written correspondence was of course possible, but every letter had to be written by hand, and it could take months to reach its destination. It was hardly possible to have an ongoing, two-way exchange of ideas under these conditions. With the invention of the printing press, it became possible for one teacher’s ideas to reach hundreds or thousands of students, and the mass production of books increased literacy rates enormously....
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Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has openly invited Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen to Turkey in a speech he delivered during the closing ceremony for the 10th Turkish Olympiads amid a standing ovation from a crowd of over 50,000. Erdoğan, who spoke after he was granted a special award by the organizing committee of the Olympiads, implied that Gülen, without directly mentioning his name, should return to Turkey as soon as possible. The well-known scholar has been residing in the US for nearly 13 years. “We want this yearning to end,” he said, receiving a lengthy standing ovation from...
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SAYLORSBURG, Pa. -- Fetullah Gülen has been called the world's top public intellectual and the face of moderate Islam. He has held court with Pope John Paul II and received praise from former President Bill Clinton. "You're contributing to the promotion of the ideals of tolerance and interfaith dialogue inspired by Fetullah Gülen and his transnational social movement," Clinton told audience members during a video address at the World Rumi Forum in 2010. Yet others have branded Gülen a wolf in sheep's clothing and a modern day Ayatollah Khomeini. CBN News recently took a closer look at the the life...
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Entering my freshman year at Georgetown University, I should have felt as if I’d made it. The students I once put on a pedestal, kids who were fortunate enough to attend some of the nation’s top private and public schools, were now my classmates. Having come from D.C. public charter schools, I worked extremely hard to get here. But after arriving on campus before the school year, with a full scholarship, I quickly felt unprepared and outmatched — and it’s taken an entire year of playing catch-up in the classroom to feel like I belong. I know that ultimately I’m...
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The charter school movement was presented to the American people as a way to have more parental control over public school education. Charter schools are public schools financed by local taxpayers and federal grants. Charter schools are able to hire and fire teachers, administrators and staff and avoid control by education department bureaucrats and the teachers unions. No doubt there are some good charter schools, but loose controls have allowed a very different kind of school to emerge. Charter schools have opened up a path for foreigners to run schools at the expense of the U.S. taxpayers, without much...
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Campaigning in Idaho on Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum suggested that he is opposed to a public school system overseen by the government. "We didn't have government-run schools for a long time in this country, for the majority of the time in this country," he said. "We had private education. We had local education. Parents actually controlled the education of their children. What a great idea that is." Santorum's campaign did not respond to multiple requests for an explanation of whether he was calling for an end to public schooling as it now exists. But the former Pennsylvania senator...
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School choice is changing the face of education in the United States in 2012. In spite of the increasing cost of public school education, parents are no longer satisfied that it is preparing their children for the competitive world of the 21st century. They are turning to home schooling or charter schools that meet their expectations.
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Like many charter public schools in Michigan, South Arbor Charter Academy must hold a lottery to distribute its limited classroom slots among an overwhelming number of applicants. In this video, the parents of some 556 student-hopefuls vie for just 26 slots at this achievement - and values - focused school.
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A Detroit Free Press editorial opposing legislation that would remove arbitrary caps on the number of charter public schools contains a series of misleading, inaccurate and intemperate statements. The newspaper’s opening argument exemplifies the latter: “[T]he experiment [the Legislature] is trying to inflict on children and their parents is ill-conceived and dangerous.” No charter public school has ever “inflicted” anything on parents or children, for a very basic reason: The only children who attend charters are those whose parents have voluntarily and conscientiously chosen to send them there. In fact, the Legislature cannot itself increase the number of charters —...
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Students at the west campus of Urban Prep Academy say they’re being targeted, chased and harassed by gangbangers as they walk to and from school. Leaders of the college preparatory school and parents of students met Thursday night to discuss what can be done about the ongoing problem.
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Charter School Accused of Becoming Adult Club at NightBy Kathleen McGrory, The Miami Herald 6:15 a.m. EDT, September 2, 2011 MIAMI-DADE COUNTY— By day, the Balare Language Academy is an A-rated charter school, home to children in kindergarten through middle school. But when the kids are tucked into bed, Balare apparently becomes a playground of a different kind. Party fliers, printed and on the Web, indicate that the campus at 10875 Quail Roost Dr. has been hosting raunchy, booze-soaked bashes into the wee hours. One flier for an upcoming party features a voluptuous, scantily clad woman posing with champagne bottles....
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The "Push It To Da Limit: The Flossin Edition" late-night party is still scheduled to go off Saturday night — but it won't be at a south Miami-Dade charter school, as previously advertised. Miami-Dade School District officials on Friday were still trying to determine whether the Balere Language Academy — a charter school already facing financial free-fall and increased school district scrutiny — has also been doubling as an after-hours nightclub.
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He left home at 11 after a rough childhood, spending time on the streets, yet managed to finish both high school and college. He later went on to work as a Pepsi-Cola truck driver, at a meat-packing plant and as a short-order cook. YouTube
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"...On the fraught issue of school choice, his foundation has been a strong advocate of charter schools, and Mr. Gates is particularly fond of the KIPP charter network and its focus on serving inner-city neighborhoods. "Whenever you get depressed about giving money in this area," he volunteers, "you can spend a day in a KIPP school and know that they are spending less money than the dropout factory down the road." Mr. Gates is less enamored of school vouchers. "Some in the Walton family"—of Wal-Mart fame—"have been very big on vouchers," he begins. "And honestly, if we thought there would...
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Inci Akpinar, the vice president of a company called Atlas Texas Construction & Trading, sat down with an official from the Louisiana Department of Education a little more than a year ago and made him an offer. As the state official, Folwell Dunbar, recalled in a memo to department colleagues, Akpinar flattered him with "a number of compliments" before getting to the point: "I have twenty-five thousand dollars to fix this problem: twenty thousand for you and five for me." At the time, Dunbar was investigating numerous complaints against Abramson Science & Technology Charter School in eastern New Orleans, which...
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Paul Castro had a promising career in the Houston Independent School District. At 29, he landed his first principal job.... But Castro made an abrupt exit last summer. He got a promotion at KIPP, Houston's fast-growing charter school chain. In a recent interview, Castro said he felt frustrated because he thought Superintendent Terry Grier was reining in his power as a principal. ..."There's no question, if they (KIPP) could grow their own, they wouldn't be recruiting from us," Grier said. Similar rivalries are playing out in other hotbeds for charter schools. In Ohio, KIPP swiped a young principal from another...
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