Keyword: charterschools
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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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A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves.- Bertrand de Jouvenel des Ursins, usually known only as Bertrand de Jouvenel (31 October 1903, Paris – 1 March 1987) was a French philosopher, political economist, and futurist. G u l a g B o u n d Video, "Gov. Rick Perry’s amazing speech to RLC 2011" at TheRightScoop.com James Richard "Rick" Perry assumed the governorship of Texas in 2000 when he took over from George W. Bush, who resigned to take the oath of office of President. He holds all records for Texas gubernatorial tenure. Perry has...
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Minority parents in New York have a message for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT): you are hurting our children. In New York Monday, charter school parents staged another of several rallies to voice opposition to a lawsuit brought by the UFT and NAACP against the New York City Department of Education. If the organizations are successful with their suit, it would prevent enrollment or re-enrollment in 17 charter schools and stop the closure of 22 public schools. The UFT and NAACP’s decision to sue has roiled inner city...
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TRENTON — Capital Preparatory Charter High School has surrendered its charter and is under investigation for financial mismanagement and a range of violations by the New Jersey State Police, a state Department of Education spokesman said yesterday. The Grand Street school had been placed on two consecutive 90-day probationary periods before it gave up its charter May 2. It will close at the end of the school year. Because Capital Prep chose to surrender its charter rather than have it revoked, it cannot appeal, DOE spokesman Alan Guenther said. In addition to the financial problems, visits to the 329-student school...
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Last week we reported how charter schools are less racially diverse than traditional public schools. This return to the dark days of our segregated past supposedly should be of concern to us even if it is not to the thousands of black parents who willingly enroll their children in the charter schools. That would make the children victims of racism perpetrated by their parents, an interesting new twist on an old outrage. Charter schools are publicly funded but privately run. They compete for students with public schools. Teachers' unions hate them because they take jobs from unionized teachers. There are...
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Our school children are facing Muslim indoctrination with “The 99"; project which is set to air in January with a 13 episode series on the Discovery Channel for Kids. President Obama praised this media event for capturing young imaginations by “teaching tolerance for Islam” at his recent Washington, D.C. Presidential Summit speech. This new series is using animated adventure heroes to depict the 99 attributes of Allah in what the London Times is saying “the show’s mission is to instill old fashioned Islamic values” into our Christian children. Kathy Bright of the Bright Media network has developed The Shield Bearer...
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Allie Winegar Duzett, Last week, the United States Department of Education awarded $50,000,000 to the Charter School Grant Program, to “replicate and expand” high-achieving public charter schools. According to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, over the next five years the grants are expected to serve 76,000 students, in 127 new and 31 expanded charter schools. In the past, grants of this nature were only given to start-up public charter schools—so public charter schools that were already set up and functioning were denied funding. The support for public charter schools is indeed heartening—and not limited only to the federal...
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It’s the film the teachers unions don’t want you to see. The revelatory documentary “Waiting for ‘Superman’ ” opened Friday to parents’ cheers — and union howls. The film follows five families trying desperately to escape failing traditional public schools in favor of charter schools — and it profiles education reformers rebuilding a national school system that’s in ruins. The unions panned the flick, naturally: It exposes how they drag kids down into the swamp, spotlighting how bad teachers are passed from school to school and how all-but-automatic tenure allows even the worst teachers to stay on the job. But...
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It's the movement that could revolutionize America's schools. •The shocking state of our schools •Meet the children from the film *snip* ~ ~ ~ School Choice: What Are Your Options? ### School choice options available to parents have increased dramatically in recent years. There's a growing national sentiment that promoting competition in public education may spur schools to improve and that parents who invest energy in choosing a school will continue to be involved in their child's education. How much choice do you have? It depends. The amount of choice varies from one school district to another and varies from...
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One of the most compelling conservative books I have had the fortune to read is “Crazy Like A Fox” One Principal’s Triumph in the Inner City, by Dr. Ben Chavis and Carey Blakely. Ironically it was not written as a “conservative” book but conservative principles naturally erupted throughout this memoir of a brave educator that spun trash into gold. I found myself cheering as this politically incorrect America Indian pioneer took over the American Indian Charter Public School in Oakland, California, that was failing in every measurable aspect, a cesspool of illiteracy, and single-handedly brought it to the fifth ranked...
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Ever wonder why the teachers unions hate charter schools so much? Here's one reason. State test scores this week showed 100 percent of eighth-graders in the Harlem Village Academies achieved proficiency in science and social studies. By contrast, in Harlem's traditional public schools, only 35 percent of eighth-graders made the grade in science, and 22 percent in social studies. This continues a trend: New York charters -- public schools that operate free of union work rules and bureaucratic mandates -- are wildly outperforming their traditional counterparts in student test scores, graduation rates, college acceptances and other measures.
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<p>'What's funny," says Madeleine Sackler, "is that I'm not really a political person." Yet the petite 27-year-old is the force behind "The Lottery"—an explosive new documentary about the battle over the future of public education opening nationwide this Tuesday.</p>
<p>In the spring of 2008, Ms. Sackler, then a freelance film editor, caught a segment on the local news about New York's biggest lottery. It wasn't the Powerball. It was a chance for 475 lucky kids to get into one of the city's best charter schools (publicly funded schools that aren't subject to union rules).</p>
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Along with its usual claims that cuts will destroy schools, the Web site of the United Federation of Teachers marks the union's 50th anniversary by paying strange homage to a firebrand founder, Albert Shanker. It does so by saying that, "In a movie, Woody Allen once described Albert Shanker as a mad bomber who destroys the world." The union apparently sees this lone sentence as high praise for its late boss. The movie was "Sleeper," a 1973 hit where Allen, director and star, wakes 200 years in the future. Amid gags about dehumanizing machinery -- remember the Orgasmatron? -- Allen...
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The future of charter schools in New York hangs on negotiations between City Hall and teachers union President Michael Mulgrew. This is perverse. The United Federation of Teachers is fighting to limit the growth of charters even as the state's application for as much as $700 million in federal Race to the Top money demands letting the number of schools expand. Mulgrew's strategy has been to give the nod to upping the charter cap while trying to make it all but impossible for a sponsor to open one of these privately run, publicly funded academies. For example, by creating barriers...
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On Capitol Hill, all eyes have been focused on the House, as efforts to pass healthcare reform have grown increasingly dramatic. But a less-watched debate began in the Senate Tuesday, which offered a second chance for the Washington, D.C. private school voucher program that Congress phased out last year. The effort, however, was quickly squashed by a vote Tuesday night, with most Democrats voting against it along with Republican Olympia Snowe of Maine. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promised in January that he would allow debate about the program on the Senate floor. And on Tuesday, the Senate began considering...
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Memo to Republican Leaders: Republicans should exploit the HUGE advantage they have in education. Everybody knows, deep-down, that it's liberals who are screwing up the schools. Let's start shouting this from the rooftops! Every day! The linked article, published almost a year ago, gives all the basic points. Please pass this along to candidates, campaign managers, etc. (I have 100+ articles on the web explaining how the Education Establishment is dumbing down the country. I can usually explain what various policies actually achieve, versus what is promised.)
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On the final day of the National Education Association’s convention last summer, its outgoing general counsel, Bob Chanin, gave a speech for the ages. After sharing fond recollections of his 41 years as the NEA’s top lawyer, he switched gears and started lobbing grenades at “conservative and right-wing bastards,” including Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and Forbes. The NEA and its affiliates, by contrast, were “the nation’s leading advocates for public education and the type of liberal social and economic agenda that these groups find objectionable.” Chanin’s glowing portrait of the NEA was wildly wrong, of course, but so...
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