Posted on 02/21/2010 12:14:19 PM PST by beaversmom
You wrote “Also they don’t have to deal with special education issues and accommodations.”
Not in Ohio, all “charter” schools that are receiving federal funds must provide Special Education services just like your public schools. I would look into it in your state. I highly doubt they aren’t required to provide the services. Not to mention that many special education students flee to charter schools to get the services or care needed.
Stossel had Eva Moskowitz on the program. According to her, and contrary to what you’ve been told by your union, her schools have 15% special needs students. Their students are chosen by lottery, so they have not cherrypicked to avoid ESL and special needs.
I have no problem with her making a good living running schools that parents are fighting to get their kids into and that cost no more (actually less) per student to the taxpayer.
Had you watched the segment on Washington DC schools, you’d know that the vouchers there were for $7,500 per student and the public schools are costing $15,000 per student. So to say that “I have never heard of a charter school saving its city money” makes you uninformed and spouting your union’s party line or mealey mouthed parsing some difference between “charter schools” and “vouchers”.
Charter schools are just a compromise forced on people that would really rather have vouchers — if the teacher’s unions didn’t have so much political clout as to make charter schools barely possible and vouchers impossible. Charter schools are only more expensive than private schools due to the school district’s continuing interference and control that private schools don’t have to put up with.
Parent teacher conferences are an absolute, total, unmitigated, irredeemable WASTE OF TIME!!!!!
Those 5,000 parents waiting in line likely **wisely*** concluded the same.
Wintertime: An experienced mom who gave up on incompetence, took charge, and HOMESCHOOLED!
Thank you for posting the links to those videos. I’d missed the program, and I’m glad I was able to watch it.
ping
You are welcome :)
That little boy crying made me cry :(
I am very, very sorry about your girls not being accepted. It has terrible consequences for them.
For future children, I see these 600 plus kids on a waiting list as a very hopeful sign, but it isn't going to come in time for your kids.
Those 600 plus kids languishing on a waiting list represents a **POWERFULL** lobby block. ( And...you say, that those 600 kids are for only one of several choice schools in the area.) First of all, legislators will not be deaf to the pleas of that many parents. Second, getting 600 kids out of the government schools is a tremendously savings for the state budget. Both are blockbuster motivators for legislators to act in favor of choice.
I see large large cracks forming in the government school citadel. Large and seemingly intractable institutions can and **do** lose their legitimacy seemingly overnight. Three examples are our American Revolution, Martin Luther and the Catholic Church, and fall of Jim Crow.
The government school citadel will fall, and I expect it to be soon.
I mean - 600+ sixth graders trying to get into a better school.
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I am very, very sorry about your girls not being accepted. It has terrible consequences for them.
For future children, I see these 600 plus kids on a waiting list as a very hopeful sign, but it isn’t going to come in time for your kids.
Those 600 plus kids on a waiting list represents a **POWERFULL** lobby block. ( And...you say, that those 600 kids are for only one of several choice schools in the area.) First of all, will not be deaf to the pleas of that many parents. Second, getting 600 kids out of the government schools is a tremendously savings for the state budget. Both are blockbuster motivators for legislators to act in favor of choice.
I see large large cracks forming in the government school citadel. Large and seemingly intractable institutions can and **do** lose their legitimacy seemingly overnight. Three examples are our American Revolution, Martin Luther and the Catholic Church, and fall of Jim Crow.
The government school citadel will fall, and I expect it to be soon.
My oldest son has an IEP and goes to a charter. We left one charter that didn’t work out for him and found this one. We probably have about 6 now in our immediate area with one starting up in 2010/2011. The director of the school started a charter in his neighbourhood a few years back then started this one 85 miles away. He travels over 170 total miles each work day rain sleet or snow. He’s an incredibly good, dedicated man. The other one didn’t work out for us. Horrible director. Middle boy was doing great, but oldest wasn’t thriving. I’m glad we had the choice.
Well, if you consider homeschooling, there are plenty of us around who can give you advice.
I don’t know where you live, but one option for more advanced coursework is community college. I know a lot of parents are intimidated by teaching high school, but technically, it’s up to the parent to direct the child’s coursework. As far as I know, there’s no requirement that the parent actually be the one doing the teaching. Matter of fact, by the time my kids were in junior high, they were pretty self-sufficient in teaching themselves.
In NY if you take enough hours at a community college, you can get a NYS high school diploma. However, most colleges worth their salt, have a homeschool liaison for admissions, and actively recruit homeschooled students. They’ve found them to be generally exceptional students and want them.
BFL. Stossel is the last real investigative reporter alive.
“I am very, very sorry about your girls not being accepted. It has terrible consequences for them.”
That was my incentive for pushing them to try to get in. On the other hand, I am hopeful that with the help they get from mom and dad that they will be pushed and grow. We’ll see. I can’t dwell on the “terrible consequences” too much. The other big thing other than the academics is the social atmosphere. All our kids are great kids, but it can be tough to stand up to the peer pressure. Out older son has done well and pretty sure he will stay on the straight and narrow. The girls I think will too, but at the age of 12 their is still room to change perhaps for the worse.
In New Haven, CT, a charter company took over two horrible schools 5 years ago. Those schools are now by far the two highest scoring schools in the city. And the costs of the schools are in line or lower per student than other, mostly failing schools in the district.
You have no freaking idea what you are talking about. But what else should I expect from a union stooge?
John Stossel has been beating this drum for a long time. There are major problems with his work.
His Belgium stats are cooked. He left out the fact public schools in the US beat them out in other grade levels. He leaves out this information to suit his argument, just like the New York Times.
We also educate all students, Europe and the rest of the world doesn’t. They get to use trade schools for those that don’t want or qualify for pre-college study. We get sued for “tracking”. Again, he is leaving out inconvenient facts for the sake of his argument.
Our education money is also attached to the student in their district so Stossel’s argument is not totally factual. Funding is determined by attendance, federal monies are determined at the beginning of the year. If student populations change so does the funding.
Also remember Belgium is a FEDERAL system. We have schools primarily funded by local taxes. In order to attach money to the child all education monies would have to be collected by the federal government. Cities and states don’t let you take the tax dollars over the border.
The argument about education spending per student is so misleading. We are required by law to provide so many services that go beyond education. I’m sure they don’t have asbestos abetment laws in Kazakhstan. How did those pesky building codes work out in Haiti? Also, Europe (and everyone else) has socialized health care so that part of the teacher’s salary is not counted as “education funding”. Lots of ways to cook the books on this stat.
Flat test scores are what you get when you import 8 million kids that don’t speak English and have a third grade education going into middle school. Not to mention internet, gaming consuls, cell phone texting, and 500 cable channels. Math is way more fun than those lame things.
Two indicators that a student will do well, autonomy and choice? Please, it’s a two parent household that raises their children with some level of self-discipline. After that autonomy and choice are great.
That women’s daughter is in 6th grade and can’t spell girl. Assuming everything is biologically ok with the kid, how does that happen? Did public school have to teach her to wipe her rear end as well? Let’s see this child’s attendance records, how much homework she turned in, how often in the school year she moved, did she get kicked out of class a lot. Stossel doesn’t even acknowledge that there might be other reasons than bad teachers. What a hack.
D.C. Public schools are a mess no question. However saying a lottery is a random selection of the D.C. student body shows Stossel didn’t take enough science in school. The parents self selected. These are the parents that care what happens and are smart enough to know a long school day will help, even if the kid objects.
Head Start is nothing but a babysitting program for inner city families. An ax would be well applied to this program.
I love it “the money just disappears”. “It goes to assistant principals” wow great reporting there John, AP’s run our school and work 70+ hours a week.
When money is wasted I can tell you where to look. Misappropriation by superintendents and board members, massively over paid consultants, local business that overcharge for products and services, (I’ve been told not to use Amazon or Wal-mart because we must support local business at 2x the price.)
The rubber room in New York is the most misrepresented “union” problem in education today. The New York discipline committee only meets twice a month. One teacher was sent there for saying the word “damn” to a student. Swearing at a child in NY is considered child abuse, I kid you not. The “dangerous” teachers should be charged with a crime. It’s easy to get fired when you get arrested. Is it too much to call 911?
There are many legitimate criticisms of the public education system. Ignoring the main problems of students not studying, parents not taking an interest in their kids’ education, and popular culture reinforcing an anti-education mentality aren’t going to make the problem go away.
and to add to this it’s my belief one of the 1st things the ‘bamster did was cut funding for ALL charter schools in DC
Really and all things are equal between the schools? How is discipline handled? What happens when a kid brings drugs or swears at a teacher? Gets kicked out right? So that kid doesn’t go to school anymore. Nope they get to go to the public school. Does the charter have to do all the due process? Probably not. They can also convince the parent it is in their best interest to leave the charter and go to public school so their kid will not be “labeled”.
Union stooge…. Is that the best you got? You have no clue how schools are run or what we do. Go work as a substitute teacher for a month and come back and tell me I’m a stooge. First time a kid accused you of being a racist, a homophobe, or saying something mean you would be screaming for a union rep.
Oh at the charter school they will just fire you. Not that they believe the kid, but if mommy and daddy bring in too much money, are on the board, or just good for business you are gone. Good luck working in education again with a reputation like that against you.
Oh at the charter school they will just fire you. Not that they believe the kid, but if mommy and daddy bring in too much money, are on the board, or just good for business you are gone. Good luck working in education again with a reputation like that against you.”
Wow. You have no idea how the real world works, do you ? People working everywhere have the same concerns — except they have more faith in their boss NOT firing them to appease one disgruntled customer. They actually investigate such charges. Charter schools do not “just fire” willy nilly teachers as sacrificial lambs to satisfy a single complaint. The only reason you think being fired from a teaching job will mark you forever is because the unions have made it so nearly impossible to fire a teacher that people assume the reason for any firing must be really egregious misconduct. So you've been hoist by your own petard. Teachers know who the incompetent teachers around them are, but they defend them anyway out of "union solidarity". You deserve no sympathy. You are a willing participant in a corrupt organization.
When money is wasted I can tell you where to look. Misappropriation by superintendents and board members, massively over paid consultants, local business that overcharge for products and services, (I’ve been told not to use Amazon or Wal-mart because we must support local business at 2x the price.)
The answer is to abolish public schools. Fire all the teachers. And the administrators, too, but with prejudice. Auction off (or lease) the facilities to the highest bidder.
Of course, that means you'd be out of a job, Marty. If you wanted to continue in teaching, you'd have to find a job with a private school or team up with some of your fellow fired teachers to start a new school. Or maybe a new school franchise concept, if you really want to get rich. In any case, no more tenure. No more pension. Just a measly 401K like us poor schlubs in the dreaded private sector (but, psst!, maybe some founders' stock, if you do it right).
The gubmint would be required to regulate the new education providers very lightly. No requirement that they educate illegals in their native language, for instance. Admissions testing would be permitted. So, for instance, setting up special schools to help the gifted realize their full potential would be encouraged.
Then the parents would decide how to spend their kids' voucher money. That's when we would find out whether it's worth paying AP's to work 70+ hours to really run our schools
. Without market discipline, how do we know those AP's are not just over paid consultants
? If they are really needed to run a school, the schools that had good ones would prosper. If not, the ones that wasted money on them would go bankrupt, teach on the street! Just like the dreaded private sector! (LOL) And, as for Wal-mart, hell, maybe they'd decide to expand from health care into education!
The effect of such a change on Marty could be positive or negative. If he's good at what he does, it could be a massive positive. If not, well, there's always Micky D and second-rate burgers.
Ok fine but parent only get the amount of money they pay toward education taxes. You don’t pay you don’t get any money.
Also no requirement for education.; If parents don’t want to teach their kids to read, not the governments problem.
You might do well under this system. You could offer housing and food to a few kids to work in the plant. In exchange maybe hire a few teachers to teach basic math. Until the kids loose a finger or two then you can fire them.
Hey lets go back to the time when the church and nobles were the only ones who could read. Man the good old days.
Then again Woody you might not have enough ammo to live through the riots, oh well enjoy the 18th century.
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