Reply #110: That "group" that wants to put $200 million into the Detroit "public" schools

[Tansy_Gold]

is led by a man, Eli Broad, who admits he knows nothing about education. Great! Terrific! Next time you go to a doctor, make sure you get one who knows nothing about medicine.

Broad and his billionaire friends will "invest" $200 million in order to get their hands on a healthy portion of the $1.2 billion annual budget.

He will NOT be held accountable, any more than the other operators of failed charter schools are held accountable. When they fail, they fail and they just go away, leaving behind a mess for the taxpayers to clean up. Sound familiar?

You've got a dream, mzteris, and it's a laudable dream. But I think, in my humble opinion, that you are letting your dream, your hopes, your wishes, all get in the way of a very ugly reality.

More charter schools fail than succeed, and when they fail, they fail quickly and devastatingly. If anything, they have fewer tools, fewer resources than the "public" schools they're trying to replace.

Yes, Urban Prep Charter Academy in Chicago appears to have had some success; its class of 107 all-male seniors has achieved 100% college acceptance. The details aren't too clear, but on the surface it looks like a success story. But -- and there are lots of buts about the UPCA story -- this isn't a corporate foundation venture the way the Detroit "experiment" is. We know Tom King, who run UPCA, has some "connections." We know Robert Bobb of DPS has "connections" as well, and he's got major conflicts of interest, as King might.

You're willing to believe Broad and Gates and BES can just swoop in and Detroit will miraculously have high quality schools. Will that help the 50% unemployment rate? Will it improve the quality of life the kids at those 70 schools have when they leave the classroom?

Instead of grasping at straws, why not look at the facts, the facts that indicate we don't even know for sure what a "failing school" really is, the facts that indicate charter schools are NOT the answer to public education's problems, the facts that indicate the LAST place education budgets should be cut is EDUCATORS. In charter schools, that's often the FIRST thing that's cut.


Tansy Gold