Despite Push, Success at Charter Schools Is Mixed

[tonysam]

We know charters aren't worth a shit; "effectiveness" is not the reason they exist.

They exist to DESTROY public education and thus one of two means of upward mobility for the vast majority of people.

The World Bank and the neoliberals DESPISE upward mobility since that is a threat to the financial elites.

From the article:

In the world of education, it was the equivalent of the cool kids’ table in the cafeteria.

Executives from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, McKinsey consultants and scholars from Stanford and Harvard mingled at an invitation-only meeting of the New Schools Venture Fund at a luxury hotel in Pasadena, Calif. Founded by investors who helped start Google and Amazon, this philanthropy seeks to raise the academic achievement of poor black and Hispanic students, largely through charter schools.

Many of those at the meeting last May had worried that the Obama administration would reflect the general hostility of teachers’ unions toward charters, publicly financed schools that are independently run and free to experiment in classrooms. But all doubts were dispelled when the image of Arne Duncan, the new education secretary, filled a large video screen from Washington. He pledged to combine “your ideas with our dollars” from the federal government. “What you have created,” he said, “is a real movement.”

That movement includes a crowded clique of alpha girls and boys, including New York hedge fund managers, a Hollywood agent or two and the singers John Legend and Sting, who performed at a fund-raiser for Harlem charter schools last Wednesday at Lincoln Center. Charters have also become a pet cause of what one education historian calls a billionaires’ club of philanthropists, including Mr. Gates, Eli Broad of Los Angeles and the Walton family of Wal-Mart.

NYT, of course

And for all that effort, these "schools" aren't worth a shit overall.

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. Arne won't meet with the unions but teleports himself to the charters

How many of them are union?

[tonysam]

2. Almost zip

I just hate that dumb jock.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. Did you read that article?

It tells about a 'successful' charter school teacher drilling kids until they can spit out factoids.

But it doesn't paint a completely positive picture of charters.

So to keep those philanthropists donating, next item on the agenda is to criticize traditional public schools so charters are seen as the best choice. It's all part of the destructive pattern.

[mzteris]

4. poorly written -

Case in point - wtf does that guy know about that last kid he was mocking in the article, eh?

"drilling kids" is an awful way to learn, imo. Though admittedly some kids like it and thrive on it.


You thought this was a pro-charter article? Oh my. I thought it was terrible! Two schools do not reflect all charters. And the information left out of the "studies" is just mind-boggling.

You can't judge all schools by one or two extreme examples. . .

[Hannah Bell]

6. "can't judge all schools by one or two extreme examples." BUT YOU DO IT ALL THE TIME.

The rationalizations only start for you when it's CHARTER SCHOOLS being gored.

And they're going to be gored more & more often, because there's NO EVIDENCE, NOT ONE SCINTILLA, THAT THEY're ANY BETTER THAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

At the end of this charade we'll have privatized ed for the well-off & prison schools for the poor, & the poor will be doing WORSE than when the kabuki started.

[tonysam]

5. But in truth, why educate the kids at all beyond sixth grade?

The jobs aren't there for highly skilled people.