I wish SOME charter school critics would stop being hypocrites.

[RandySF]

I just had a lengthy discussion about the virtues and drawbacks about charter schools, especially the KIPP program in San Francisco. I acknowledged the pluses and minuses while she bashed it up one side and down the other, primarily criticising its ability to catch the most motivated kids and parents in the most at-risk neighborhood in the city. Then, at the end of the conversation, she admitted tha her daughter attends Ruth Asawa School of the Arts, which is one of the two most selective high schools in the district. In other words, a selective school for me, but not for three. I'm sorry, but that's hypocrisy.

[msongs]

1. seperate the precious spawn from the various forms of scum = charter schools nt

[RandySF]

2. And so do Lowell and Asawa, which are public high schools.

[abolugi]

3. My daughter went to a charter

school, here in CA, over 10 years ago. Back before charters were toxic.. and I was extremely satisfied. I assume things have changed in the charter system, but I grew up in the local public school system and it was terrible. I had nothing but bad memories of bullies and entitled kids and jocks getting away with "murder". I wanted better for my daughter and I believed she received better.
Its really too bad charters have gotten such a bad name. Some are very good.

[RandySF]

4. Too many opening.

Charters are popping up like mushrooms and many are poorly run. That provides fodder for people like I mention, who has a knee-jerk reaction against charters even though her daughter goes to one of the best, most selective public high schools in the state. I would like to know what she would think if her children went to Balboa or Marshall.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. Charters are a very mixed bag. Some are wonderful, some there just to steal money

Too many in education are willing to throw away the good ones in a binary decision to get rid of those which are not performing

[NYC_SKP]

21. Thanks a fact, ProgressiveProfessor. The broadbrushing by "progressives" is embarrassing.

[sulphurdunn]

18. Public schools are microcosms

of their communities and of the nations values. Everyone gets to attend. Democracy is like that too. It's messy, and there are bullies and privileged people and poor people. Teachers do the best they can to create some semblance of equality. Most of us will not tolerate bullies, but bullies are with us always. I'm glad you believe your daughter received a better education at a charter school, but this fight isn't about individual schools. It's about whether public education should reflect the public or whether some people are permitted to send their children to de facto private schools that are paid for with public money and are not accountable to local educational authorities.

[NYC_SKP]

6. IMHO, there's no sanity around the discussion of Charter Schools on these boards.

There's a very local number of folks who seem absolutely against even successful and open public charter schools.

Rational adult discussion here is challenging around this topic.

[HiPointDem]

8. it's like having a rational adult discussion about the pros and cons of grand theft or forgery.

[NYC_SKP]

9. Or ice cream or puppies.

There are a hell of a lot of DU members who teach or work at public charter schools.

If public schools don't get their fucking shit together, and soon, there will be a hell of a lot more traditional shitty school teachers out of work.

Good day.

[HiPointDem]

31. nothing to do with public schools "getting their fucking shit together". has to do with capital

turning education into a profit center and undermining labor.

and i consider those who refuse to see that, & prefer to paint the issue as all about "shitty school teachers," either naive, stupid, or -- something worse altogether.

nothing personal, of course.

[NYC_SKP]

32. shitty schools.

I work in and with schools, one full time job and two additional consultancies, and I know what the fuck I'm talking about, unlike 99.9% of the writers on discussion boards.

nothing personal, of course.

"capital turning education into a profit center and undermining labor." is a tired tired tired line rolled out that places blame without suggesting solutions, it's a sad sad kind of POV that fixed nothing and true progressive educators don't espouse it, they're too busy fixing things and actually working on it instead of trying to deflect blame.

[HiPointDem]

33. you work for the charter industry.

[NYC_SKP]

35. You have your head...

...saying things you seem to be making up.

I work for a very very very public public public school system, also with the state department of education.

But I also work with nonprofits AND the private sector.

The one group industry I DON'T work for, interestingly enough, is the private charter industry.

What do you work for?

[HiPointDem]

36. "non-profits" and "private sector" charters "public school system" = "public" charters

[sulphurdunn]

7. What purpose is served

by charter schools? What can they possibly do that public schools couldn't do better with the public resources directed away from public schools to fund them?

[NYC_SKP]

10. Many, but not all, tradional schools are too large and bureaucratic to respond to students' needs.

They are often, but not always, crippled by inertia.

Some public traditional schools have found ways to create "schools within schools", or magnets, or academies, that do well: This is some of what the public charter movement seeks to do; to start from scratch, to serve the whole student, to celebrate diversity, to respond quickly.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of shitty PRIVATE charter schools that give really great PUBLIC charter schools a bad name.

[sulphurdunn]

11. If an institution is too large

too bureaucratic or too crippled by inertia to serve the purpose for which it was created, then it should be fixed or eliminated and replaced with an institution that does work, not a de facto laissez-faire patchwork of private contractors with little accountability or consequences for their actions. The results of public-private partnerships discharging the responsibilities of government (from the use of mercenaries and corporate spy agencies to hiring banks to provide social services) have been scandalous. Charter schools are just another scheme in the trend to divert public money to private uses by investing in unprincipled politicians.

[NYC_SKP]

12. You must not be in the education field...

Or if you are you're in Florida or someplace ridden with these awful schools.

[sulphurdunn]

14. Whether or not

I am in "the education field" bears no logical relationship to my argument anymore than you disparaging schools in Florida does.

[NYC_SKP]

13. Fixed or eliminated. Fixing is really really hard...

Ask any teacher whether or not their schools are able to reform easily or not, even when they have funds.

You'll find that raises and promotions among non-teaching staff are done along "good old boy" lines.

You'll find far to often that grant funds are mis-spent, deliberately.

I agree, if they can't self heal and reform, then they should be closed.

In the meantime, many small PUBLIC charter schools offer alternatives.

[sulphurdunn]

15. I've been a teacher

for 25 years. Before that I spend 20 years working in the private sector as everything from a business owner to a day laborer. When I wore a blue collar I was always getting screwed by guys in suits. When I ran my own business I was always defending myself from sociopaths in suits trying to screw me. I assure you that cronyism and financial corruption in public education can't hold a candle to what is considered normal in the private sector, and that includes charter schools. The problem with public schools stems from the savage social, racial and economic inequalities that are dismissed by our Hiratio Alger myths. Charter schools are not designed to remedy injustice through educational opportunity. They can't do that anymore than public schools can, nor do they offer alternatives to such pathologies because they are designed to scapegoat the real problem and to feed off of it by creating risk free investment opportunities for our financial class. is this clear now?

[NYC_SKP]

17. Well, there simply ARE many terrific charter schools.

In my community that have saved kids from failing traditional schools.

I'm going to believe my eyes and my experience and my knowledge over the broadbrushing statements made here.

Good luck in all you do.

[sulphurdunn]

19. You are free

to counter my "broadbrushing" with specific, focused, detailed and quantifiable examples of your claims. Good luck.

[NYC_SKP]

20. I'm not on DU to "win" arguments with stangers.

I think you're the original poster who asked why charters, I told you why, take it or just leave it.

Arguing on discussion boards is not the best use of my time.

[sulphurdunn]

22. Sorry.

This is a discussion board. Serious discussion entails more than opinion. It requires argument.

[NYC_SKP]

23. Your mind is made up, you hate charters, you are too buried in your position.

I'm not going to list here my own favorite local schools because I don't do that on discussion boards, there are too many crazy people.

I will give you a link to a great one that I work with.

http://echsonline.org/

Review, then get back to me with your argument about how awful they are.

[sulphurdunn]

24. A very nice school

I'm sure. But my original question was to inquire about just what a charter school could do that a public school couldn't do as well or better. Your response was that too many public schools are burdened by bureaucracy and inertia. I replied that when an institution becomes that way it becomes necessary to fix it or to replace with another institution, not a proliferation of independent charter schools that are largely unaccountable to the people who pay the bills for several years. The merit or lack thereof of any particular school was never part of my concern. The idea of using public money to privatize public education was. I would have no objection to any charter school that was non-profit, under the control of a locally elected school board, met the same academic standards and curriculum requirements of a traditional public school and entered into the same continuing contracts and wage scales with teachers, administrators and support staff that are democratically determined by local school boards in consultation with local government. Those are no more onerous requirements than are required of magnet schools within the traditional school system. The idea that a charter school needs to be independent of such oversight to be creative is suspect and something for which not one scintilla of evidence has ever been presented of which I am aware.

[NYC_SKP]

25. OK. Here's the catch.

If the fixing isn't working, then (as you suggest) replacement is the cure.

The trouble is that often the culprit is the inertia of the DISTRICT.

So, let's say that Sacramento Unified has a terrible underperforming and hopeless school with all the staff in a malaise and fixing isn't working.

Then we take the next step, replacing.

The trouble is that the replacing, if done by the district, won't be a heck of a lot better if a lot of the problems are at district level.

What's the next step, replace the district?

While all this is going on, your kid is getting older year by year and then it's too late.

If a public charter opens that is a better fit, and they are a public charter that has to be WASC certified and that uses union employees and that has to help students pass the same standardized tests, then what in heaven is wrong with offering that choice to parents?

[sulphurdunn]

27. Nothing is wrong with it.

Few charter schools meet or even aspire such standards though.

[HiPointDem]

34. Jonathan P Raymond, Broad Superintendent's Academy 2006. How come all your examples of failed

school districts are run by fucking education deformers?

All run by the Gates-Broad crowd.

the *mayor* of sacramento is an education deformer too; kevin johnson michelle rhee's husband.

the education institutions of every major city in the country are run by education deformers. yet people like you pretend there's this entrenched "big education" monolith fighting some "reformers". it's absolute bullshit.

it's big capital steamrolling a few activist teachers and education workers.

[NYC_SKP]

26. Here's another nice school:

I don't think there's a large or small high school in San Jose, or a district, that would have wanted or been able (unless it had an entire new staff) to create this program:

http://www.sjcccharterschool.org/

Often, these charter schools are actually created by staff from traditional schools who want to see reform and then go out and created it out of frustration with the status quo.

I don't see the down side.

Indeed, the shitty ones should be shut down but the blanket argument against all charters is flawed.

[sulphurdunn]

28. Public education

already offers a curriculum like this. It's called a GED program. The school to which you refer here is part of the The Job Corps and AmeriCorps NCCC system. What it has to do with traditional K-12 schools escapes me. However, I am very much in favor of such institutions and always have been.

[sulphurdunn]

16. Well, what's the beef?

You've as much as admitted that public schools are perfectly capable of doing what charter schools claim to do. So, why do we need charter schools?

[RandySF]

30. Where did I say that?

I said that there are pluses and minuses and that not every charter is great. Here in SF, we have good public schools and terrible public schools. As a result, we have parents trying to scratch and elbow their kids into the better ones. The person I had the discussion with got her daughter into one of the most selective public high schools in the state. Admission is based on application and selection, not where one lives.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

29. Charters should provide something that the general public schools do not

Charters were originally intended to be laboratories for educational improvement and specialization. I could easily support them being used for language immersion or other specialized foci. Without some thing that differentiates them from the other public schools in the district, they really bring nothing additional to the students, who should be the focus for education.