Brockton High School has been hailed as one of the best high schools in the nation, celebrated for its excellent programs and high test scores. What makes its success especially impressive is that the school has 4,100 students and a large immigrant population.
Now enters the SABIS for-profit charter chain, seeking to compete with Brockton High School. In this report, EduShyster has a guest blogger explain.
Clearly, SABIS won’t be “saving poor kids from a failing public school,” because Brockton High is one one the best high schools in the state.
So why would the state allow the charter to open and lure students and resources away from a fine public school?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
That is a huge school. The largest high school in my state is 2300 and we have over 70 high schools with total enrollments under 100 students.
TE,
You have obliquely referred to the state-square state in the midwest and now this-in which you live. Do you mind stating which state? I’m a Show Me Stater myself.
Duane
Just across the border in Kansas.
Ah, a Jayhawker, eh. No doubt that the Jayhawkers were correct in the Civil War. Unfortunately the state of Kansas’s board of education managed to spawn the Flying Spaghetti Monster as a response to the insanities that they were proposing-ha ha!
Thanks for letting us know! You’re just another flyover person like me!! What do us mid folks know about anything anyway!!
May you be touched by his noodly appendage.
“Efficient is the term that best describes the SABIS® approach to teaching,” proclaims the SABIS ® web site. “This efficiency is brought forth by teaching a body of knowledge and skills with minimal input in the shortest time possible.”
I was struck by Sabis’ website description. ” … minimal input in the shortest time possible.” Are they teaching human beings there, or programming machines? Will this approach work for all students? Where’s the differentiation? ‘Makes me recoil. Yuck!
Yes, that description of their “services” leaves more than a lot to be desired.
Over at Eduwonk, Andy Rotherham truimphantly announces the success of the parent trigger in CA. But then he expresses the deepest fear of the privatizers: What if these parents try to do it themselves without “experienced” organizers? Well, we all know what that means – they won’t get the money.
It seems to me that charter schools are “cats out of the bag” and are spreading rapidly. Teachers can either sit back passively and accept it or they can start these charter schools themselves. In California it’s my understanding that if 50% of a faculty votes for charter status, they can turn their school into a charter run by the teachers.
Once teachers have their own schools, they can teach in the way that’s best for kids, assign themselves decent salaries, vote for the head teacher to do the administrative tasks and use school money (instead of their own) for basic supplies. As managers of the school, the teachers would be fully professional and make almost all decisions.
Yes, I know that teachers are not into the logistics of starting a school and don’t want non-teaching duties, but they can organize “charter starters” just as these profit-making companies do.
Just think, teachers who are in charge of their own schools! Now, that would be something new! I’d give anything to see teachers take the lead in true reform.
What do you think?
If what you say is true then your idea might be excellent, except for the fact that getting 51% of the staff to agree on anything is difficult-ha ha!
Could sound like a viable option, though.
What happens if both the teachers and parents try to take over a school at once?
Actually, it’s a bad idea. Why should either the teachers or parents be able to take control of an entity that is community/public property in the fashion that these “trigger” (wasn’t that Roy’s horse???) laws work?
Teachers would run these schools for the people of the community in the same way that physicians run tax-supported clinics or professors run departments in public universities. These schools would be almost identical to public schools now except that teachers would be in charge. Now THAT would be a change!
Alumni include Rocky Marciano and Marvin Hagler. Hagler made his pro debut in Brockton High’s gymnasium and ultimately got 10 of his 62 wins there.
Boxing, such a gentleman’s sport!
(And personally I can’t give a rat’s ass if two adults want to beat the crap out of each other but what a waste of the “press’s” time and energy to cover boxing and all the other martial arts-duh let’s glorify violence some more).
Clearly you’ve forgotten Hagler’s deodorant commercials.
I’m a huge boxing fan (and hate MMA) for various reasons, but I’m certainly conflicted about it. And like stuff like drugs and prostitution, boxing will go on whether or not I watch it. In fact, we’re largely already at that point. With very few exceptions, boxing no longer has an American mass market, but it continues to make a handful of promoters gobs of money while leaving almost all of its athletes broke and often seriously damaged. It’s a semi-criminal to deeply criminal industry that has never been properly regulated, and it would take very, very little to change that.
Poor children need to understand that in the grander scheme of things, their needs do NOT measure up to the wants of the afluent parents.
Exactly, F’em eh! They ain’t worth the money we spend on em, eh?