North Carolina’s SB 337 has been revised to add just a few limits to charter autonomy. There will not be a separate charter-friendly board to authorize charters; that responsibility will remain with the state board, which will likely be tilted towards charters anyway.
The original bill would have allowed all charter teachers to be uncertified. Currently, 75% of charter teachers in K-5 must be certified. The new bill drops that to 50%, instead of zero.
Charter teachers will be subject to criminal background checks. That’s a relief. And charters will be expected to reflect the racial diversity of their area.
Educators were less than thrilled with the low standards for charter teachers. One said, “Standards only seem to matter if you teach in a traditional public school system.” Another said, “A license is an assurance to the public, just like when I go to the doctor and look for his license to practice medicine…Do we want electricians and pharmacists to not have licenses? Do we want to create a professional system in which professionals are unlicensed?”
– See more at: http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2013/06/25/mixed-signals-on-charter-schools/#sthash.vsshLO2t.dpuf
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Sometimes don’t you just wonder if really you are just asleep and this is just a bad dream? How could rational people do these things? I guess the have to be irrational or how does it make sense?
George I live and teach in NC and it isn’t a dream but a nightmare. This is the most egregious state of affairs I’ve seen in 17 years of teaching! Oh and I am a nominal conservative and think this is a bunch of tripe!
What is happening is greater then the education system dismantling as it is a dismantling almost every system we have. If you go to the doctor or a clinic now you will be nudged to accept the nurse practioner as your care provider. That person may well be qualitfied to be a medical professional but they are not a doctor. Healthcare for the disabled is shifted to at home care with family as the main medically responsible person and they are not medical professionals.
And so it goes.
Equivalent to that also is happening in the financial sector and in industry. For heavens sake we are even questioning the credentials of the people at the NSA!! We have prisoners doing data input for industry, manufacturing an untold number of products and services for corporations and government. We have sold our souls to company store and most of it on the cheap.
No! The education dismantling is wrapped around everything from new world order of measurement and value added. No others need apply. It is part of the Urban Shrinkage design to retool and reshape
our cities and our country. It is about real estate markets. It is part of the sorting of minds and talent for the purpose of others then that of the individual and for profit and power. It is not about government, justice, business, family, or anything else as we have known it. It is the unraveling of damn near everything we have known or held dear. It a well constructed over a very long time of meticulous design and a global grab. It is about what we don’t know and mega years ahead in plan with a push now to move it into place.
The silence of most of media is deafening and all news is simply catching up by the seconds, minutes, hours, days and years. We are running back in time trying to maintain in the now with no idea of our future. The future knowing is reserved for an elite number of people who have claim on society as they own it and live it. Social engineers, techological gurus, government and courts at the highest level, Defense and Military Complex personnel, who lay claim on much of this in think tanks.
This is no dream but stark reality and it is basically being shoved down the publics throats with no honest input or concern for their well being. It is not about the public except to plug it into the boxes designated for their purpose. Harsh?!!! I think not. Conspiratorial?!!! No longer! It is real and it is now! I wish to hell it was a dream or even a nightmare because that you wake up from.This is is your sci-fi of yesterday come to life in our time and straight at our children. The children will not no a difference except for the stories the old folks tell…….
Oops sorry! two mistakes on the repeat of the word is and the word no should be know. Trying to run ahead of the nightmare and that is how mistakes happen. A lesson learned in this.
Ronee, I couldn’t have said it better. I have been saying that our education struggles are just a microcosm of the bigger picture. We are all being marched into serfdom. What we see is a stratification of our society as theorized in the sociology classic “The Power Elite” by Mills. It isn’t just education, our poorer families are economically trapped by the captain raiders of capitalism, and we are scapegoated under the fallacy that education can rescue us. It can’t, it is just the momentary lucrative target of the financial pirates that are buying our society.
But LACK of education can certainly make us fail.
“If you go to the doctor or a clinic now you will be nudged to accept the nurse practioner as your care provider. ”
Yep, and you’ll be charged a doctor’s fee for the nurse practicioner.
Harlan, you are right on your comment. The problem is in the narrowing of opportunity and sorting of some for the purpose of a few. Those few have their children and families covered for opportunity of an education and a good education at that, for healthcare and good healthcare, for financial consulting and good consulting, and the beat goes on. The masses are to struggle on their own and not in the rarified loop. The poor, disabled, disenfrancished, and elderly are in the worse of this mess.
Is the one percent or very wealthy entitled to that because they are who they are or because they have earned their way or have been lucky enough to ride financial security through the inheritance of a benefactor, just plain good fortune, or something else? They are! No matter, in this country they are entitled and I have no issue or problem with that. What I am worried about is the ownership factor and the arrogance of a paternalistic attititude that others should be ignored or kicked aside inclusive of their opinions, not respected and herded into the philosphy and plan of sources unknown to them. History does repeat itself and arrogance of power mongers, particularly the mega wealthy, have grabbed for national and global power before…..history is repleat with these scenarios.
These times are no different and no better. What is different are the tools that can expedite this betrayal of the greater number for the benefit of the chosen few. Elitism is not who we are but striving for the potential and contribution from each and all is a quest worth pursuing. Education is more then books and computers it is a whole experience of life and living with others and finding objectives and meeting goals.
I represent the disabled and watch the struggle they have each second of the day.They remind us that trying working hard to survive in a world not built or accommodated for them is really tough work and is to be respected and bring us some humility and humanity. You don’t turn away from people, you make sure to look them in the eyes and recognize they are human and their struggle is ours. Even more so are the children, all children, who have unlocked potential that the Public Schools, although not perfect, have been challenged through open enrollment to encourage and open minds and nurture futures and I believe they.do it best because it throws in all levels of humanity to learn from.
Harlan, I believe you want what is best for the country and the future of the planet. I don’t know you and find your comments worth the read and a cause to celebrate for it produces passion of thought in others. What you seem to find challenging is to try and breakdown the positions of the readers and writers in this blog. Sir, it won’t happen because these are people dedicated to what you may think is naive but they know makes a difference. They do with each student they find in their life and in their path to teach. I commend them and I thank you, because you make brains work.
I certainly have no quarrel with hard working teachers trying to empower their students, nor with you passionate advocacy for the disabled. What I object to is the blindness of so many of those people who think they have a RIGHT to take from the rich, simply because they are rich. It is theft. You say that you have no problem with the 1% having and keeping their wealth. You are an exception. The arrogance and irresponsibility of the rich is a different problem. Part of that hostility I am convinced is that by and large the great number of passionate souls seeking a better society have concluded that it MUST be by economic revolution in which the creators of wealth must be denigrated, scorned, morally vilified in order to justify the desire of the just to seek justice. It comes down to a difference in the definition of Justice. The ignorance of and insensitivity to the question of freedom in relation to justice seems to me to produce unnecessary opposition to the goals of social progressives. It goes even closer to the axis of self interest when a servant of society says a child has a “right” to this that or the other. If a child has such a “right” then someone must have a duty to supply the service that child has. If someone has such a duty, she or he can be forced to perform it by law. Such force can become tyranny. Thus, those who are interested in providing services to the poor look as if they are trying to feather their own nests by legislation which requires taxes to pay for those services. To compel people to work for others is slavery. So the most passionately benevolent in society, ultimately, cannot be differentiated from slave holders. That is a very great irony to me. Those most passionate about remediating the effects of slavery turn into proxy overseers. You’d think that they would not be blind to such an irony, but so many are, and in response to explanations such as mine above, which cannot be answered without being debated, veer away into contempt, invective, and sarcasm.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
What parent would send their child to a school that has only 50% of teachers certified? Who comes up with this stuff? They will close schools in minority neighborhoods and force this nonsense on the community.
Is there a requirement that any of the teachers at Sidwell Friends be certified?
I will bet all of them are.
BTW, troll, private doesn’t mean better, contrary to lies to you seem to spew around here.
Sidwell Friends is a PRIVATE school. I expect that any tax dollars that go to them are through the salaries of the families of their students. I don’t think SF is on the voucher track.
The original comment said nothing about tax dollars, just asked the question “Why would anyone send a child to a school that had only 50% of teachers certified”. It seems to me that parents who send their children to Sidwell Friends or Phillips Exeter are not making a foolish educational decision dispite the fact that the teachers need not be certified.
I certainly don’t think private education is superior to public. Somewhat unusually for frequent posters on this blog, my children have only attended public schools. I used the private school example because it is routine on this blog to point to Sidwell Friends, the Lab Schools, Phillips Exeter, and Dalton when talking about what the 1% want for their own children.
TE how many are? Do you know? Just curious
I believe there is no minimum percentage of certified teachers required by law for private schools.
Perhaps this might have something to do with their (Sidwell) success:
“All classes, with the exception of one third grade and one fourth grade, have team teachers. Individual class sizes range from one teacher for every ten students in the lower grades to one teacher for every 16 students in some fourth grade classes.”
So to be clear, small class sizes and team teachers (note: NOT teacher’s aides, mind you) is part of their successful formula.
But here in NC, we have mouth-breathers such as Sen. Jerry Tillman who could care less if you have 13 or 30 on a class. It doesn’t make any difference, “so long as you show results.”
TE, you can bet your bottom dollar that teachers in those highly-selective elite private schools that you site have certification. Until you show me they don’t, I can almost guarantee they do.
The issue here is if they are legally required to have certified teachers.
“Somewhat unusually for frequent posters on this blog, my children have only attended public schools.”
Not for this poster as all three of my children went to public schools
In my experience, being certified is not something private schools look for. In fact, I think sometimes it is a mark against you. Certification trains teachers to embrace learning in the sight of many paths. . . behind and ahead. And in fact we have always been trained in “no excuses” and pure “no child left behind” because we are trained to be fair, objective and understanding of multiple intelligences, diversity (even among the poor), and this does, sometimes, make the Academics seem secondary. And it is secondary to humanity. There has to be a blend.
June Atkinson “: A license is an assurance to the public, just like when I go to the doctor and look for his license to practice medicine,” said Atkinson. “Do we want electricians and pharmacists to not have licenses? Do we want to create a professional system in which professionals are unlicensed?”
Sadly, only if the profession is teaching, Dr. Atkinson. If you’re going to wire my house by all means you need a license.
Rep. Larry Pittman is apparently looking for those vouchers. His children’s school(s) is doing a “lousy” Job. Sounds a little self-serving to me.
June Atkinson warned principals and superintendents that there is going to be a teacher shortage in NC. Teachers are either leaving the profession or moving to other states. Now we have legislators who say that teacher certification mean nothing. Bottom line: the NC children will suffer even more.
I heard two frustrated patents of third graders today from different parts of NC stating (without realizing the reason) how maddening the mindset of teachers for their third graders was this year–one child suffering from anxiety over testing all year (and crying during EOGs, the other telling her father she could only do math the one way “investigations” said to or she would get in trouble). I explained to these parents that what they were getting was Common Core and RttT side effects. One is hoping to leave NC, the other is checking into private schools.
From what I can glean, Atkinson is pro Common Core and unapologetic about any RttT nuance. Her blog entries tend to be defensive, more than anything.
My take is that even though we do have Democrats in on the cause (McDevitt and Arkinson both, I think), they trusted the party line and the way led by Purdue and Harrison in accepting RttT money and don’t seem willing to admit that that was a major mis-step. So you’ve got the Jeb Bush man crush guys in Raleigh pushing the ALEC play book (apparently) and the Democrats unwilling to admit they have driven us into a ditch. As Diane once stated: where are the Jim Hunts???(The moderate and well-educated, grounded but not fundamentalist) leaders of yesterday?
My take on all of this (having been raised in a home that valued leadership like I just described–,heck I sang at the baptism of Jim Hunt’s grandchild and have the same alma mater as Jim Martin (a Republican, but a noted NC leader) is that they are retiring and the new generation of leadership (my generation soon) has just had such a different experience than that generation that the values are all mixed up. We are a generation of divorce (my parents included). We are not phased by race. We are not shocked by much. But we are strapped by an economy handed to us by a generation who takes more than they give and we are trying to make our own way, sometimes not realizing what is brewing around us until it is over-boiling (like the two friends whose public school experiences I heard about today).
I trust that once more parents like the ones I talked to today realize what is going on, they will get more involved in pushing for change. Reports of the Moral Monday protests and the arrests going on there are in the papers now.
I also have a theory, personally, that acknowledges that market values don’t see race and that many people believe that complacency with race and the implied station in life it ostensibly mandates for a person (particularly in the South) have been perpetuated by public schools. Now a friend I have who is a probate attorney clerk in the justice system (dealing with grievances filed by mostly black males in prison) says she does not believe public schools contributed to their lot in life–that it was lack of family structure and values). And while my gut tells me that public school is the right and proper thing to support–and I always will support it–I can see how people arrive at the conclusions they do and therefore want to try new things. The important thing is that a dialogue free of presumptions occurs (like on this blog).
Public school is best because, as so eloquently stated in LITTLE WOMEN, “the poor will always be with us.” But remember, the generation stepping into the leadership age watched their folks throw in the towel on marriages, watched state lotteries pop up everywhere, watched double standards in embracing diversity all around them and might be expecting too many things from public school without asking themselves how they can help make that happen.
End of sermon.
Today’s hymn will be Psalm 13.
Tomorrow’s will be Psalm 100.
If you don’t know them, look them up.
Typo: parents, not patents
I feel for the little third graders. It’s not easy being eight or nine any more. Math Investigations is totally not user friendly. I can see frustration on the parts of the students and their care givers. Benchmarks, EOGs – where does it all end? To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, “The only things certain in life are death, taxes, and testing.”
Joanna
Thank you for the post.
So true