Jersey Jazzman goes through the reasons why the corporate elites and rightwing think tanks love charter schools.
It is not because they get better results. They don’t.
It is not because they save money. They don’t.
They are very effective at busting unions. Nearly 90% of the nation’s charters are non-union. This makes possible a flexible workforce that works long hours, accepts whatever pay management wants to pay, and makes no demands.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Which is why I don’t understand the push for them in states with no union. Like NC.
A colleague in the public school where I work told me that yesterday 10 2nd graders told her they were going to the new charter next year. I think many parents were scared by the 3rd grade Read to Achieve law (which really has dwindled down in its daunting qualities because there was no money to pay for the summer reading camp our General Assembly had pictured, I guess) and they think students won’t have to go through that.
I don’t get it. As a parent I can’t imagine thinking to myself, “oh boy. . .my kid gets to go to school in a strip mall! forget the beautiful and well-performing public school! let’s try out the charter.”
Look at the statute and see if the “Third Grade Reading Guarantee” (ludicrous and completely political name, BTW, for folks who supposedly ABHOR dirty, nasty “politics”) includes a provision where the district has to pay an outside contractor for instruction if the parent demands it.
That’s the privatization angle, and where you see the hidden hand of edu-lobbyists securing some business for their newest enterprise in test prep.
It doesn’t matter that they tried this exact same method with NCLB and it was a corrupt money sink that harmed public schools and benefitted contractors, they are madly in love with it, because ideology dictates that the “private sector” does a better job than a public school.
Has anyone asked if the Third Grade Reading Guarantee will be pegged to Common core test scores? Does anyone care? I love the cavalier dismissal of the interaction among and between these mandates and schemes. Do ed reformers ever get together and say “we should probably look at how all the state law we push works with the federal initiatives we also push?” It’s freaking chaos,and they dump the whole mess on third graders. Are there any adults in this “movement”? Does anyone ever say “no” to an ed reformer, or can they just experiment away with other peoples children?
Many parents are flocking to charters. I also don’t understand it, but what do they have to lose? They can come back to their base school whenever they please (even mid-week in the middle of the school year)..
In NC, Read to Achieve (end of social promotion for 3rd grade students who fail the reading test) is pegged to the state’s EOGs.
not entirely—-if students pass their “passages,” they don’t have to pass EOGs (I’m fairly certain).
Also, there is a retest for EOGs.
In our area, there are five ways to pass, including passing the BOG, passing 70% of the portfolio which (as described to me) are mini-EOGs taken throughout the spring, retake the EOGs, some districts got approval for alternative assessments.
I am on the outside of this, but to me, it seems like it all loops back to the EOGs or the type of things the EOGs measures.
What really bothers me is the summer camps were not funded properly (or at all).
o/t, ? for Ms. Best,
What do you think of this endowment fund idea? I don’t trust it (no pun intended), but I would like to see what teachers have to say about it.
http://www.wral.com/forest-proposes-endowment-fund-to-raise-teacher-salaries/13626480/
The endowment thing is bogus. Education is a public good. Paying for it is not an optional thing. Let them pay the taxes.
Creating an endowment seems like a reasonable idea. Our local school district has one.
I don’t understand how we can rely on an endowment to for teacher’s salaries. How much principal would this require?
teachers’ salaries
Let’s not forget that Arne Duncan, DFER, and may state legislators on both side love charters.
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
The goal is to destroy the labor unions and once they are gone, middle class Americans, the ones who are left, will have no voice in politics.
I’m reading t”The Bully Pulpit” and it’s amazing that the same labor battles were being fought in 1900. Wonder what TR would say.
We are right back to the Gilded Age. Incredible.
This education reform movement has always been about the destruction of labor unions. It’s supported by Democrats, too, which is so disheartening to me as a lifelong Democrat. I thought they’d stand with working families. I consider teachers to be within that group. Very sad.
You are correct. NO ELECTED BOARDS. Private owners and managers using tax dollars. Taxation without representation … That should sound familiar to every American.
Common Core is a concern and serves as a distraction from the ongoing stelth destruction of Public Schools by Charters and Choice . Profit is the name of their game not education. TAX dollars should not fill their coffers as there is no accountability to the taxPAYERS.
Would you end Pell Grants or just restrict them from going to private universities like Harvard, Stanford, and NYU?
This is the real goal of the Vergara case in California. The billionaire backed case is to have one more step toward killing off teacher’s unions. When they are gone, next will be the tougher unions to tackle…Longshore, SEIU, UAW, etc.
Here we go again: Target, California – building on the “good” done in Newark to teachers’ contracts, etc.
http://7online.com/business/mark-zuckerberg-wife-gift-$120-million-to-california-schools/85155/
Great link Therlo! Now Zuckerberg has found a community he can talk to! What’s the matter baby? You could not deal with angry Newarkers trying to control their own destiny? Does he really mean no one other than Chris, Cory and Cami were interested in his BS? Did Zuckerberg organize community meetings? For the record , the teachers were screwed royally by the “historic” contract.
It’s as simple as that–nothing complicated–power, greed, and control.
Maya Angelou was deeply involved with a charter school in Washington DC that carried her name (with her permission). Here’s a discussion of how she returned a number of times to help the students and the school:
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/6/maya-angelou-charterschoolwashingtondc.html