Mike Klonsky wrote about the resistance to charters in the suburbs of Chicago. But not every suburb repelled charters, according to this reader:
“There is a charter in the south suburbs; specifically Rich Township H.S. District 227. It was ok’d by the state as part of Race to the Top. The effects have been devastating to our district. More than $8 million (actual figure–I’m one of our union negotiators) dollars of our already diminished general state aid goes straight to the charter because it is a public institution serving students from our district. We have had our school day shortened from 7 periods to 6, This, of course resulted in fewer choices for our students, particularly in the areas of electives, and massive lay-offs in both our certified and classified staff groups.
“As for their results: they graduated their first class last May. Of the original 125 in the class, only 71 remained by graduation. They of course claimed huge success because all 71 were accepted into some kind of post secondary education. Not many people thought to ask about the other 54 students who came back to us.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Self-styled “education reform” aka “educational triage.”
125 started. 71 finished. 56.8% is not a miracle.
It means that 43.2% of the students, 44, were considered expendable in the interest of promoting the charter brand aka all the adults interested in garnering $tudent $ucce$$.
Just where in their promotional materials and sales pitches did they indicate that a failure rate of, say, 43.2% was acceptable?
“It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.” [Ionesco]
😡
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They also siphoned off $8 million and had to compromise the education of all the other students in public schools. They didn’t create anything new and exciting in education. They just figured out a way to move public money into private hands and exploit the students and teachers in public schools, with the blessing of the state.
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I’m not sure if you’ve seen this… but it talks about charter schools IN Chicago and was on Naked Capitalist web page this morning with an invitation to circulate it to anyone in Chicago… It is a VERY well done video that is chilling!
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/02/school-closure-playbook-billionaires-exploit-poor-children-chicago.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29
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Thanks for the link. Well worth watching.
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Has anyone done a study of the children who leave charters and their outcomes?
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Sad but that seems to be the norm for these people.
It has been said that you cannot fool all the people all the time.
Let us hope that that proves true with these charters.
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Every state needs a Know Your Charter site:
“Can we finally stop claiming Know Your Charter isn’t fair? Everything is there for all to see. And what you’ll see is that urban buildings more than hold their own with charter schools overall — outperforming them on proficiency tests while having higher levels of poverty. You’ll also see that less than 10% of charter school children are in buildings that outperform urban districts. Overall, urban buildings do better than charters, with a few exceptions in Cleveland and other places.”
http://10thperiod.blogspot.com/2015/02/know-your-charter-adds-data.html?utm_content=bufferc4683&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
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They tried to put a charter in my own, chicago, suburb, what seems like many years ago, now. The Charter had no plan, didn’t seem to understand why we wanted to see a plan and was not very forthcoming. Luckily for us our old mayor was at the meeting, she said, “Say no, they have not plan. Can’t you just see them salivating over our tax dollars.” That has been my favorite line in this whole fight…salivating over OUR TAX DOLLARS! (She was our best mayor by far).
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We need to inform the public. These are not your grandmother’s charter schools. These are not formed parents creating a charter devoted to arts or Japanese immersion or whatever. No, these new charter schools are run by huge, souless corporations that syphon off your taxpayer money purely for profit. These charter franchises are more expensive, not less. Their average scores are not even as high as public schools’. And they have abysmal graduation rates. Seeing past the PR to the facts merely shows these new charters’ false motives and poor ability to meet the needs of all students.
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My point is, when we are not preaching to the choir, we need to find a way to disseminate a crisp and concise message to the public.
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