A reader comments on the post about the closing of a beloved elementary school in North Carolina, due to competition from a charter school and state budget cuts:
I want to point out a specifically horrible aspect to this. In NC, if a home schooled child decides to attend a charter school, the public schools district in which they live is required to tranfer funds to the charter school, even though they NEVER RECEIVED THE FUNDS FROM THE STATE since the child was never enrolled in the district. This was the case for a number of students in this case making the financial impact worse.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Does it also work the other way? If a home-schooler decides to attend a real public school, does the state take money from the nearest charter and send it to the school?
LikeLike
It should work that way, shouldn’t it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is when we need to use the courts. Sue the state so that it will be noticed that they can’t just get away with doing things like this. We need a lot of court cases to make them realize that it will become public and painful when the state does not protect it’s schools.
LikeLike
No reciprocity.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ohio lawmakers kick the can on charter school reform again:
“The state legislature is considering delaying – yet again – the ratings of charter school oversight agencies that were supposed to be the centerpiece of Gov. John Kasich’s plan to fix Ohio’s troubled charter industry.
The House Education Committee will consider proposals next month to skip rating those agencies, known as sponsors or authorizers, for 2014-15 and this ongoing 2015-16 school year.
Committee Chairman Andrew Brenner said the committee has two possible amendments to another bill that would halt ratings for just 2014-15 or for both years.”
They’re embarking on a charter building boom, too. They are plowing both state and federal money into opening more and more charters. Meanwhile, the public schools that 93% of kids attend are completely ignored for another year.
How did we end up with so many public employees who have no interest in public schools? Can we hire some people who are interested in something other than opening charter schools?
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2016/02/state_considers_delaying_charter_school_quality_efforts_yet_again.html
LikeLike
I hope that the charter aspect to the equation is discussed just as much as budget cuts. We cannot assume that the same mindsets that took us down the RttT road will save public schools. Let’s say we do disrupt the super-majority in Raleigh with our November elections. . .then what? We still don’t have a cap on charters. This situation will continue to happen.
LikeLike
As I’ve asked for the last couple years on this blog. . .now what?
This article addresses the many aspects to what happened in Haywood County. https://www.ednc.org/2016/02/11/a-maze-of-facts-muddies-the-education-funding-issue-in-haywood-county-but-a-basic-understanding-is-important/
LikeLike
The parents of these children pay the same federal, state and local taxes as similarly situated parents of children who attend the public schools. Why shouldn’t these parents’ taxes provide the benefit of education for their children as the public school parents?
LikeLike
The point in this case is that the state never provided the district with those tax funds. Therefore themail charters are robbing the local district of money intended to educate other children.
LikeLike
Your point is actually one which, if it is expressed clearly to I-don’t-understand-school-reform citizens, makes a big difference. Once people truly understand that while we might make it possible for SOME children to have a more privatized school experience, this can only come at the expense of our poorest 20% — many start to think about getting back on the public school bandwagon.
LikeLike
Actually, the proliferation of charters gives special treatment to a small number while the great majority of children lose services, programs, and teachers. And that small minority that drains the resources of the public school may be in a charter of lower quality than the public school
LikeLike
Yes. Too often this exactly true.
LikeLike
BREAKING/DEVELOPING: Harlem mother calls for arrest of a NYC DOE traditional public school (PS 194) teacher who assaulted her 7-year-old child, an act recorded on hallway surveillance video.
http://abc7ny.com/news/mom-calls-for-arrest-of-harlem-teacher-who-threw-boy-across-hallway/1213228/
This past December the child, who receives special education services, was picked up by his shoulders and thrown across a hallway into a wall.
The teacher who assaulted him, 53-year-old Osman Couey, has a disciplinary file full of acts of mistreating children. In 2004 he was “reprimanded” twice for corporal punishment and verbal abuse. In 2006, he was “reprimanded” again for corporal punishment. In 2013, he was “reprimanded” for yanking another 7-year-old special education student by the collar; the child and his parents alleged that the teacher also pulled him by the ear and threw him by the shoulders down a flight of stairs, but those charges could not be “substantiated.”
The name “PS 194” may seem familiar to followers of New York City education: it is a school with a deeply troubled recent past, including two instances where groups of very young students sexually assaulted their classmates, and an incident where a child was stabbed with a pencil. It is a perennial entry on the state’s list of persistently dangerous schools and a dismal academic performer.
As of 7:05 am EST, a search of NYTimes.com for “Osman Couey” returned no results. I look forward to the Times applying all of its formidable resources to this developing story, including obtaining the surveillance video, hosting it on its website in an unedited format, blurring only student faces but not obscuring Osman Couey’s face or actions in any way, and convening a panel of “experts” to analyze Osman Couey’s conduct.
How can people like this teacher be allowed to stay on the job, despite all the warning signs? Why didn’t one of his colleagues videotape his maltreatment of students? Why has the NYC DOE effectively criminalized the use of students and employees using video and audio recording in classrooms? Is it possible that the trade-offs between employee rights/”due process” and student safety need to be recalibrated? These are all essential questions that deserve a thorough discussion on a site dedicated to better education for all.
LikeLike
Oh, Tim, that’s pathetic. I suppose we are supposed to conclude that PS 194 is no better than Eva’s Success Academy charters, or is it the other way around? No one ever boasts that PS 194 is a model for the city, the nation, and the world. Eva made herself a target by claiming that she succeeded with the same kids as PS 194. We know that she culls.
LikeLike
So because PS 194 and PS 207 and the many other NYC DOE traditional public schools where kids suffer don’t boast about their models or results, those stories aren’t newsworthy. Got it!
PS 194’s results and record of keeping children safe are nothing to brag about, to be sure. But it is indeed a model school; a model for how isolated and segregated the neo-Plessy traditional district system has left huge numbers of children. No meaningful, actionable solutions, just calls for more money and more time.
LikeLike
Tim, what are Eva’s schools a model for?
LikeLike
I think you should probably pose that question to some Success parents and educators.
Charter schools in general are an excellent alternative for New York City parents zoned for traditional public schools with a long history of mismanagement, poor academic outcomes, and safety/environment issues–all concerns that the “more money, more time, equally separate” strategy has done a dismal job of addressing.
But in the meantime, let’s wait for the Times to track down and analyze that video!
LikeLike
Tim, what are Eva’s schools a model for? You said, ask parents. Should I ask the parents of the children who were pushed out? I am asking you. What are Eva’s schools a model for? If every school had the millions donated by hedge fund managers….maybe that’s the answer.
LikeLike
A site to discuss charter schools
better education for all.LikeLike
I listed the actionable solutions in a post a few days ago. They are: (1) send your kid to private school; (2) move to an area with good zoned schools; or (3) shut up and let the experts handle the problem.
LikeLike
I bet you can pull the same trick in every state. Instead of passing voucher laws, you can do this.
LikeLike
In Massachusetts, when charters first appeared, the deal was that the money would follow the child. The vast majority of the charters are located in Boston where, historically, about 20% of school-age children did not attend public schools, instead attending privates or parochials. After the Catholic clergy sex abuse was exposed, parents fled parochial schools.
Now we have the dynamic that many parents whose children never would have attended public schools choose charter schools. The money then, doesn’t follow the student from the public district, but the public school loses the funding anyway. Yesterday, the appointed state board of education approved expansion of charter schools in Boston, which is expected to drain about $20 million more next year from the schools which accept all comers. That sum comes on top of the $50 million shortfall already announced by the superintendent and mayor, for a whopping total of $70 million from the largest school district in the state, with an 89% minority population, 72% of them high needs (ELL’s, SWD, economically disadvantaged). For the 6% of kids attending charters.
Boston has been called the best urban school district in the country and Boston’s economy is booming, especially the real estate sector. So what gives?
LikeLike