Charter schools were supposed to “save poor children from low-performing public schools.”
But some of them are low-performing schools, worse than the public schools the children leave.
The State Charter School Conmission is meeting with some of the lowest performing schools to find out why they are getting such poor results.
The worst of them all is Connections Academy, the online school owned by Pearson. It dropped from a D to an F.
How do you save poor kids when they are trapped in failing charter schools and their old public schools are closed?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“School choice is not an option for rural areas, three senators told U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos during her in Senate testimony Tuesday.
The two Democrats and one Republican cited long travel times and a lack of both students and infrastructure in explaining why school choice programs would fail in rural school districts.”
Once again ed reform utterly dominates the debate and consumes our lawmakers.
You know what one of these lawmakers could do? They could talk about public schools other than in the context of the ed reform “choice” agenda. They could talk about public schools other than in the context of loss and some disfavored default system that no one much cares about. They’re supposedly representatives for people in their states, right? Those people attend public schools.
They allow this “movement” to hijack every discussion and turn it into a discussion about vouchers and charters. They’re not advocates. They’re potted plants.
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The all purpose solution for rural schools is supposed to be on-line education, ready made for any and all but especially for students in rural communities.
I like the potted plant, but I think these are also plants that are sagging or dying. No nutrients, TLC, water, sunlight.
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Imagine working in a place like this! At least in public schools, administrators can be shamed into recognizing their obligations to taxpayers. Charter school “owners” and “managers” appear accountable to no one. This situation would drive me crazy….
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Pearson owns online schools too!
I thought their focus was secretive, flawed, high-stakes tests used to rank and fire teachers that belong to teachers’ unions and only close community-based, democratic, transparent, non-profit, traditional public schools to be replaced by autocratic, secretive, often flawed and fraudulent, child abusing,for-profit corporate charter schools that focus on hiring unskilled, underpaid, nonunion labor to replace the highly professional and mostly qualified, dedicated teachers in the public schools.
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Pearson has suffered a number of recent set backs from the Common Core, Connections and other ventures. They were even considering leaving the market in the US entirely. Unfortunately, Pearson found a new US CEO that will lay off 10% of its staff. They will continue to churn out their garbage and inflict it on our young people. https://marketbrief.edweek.org/marketplace-k-12/pearson-names-new-n-american-president-stock-plunges-half-year-results/
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