Alyssa Katz, an editorial writer for the New York Daily News, is switching her child from a charter school to a New York City public school. The teacher turnover at the charter school was constant and disruptive for her daughter, she writes. But that’s not all.
She does not name the school, but it is likely a well-regarded school that she and her husband chose with care.
She writes:
Some extracurricular forces eased the choice. My husband, who’s logged hundreds of miles driving to and fro, will hand our girl off to a convenient bus. She in turn will be thrilled to shed a loathed uniform. Me, I look forward to an end to lunch box prep, thanks to an improved cafeteria menu.
But the bottom line is that her elementary-school years were marked with a whirlwind of teachers that, if she and her classmates were lucky, would last the year and then move on.
The ritual became as certain as winter succeeded fall: Some parent would post on the school Facebook group that their child’s teacher was leaving mid-year. Moans and commiseration ensued.
Our child avoided that fate until last fall, when, two weeks in, her promising teacher — a veteran at three years served — suddenly vanished, and a substitute arrived much sooner than any explanation. Her class refound its footing, eventually, with a new teacher — but never quite recovered from those lost weeks.
With so many teachers coming and going, the school as a whole felt perpetually improvisational. I’ll always remember it as a flurry of photocopied handouts….
Last year, 47% of her school’s teaching staff turned over. And during her six years, the school had three principals….
I’m not naming the school because it would be unfair to single it out — it turns out such astonishingly high rates of teacher turnover year by year are par for the course among charter schools.
Among New York charter school teachers, 41% changed jobs last year — compared to just 18% of district school teachers. The retention gap between district and charter schools is not new, but it has been widening over time.
The big reason for charters’ turnover plague is plain as day: District school teachers are universally represented by teachers unions, and enjoy contracts whose ample benefits include generous pension plans, non-negotiable business hours and tenure.
At Success Academy, with its sky-high test scores, teacher turnover annually is close to 60%.
I wish that every politician in New York, especially in the Legislature, would read Katz’s commentary.
Surely the rest of the editorial board at the New York Daily News will read the article and possibly learn from it. The NYDN has been aggressively pro-charter and pro-Eva.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
How did the sentence “Once and for all, eliminate New York’s charter school cap” sneak into the quoted article? It seems really out of place.
So true!! The press is such a low class group of people who are disgusting in that they always seem to want it their way or they are always right about issues. Media such as the daily news are really just outlets for billionaires ass holes who have to get things their way regardless what anyone else says even experts in the field. Truly disgusting.
It’s a hyperlink to an editorial. Not part of this article. Amusing.
It’s too bad so few people are dedicated to the notion of well resourced neighborhood schools for all children. Market principles simply don’t apply to a public good.
Please all read this new book Democracy in Chains by Nancy MacLean. I would love to hear your comments. It is about the plan to dismantle schools and privatize everything. It is written by a historian who studied original source documents explaining the Koch Brothers strategies to dIsmantle our democratic processes. It is the next chapter to Jane Mayer’s book, Dark Money. It explains the end game and the methods they have used to get to this point.
“News Editorial Writer Drinks Own Kool Aid, Chokes On It”
TAGO!!!
Hahahaha!
The ed reform embrace of chaos and “disruption” is probably the part of the ideology I disagree with most.
Experience does matter. If it doesn’t matter then what you’re saying is people never get better at their jobs- years of work produce absolutely nothing of cumulative value that the employee carries with them. I just don’t think that’s true. People do learn from experience and they do bring that to their jobs.
Do they apply this to themselves? Has Arne Duncan learned absolutely nothing over 20 years of work? We could replace him with a 25 year old ed reformer and there would be zero difference, in fact, the 25 year old might be better!
If experience doesn’t matter then why stick with anything longer than 3 years? They’re always talking about teachers improving their practice. Why would they? A first year TFA is exactly the same as a 20 year veteran- interchangeable- you can swap the two out and the school loses nothing, according to ed reform disruption theory.
The “funny” thing is that we are told and told and told by the bigwigs that “people want to change jobs every few years.” Just this month, a study showed (again!) that people prefer stability in jobs and paychecks to higher salaries. But the powers that be make more and more jobs unstable.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/15/news/economy/donald-trump-the-financial-diaries/index.html
This writer has consistently defended charters based on the fact that as long as parents “choose” them, they are fine. And she more than likely would still insist that as long as a parent is fine with new teachers every month, that should be their choice.
The problem is that writers like her are either incapable or unwilling to look at the complexities of a complicated issue. So now she says she is leaving the charter because her kid experienced too much teacher turnover — when I suspect the REAL reason was that her kid got into a nice acceptable district public middle school with the usual above average share of affluent students. Leaving after 5th grade is rarely about teacher turnover- it’s about getting into a middle school you prefer.
And what escapes Katz’ view is that some parents leave charters because they are forced to after their child is targeted as unworthy to educate (i.e., too expensive and won’t bring us the glory and million dollar donations of high passing rates).
What escapes Katz’ view is that she is condoning a system where charters CAN have large teacher turnover and simply tell the kids who don’t learn quickly with their new inexperienced teacher that it is all their fault and they should seek another school. And if they don’t get the message, then the charter can treat them in whatever way they choose as encouraged by the SUNY Charter institute who REWARDS them for getting rid of their undesirable students and having “high passing rates”.
What Alyssa Katz refuses to see is that citing “demand” as the only justification for a charter simply encourages more charters that keep higher performing well-behaved students and treat the unacceptable ones in whatever way is necessary to get them out and force public schools to educate them with their funds while charters find cheaper students to take their place. Black Lives Matters and NAACP understand this and called for a moratorium on charters. Alyssa Katz and parents like her — college educated, affluent, with school-ready children — cannot imagine what it would be like to be one of the many vulnerable much less affluent parents told that their oft suspended or oft flunked child is just not wanted. And teacher turnover has nothing to do with how little the charter wants that child and how free that charter is to treat the child like dirt. It doesn’t matter whether it is a new or old teacher because the SUNY Charter Institute looks the other way at any actions that get low-performing kids out and keep test scores high. Why else have they embraced Eva Moskowitz’ insistence that 20% of her Kindergarten and first graders in one school were violent enough to suspend? No wonder Black Lives Matter and NAACP question the white educators who claim so many of their youngest students — but rarely the white ones — are violent.
It’s a shame that Alyssa Katz doesn’t take a broader view.
Also puzzling is the fact that such an astute observer took five or six year (K-5) to realize there was destabilizing teacher attrition??
Seems somewhat disingenuous.
yes, coincidentally she left right at the point that her child would have been eligible to attend a district middle school.
Thanks, NYCpsp, for pointing out the “middle school connection” that probably was the main cause for the switch of schools. Those of us not in NYC would certainly not have known about that aspect!
Now I hope this writer will help to work for fair funding for public schools so the school district will be able to provide quality education for all students. I also hope she will work to keep the depersonalized zealots from usurping curricula. Unfortunately, the attack to gain access to public funds is a many pronged one. So called “personalized learning” is the untested darling of Silicon Valley, and it is already infiltrating many public schools. Computers are useful tools, but they cannot do the job of a skilled teacher that understands that learning in elementary school is about relationships and connections among humans. Moreover, “personalized learning” allows corporations to data mine our young people and sell their information to third party vendors. I believe most parents would be shocked and dismayed if they knew their children were being used for commercial purposes.
I think the rigid process charters use is partly an old idea- it’s to standardize an approach- make it “dummy proof”. If all the employees are following a rigid set of procedures employees can then be swapped in and out like temps.
Moskowtiz can have all this turnover because she’s reduced employee latitude and discretion. If they follow The Success Formula she can plug anyone in at a moment’s notice.
My son had a teacher who came from a charter in 4th grade and when I met with her I could not move her off his scores. She was assigning an online math test prep program every night and he was dutifully plodding thru it but I already knew his scores because he has to reach a per cent correct or he wasn’t finished with the homework. I could not get her to look up from her laptop screen. I felt as if she has been trained to go thru the scores with parents and she was unable to veer from the script.
I went to a parent teacher conference last year and the most interesting part to me was the teacher who told me my son has this close relationship with a girl. They work together- choose the other for projects, etc. They’re a good team, he said, and they just set that up by themselves.That’s interesting.
This is how you normalize charter schools. Make people feel sorry for the teachers, the parents, and the students.
The answer is not to unionize school. The answer is to turn each and every one of those existing charters into a unionized PUBLIC SCHOOL accountable to the taxpayer and not some billionaires.
Actually, the best response is to allow those vaunted private charter schools to survive in the “free market” (sic) without the aid of public monies to prop them up. We’d then see just how many of them survive those “free market” (sic) forces.
“I’m not naming the school because it would be unfair to single it out.”
Lily-livered scoundrel!
Not naming names, which I’ve seen done here before by posters bitching and moaning about whatever educational issue, is fainted hearted, spineless and timid yellow journalism at its worse.
This weak-kneed attempt at self congratulation for being oh so smart to recognize, after only five years, that the “no name” charter wasn’t worth dog crap isn’t worth the paper its printed on.
1) Katz’ daughter hates the ugly uniform.
2) The school recently announced it was cutting back their hours of the school day to something comparable to the public school system.
3) The teacher turnover is sky-high.
That sure sounds like Success Academy… either that, or a knock-off charter school brand.
No. 2 (above) especially. Other than Success Academy Is there another NYC charter chain that recently cut back their hours this way?
Here’s an old tweet from her: https://mobile.twitter.com/alykatzz/status/836929619479658496.
Could be Hebrew Language Academy Charter School in Brooklyn?
Alyssa Katz @alykatzz
My daughter goes to a charter school with “Hebrew” in its name. New memo says front doors will be locked except for pickup & dismissal.
8:22 AM · Mar 1, 2017
Lisa, I did not know which charter she chose and didn’t really care. I have always objected to the Hebrew Language Charter Schools, founded by the billionaire investor, Michael Steinhardt, because of my objection to mixing religion and public dollars. The Hebrew Academies claim they have a large enrollment of non-white children, and I don’t see the purpose of teaching them Hebrew fluency. Better they should learn French, Spanish, German or Chinese, which are world languages.
Oops — To clarify — the “could it be” sentence are my words. He “my daughter goes to” words are Katz’s.
“I’m not naming the school because it would be unfair to single it out”
I get it. it’s unfair to name one charter school when they are all rotten. She should have said it that way instead of letting the reader figure it out.
Corporate Charter School rot is an epidemic, terminal cancer for children and the future of this country.
It’s not just about salary.
With all the criticism of current education, few have mentioned teacher training, staff development and enrichment. I’m a retired elementary school teacher who loved teaching and learning about children and teaching. If we’re going to keep young educators interested, we need to address their need to grow intellectually and professionally. Needless to say, that would improve schools and learning for our children, as well.
Beth Forrester
How about class sizes? Being from Utah, one of my pleasures is to see the look on people’s faces when I tell them that I have 270 students. That’s not a misprint. I teach secondary social studies. People nearly faint. I would MUCH prefer lower teacher loads to salary any day of the week, and I expect most teachers in Utah would.
That’s an insane number of students! How many classes per day? How can expect teachers to function under such a workload? It is so unfair to the students.
Agreed it is a ridiculous number to work with each day.
One of the reasons that some of us helped create district options many years ago, helped create charters over the last 25 years and are now working with district & charter educators to create teacher led public schools is that all too often good ideas of classroom teachers are ignored or rejected.
More info about “teacher powered” or “teacher led” schools is here:
https://www.teacherpowered.org/
Are you working under one of those evil A / B schedules where you see one set of kids on the A day and a different set on the B day? I certainly hope so or your class size is inhumane to both you and the kids. The A / B schedule would mostly be a killer just for you. 😱
Yes, it is a block schedule. 10 periods total, 5 each day. I teach 8 of the 10.
That being said, even before we went to this schedule, I had 225 students per year.
Yeah, Joe, not doing charters. They’ve almost all been taken control by management companies around here, and the pay and benefits are horrendous. We get a lot of teachers at my school that fled charters.
Glad Katz has options. Since Diane decided to post this column from Katz, I thought some of you might be interested in reading another brief note from a parent. This one comes from St. Louis. I recognize some of you won’t like the letter or the school. But since there’s a lot of interest in hearing what parents thought, I thought it would be appropriate to share this family’s experience.
My name is Carmen Ward. My son Paul just finished eighth grade at KIPP St. Louis, and is about to join the founding freshman class at KIPP St. Louis High School. I want to tell you about the difference KIPP has made in Paul’s life—and in mine.
When Paul was in Kindergarten, he was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, a form of autism. At various elementary schools, Paul was put in self-contained classrooms with other students who had more severe special needs. I felt like I had to fight the school system to get him the help he needed.
Paul arrived at KIPP in fifth grade, and from the very beginning, KIPP rose to the challenge. They immediately made this a partnership between the school and the family. The school leader, Mr. Esposito, told me, “My goal is to get our scholars to and through college. I will make sure your child succeeds.”
At KIPP, Paul is in a mainstream classroom. The students accept him just like any other peer. The teachers keep him motivated using books and topics he loves. It’s not just a 7 AM to 4 PM relationship—his teachers are available after hours for homework help or even rides to the library.
Since coming to KIPP, I’ve watched my son develop so many skills. From being told he might not ever go to college, Paul now talks about going to college and pursuing his dreams. He’s becoming an independent young man who knows right from wrong; he models good habits from his teachers; his memory is phenomenal; and he makes sure to do his homework just the way his teachers showed him.
And I’m learning too. KIPP has helped me strike a balance between protecting my son and letting him grow. On this year’s end-of-year field trip, the teachers encouraged Paul to walk around with a group of his classmates rather than with me. I was so worried he would get lost or left behind. But he knew to stick with his team, and his team stuck with him. They had a great time, and the next day he couldn’t wait to go off with his friends.
I know that KIPP will walk with Paul and be there with him to the end of his school journey. Thank you for supporting KIPP and making their work possible, for Paul and for all students.
With gratitude,
Carmen Ward
Has anyone verified that Carmen Ward and her child is real and not a plant? The only one that lies more than the corporate charter school industry is Trump. Any support from alleged parents for the corporate charter school industry must be viewed with skepticism until verified as an honest opinion based on the experience of one parent.
Lloyd, a picture of Ms. Ward and her son was provided with the note. I can not verify beyond that. However, I have heard similar things from parents.
Here’s a link to a newspaper column I wrote based on a parent and student who contacted me, and wanted to tell their story.
http://hometownsource.com/2017/03/08/joe-nathan-column-nick-stangers-success/
Having said that, I completely agree that there are some families who are very satisfied with traditional district, neighborhood public schools. And there are some families very satisfied with district Montessori, or language immersion, or other specialized programs that some districts offer.
And there are some people that even worship Donald Trump. I have no respect for those people – none.
I have no respects for Donald Trump.
I do respect for parents who help create new options, whether district or charter. And I respect parents who seek out schools that will help their kids thrive.
Joe
I have no respect, none, for any parent that sends their children to publicly funded, private sector, for-profit corporate charter schools. The original concept of charter schools is not what the US has today. Charter schools were supposed to be within community-based, democratic, transparent, non-profit, traditional public school districts run by teachers and not administration so the teachers were free to try other methods but methods that those teachers decided to try out.
What other country does this today, and what countries already did this and discovered, after 20 years or more that it didn’t work and went back to the traditional public schools?
The U.S. is not on another planet. We know what works. We know what doesn’t.
Having worked in some innovative district urban public schools, sent our children to some innovative urban district public schools, served as a PTA president at an urban district public schools, and having interviewed several thousand parents for newspaper columns since 1989, I’m impressed with what many parents do to help their youngsters.
I also helped write the first charter law in Minnesota and similar laws in a number of other states, and helped write a recent law that provides cash to help district educators create new options. I have huge respect for the vast majority of people working in public schools, district or charter, and for today’s families. They face enormous challenges.
Of course each of us gets to decide who we do and don’t respect.
One other point – Finland allows teachers to create new public schools that families can select. I think that’s a wise idea, as noted above.
There are no charter schools in Finland. No TFA in Finland either.
Finland doesn’t call them charters. They do allow teachers to create public schools from which families can choose.
Yes, Finland does allow publicly funded private schools but less than 1 percent of the schools in that country fall into that category because they are required by law to follow all the same mandates/rules that the public school follows and they have to be transparent.
In addition, since the teachers are treated like professionals in Finland, by the government and the people, and allowed to make all the decisions of what to teach and how to teach it, and everything is transparent, and there are no high stakes tests designed to rank and punish, parents see no reason to send their children to any of the few publicly funded private schools.
There is also no corporate media propaganda campaign spewing cherry picked facts and lies that are financed by autocratic billionaires like the Waltons, the Koch brothers, Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Betsy DeVos, etc. bashing public school teachers, teachers’ unions, and the community-based, democratic, transparent, non-profit, traditional public schools.
In fact, the teachers in Finland belong to a powerful teachers’ union that is not under attack by autocratic billionaires that worship at the altar of avarice.
So, just like here, except not like here at all.
As has been noted, there is a lot more respect for teachers’ autonomy in Finland which means that there is a lot of opportunity to create distinctive approaches to learning.
In the best American districts and charters, that also happens. We need much more of that.
We need youngsters able to attend high quality early childhood programs, stronger medical programs and other social programs that Finland has.
Lots to learn from Finland.
Please point out the traditional public school districts and charters that allow teachers to be totally in charge of how and what they are teaching (like teachers in Finland) and where there are no high-stakes rank-and-punish tests?
And when you use the word “charter” be clear, please. Are you talking about corporate charters like Eva’s so-called Success Academies (in reality, cherry picking, child abuse factories with high stakes test assembly lines) or charters as they were originally intended: run by teachers, no high stakes rank-and-punish tests, no top-down micromanagement, and no corporation profiting from those charters, because those charters are real public schools that are part of a community-based, democratic, transparent, non-profit, traditional school district as they were originally intended.
Lloyd, here is a list of district & charter public schools where teachers have many of the 15 autonomies listed. In some cases teachers are the majority of the board of directors that operate the school (that’s true, for example, at Minnesota New Country School and Avalon, among other places.
There’s a growing movement around the country to create district & charter schools were teachers have this power.
https://www.teacherpowered.org/inventory
No, I’m not talking about schools, district and charter, which operate top down, with little opportunity for teachers to use their own ideas, creativity, and insights.
I understand a lot of teachers and retired teachers who post here are very bitter. Based on a number of experiences described, there’s lots to be bitter about.
Fortunately, some states and communities are getting serious about respect for educators. They’re getting serious about using other good ideas to, for example, like community schools – sometimes called shared facilities.
http://www.communityschools.org/
“There’s a growing movement around the country to create district & charter schools were teachers have this power.”
Did you bother to read the facts at that sight you provided a link to?
“There are more than 120 teacher-powered public schools spanning at least 18 states, serving students from preschool to age 21, in urban, suburban, and rural settings. Some operate within school districts and others operate as charter schools. Some have union-affiliated teachers, while others do not.”
“The Teacher-Powered Schools Initiative was launched in May 2014 with the goals of highlighting the successes of the more than 120 teacher-powered schools across the country, and inspiring other teachers to either take charge in their schools or design and run new schools.”
That is your definition of a growing movement?
“While charter school students enrolled just 3 percent of all public school students in 2008, the number of students (and schools) has risen dramatically in the past decade. In 1999, there were 1,542 charter schools with 349,642 students. By 2008, there were 4,618 charter schools with 1,407,817 students (National Alliance for Public Charter Schools 2009b). …
“During the 2015-16 school year, more than 400 new charter public schools opened. An estimated 250,000 additional students are attending charter public schools in the 2015-16 school year compared with the previous year.
“With the addition of these new charter schools and students, there are now more than 6,800 charter public schools enrolling an estimated 2.9 million students throughout the country. Enrollment in charter public schools has grown sixfold in the past 15 years.”
How about REAL public schools?
In the 2013-14 school year, there were 98,271 with about 48-million students.
Are you so nieve that you do not think those corporate charter schools that have top down management with huge ratios of annual teacher turnover due to low pay, no benefits and long hours at work are going to let a movement like the one with about 120 schools will push the lying, greed-is-great people, like Trump, out.
120 schools in 18 states vs more than 7,000 corporate charters in all but a couple of the states vs the almost 99k schools that are hopefully still community-based, democratic, transparent, non-profit traditional public schools.
120 vs about 7,000
120 vs about 99k
You call that a GROWING movement (at a snail’s pace that started decades too late) – that doesn’t stand a chance to eclipse the corporate charter school movement’s growth, a movement that spends hundreds of million annually to promote their corporate for-profit sector?
Not only did I read the material, but I’ve worked with union presidents and others to obtain $500,000 to help start district “teacher led” schools.
The charter movement started with one school and less than 100 students. It now involves thousands of schools and more than 3 million.
I repeat,
Gee, in their 4th year and they’ve managed to shift about 30 schools a year on average. At that rate, if the rate stays the same, it will take them 3,300 years to save community-based, democratic, transparent, non-profit, public school system.
For a better understanding there is this from Business Insider in 2015.
The Walmart family is teaching hedge funds how to profit from publicly funded schools
“Charter schools are gaining in popularity throughout the US amid claims that they outperform traditional public schools. They started in the 1990s as alternatives to traditional public schools and receive both public and private funding. However, they’re not governed by the same rules as public schools, especially with regard to state-mandated testing.”
http://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-is-helping-hedge-funds-make-money-off-of-charter-schools-2015-3
Charters are required to participate in state-mandated testing programs. The assertion you quoted is false.
Chartering started small and has grown significantly in the last 25 years. We’ll see what happens with the teacher led/teacher powered approach.
You’re thinking is false, and you ignored the facts I pointed out so I will repeat them.
120 teacher-led schools in about 18 out of 50 states since 2014 when that movement was launched vs. more than 7,000 autocratic, opaque (secretive), often fraudulent or inferior, child bullying, for profit off of public dollars corporate charter schools.
Those teacher led charters have only been around for three-to-four years vs more than twenty-five years of endless failures, lies, and fraud from the corporate charter school industry.
In addition, high stakes tests taken by children are not a valid measurement of teacher quality and they never will be, and comparing organic apples (public schools) to hormone and antibiotic drenched beef (corporate charter schools) is not a comparison.
Lloyd, you could be correct there there will not be thousands of “teacher led” district and charter public schools 5 or 10 years from now. It’s only been in the last 2 years that there has been an active effort to convene educators to discuss this idea.
However, the first charters that featured teachers as the majority of their board of directors were founded more than 15 years ago.
In thinking how many teacher led district & charters schools there we’ll be in 5-10 years, it’s worth remembering that had no idea that there would be so many chartered schools when some of us proposed this in Minnesota 25 years.
Also, having visited more than 800 chartered public schools over the last 20 years, as well as more than 1000 district schools, I don’t agree with your description of most existing charters. More than 300 were project based or Montessori, more than 250 served students with whom traditional schools have not succeeded.
What is your evidence that the vast majority of the more than 6,000 charters currently operating fit your description?
Meanwhile, if outspoken people urged creation of more “teacher led” schools, and urged legislators to provide startup funds, as we’ve done successfully here, they would be more likely to happen. It’s very clear from conversations with educators all over the country that many teachers are eager to have this kind of opportunity.
Happy July 4th holiday.
“However, the first charters that featured teachers as the majority of their board of directors were founded more than 15 years ago.”
Move the timeline back a couple of more decades to the first charters that featured teachers in charge, but let’s not ignore the fact that the greed is good crowd of corporate pirates and frauds that call themselves reformers hijacked that movement and turned it into malignat cancer that will destroy the Constitution Republic called the United States.
I repeat what you keep avoiding.
There are about 120 teacher-led charter type schools vs more than 7,000 that are based on test and punish and corporate greed.
And the traditional public schools still number almost 99,000 schools with about 48 million children in more than 15,000 community-based, democratically managed, transparent, non-profit school districts, and it was this system that built the United States that autocrats like Trump, Gates, Koch, DeVos, Broad, Walton and the GOP’s leadership are working hard to dismantle.
The United States did not become one of the five most educated countries on the planet with teacher run charter schools or corporate charter schools. It became the country it was and still is because of those community-based democratic, transparent public schools.
Lloyd,
The very idea of a corporate chain taking control of a local public school opus repugnant.
It really is the Walmarting of American education. Standardized, remote owners, shoddy products. No democracy. If you don’t like what they offer, shop elsewhere.
Another way to think about democracy is that each person and each family has the ability to make some decisions.
While the Supreme Court has made it clear none of us have complete freedom, the Phi Delta Kappan Gallup Poll has repeatedly found that a majority of Americans see public school choice, including charters, as a good idea.
The same poll found the majority disagreed with vouchers.
Classic example of choices within some limits….a very democratic principle.
Except the public does not know that charters schools are under private manage and are not public schools.
The public does not support privatization. That’s why charters pretend to be public schools.
Without the democratic institutions known as state legislatures, there would not be any chartered public schools. Those state legislators were elected by the people to make decisions..
And in every state with charter legislation, the democratically elected legislators made charters part of public education.
Another correction to your misguided and ignorant assumptions. The United States is not a democracy. This country is a Constitutional Republic.
The only role the people play in this Constitutional Republic is to vote for their governors, state legislatures and for members of both Houses of the U.S. Congress. The people don’t even elect the president. The Electoral College does that. The evidence is Trump vs Clinton. Trump lost the people’s vote by almost 3 million.
Constitutional – a government by or operating under an authoritative document (constitution) that sets forth the system of fundamental laws and principles that determine the nature, functions, and limits of that government.
The will of the people is not allowed to override the fundamental laws and principals of the U.S. Constitution. Once elected and/or appointed, the job of government is to uphold the fundamental laws and principles of the U.S. Constitution and not follow the will of the people.
Democracy – a form of government in which the supreme power is retained by the people, but which is usually exercised indirectly through a system of representation and delegated authority periodically renewed.
I repeat, in the United States, the U.S.Constituion is used to determine what is legal – not the mob of a democracy, and for that to work, the government must be allowed to do its job as the oath of office dictates.
The presidential oath of office:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
The Oath of Office for the US Congress:
“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
— U.S. Constitution, Article VI, clause 3
Oath of Office for military officers:
“I, _____ (SSAN), having been appointed an officer in the Army of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of _____ do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance tot he same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God.”
Not one time does it say that they must serve the popular will of the people.
Donald Trump breaks that oath he took every time he tweets or says an attack against the media, the courts/judges, and any member of Congress.
We agree that Trump is a terrible president.
One of the unfortunate things Trump does is to refer to people with whom he disagrees as “ignorant” and to make generalizations such as “all charters are rotten.”
Good thing I never said all charters are rotten, although your comment that is another attempt to divert from the topic insinuates it, and I’m sure most if not all of the 120 charters run from the bottom up by teachers are not rotten.
Again:
120 (One Hundred Twenty) teacher managed charters spread out over about 18 states vs more than 7,000 run by top-down profit motivated management in the private sector vs the majority of public school districts that are community-based, democratic, transparent, etc is not all corporate charters are rotten.
But there are not enough successful corporate charters to justify closing/destroying the traditional public schools.
Lloyd Lofthouse wrote
June 28, 2017 at 11:59 am
“I’m not naming the school because it would be unfair to single it out”
I get it. it’s unfair to name one charter school when they are all rotten.”
That is what I call being nit picky. Instead of ferreting out one quote of many, look at the context of all that I write.
Trump and Devos think all public schools are rotten and all private, religious, and charter schools are wonderful.
Historians disagree about the role of schools in the development of America. Some see public schools as a central reinforcer of racial and other inequities.
Moreover, a number of cities have not had locally elected school boards. ‘
I asked for your evidence about the way you describe most charters. Silence.
Nevertheless, freedom of speech, including silence, is one of the things we celebrate this week.
Mayoral control has proved to be a total bust in Cleveland, Detroit, and Chicago. Elected boards would be better.
Joseph Nathan, ignoring all the points I keep making, repeatedly attempts to change the subject – this is a common ploy of trolls and those who work in the PR industry for a client with a specific agenda. If he isn’t a troll or working for a client with an agenda, then Smithsonian Magazine recently explained in “How Fake News Breaks Your Brain” why he thinks the way he does.
He wrote, “I (Joseph) asked for your evidence about the way you describe most charters. Silence.”
I could shout “WRONG!” for hours. One shout for each piece of evidence I’ve read here over the years, in the reputable media where dollors from autocrats do not control the news, and/or on other blogs that almost always link to the sources they refer to.
If you’ve been reading Diane’s Blog posts and many of the comments that come with links to the sources, that evidence you allege is “silence” is not silent at all. It is LOUD! Very loud!
That evidence is repeated often as one reputable study after another (not funded by the corporate for-profit education sector – do we trust studied about tobacco that the tobacco industry paid for or studies about the oil industry that were paid for by the oil industry) over a period of decades keep revealing the same results – that vouchers and private sector charters are mostly worse or the same as the public schools they are attempting to replace and they promote segregation and eventually growth in racism.
We could start with the CHOICE and/or VOUCHER experiments that took place in Sweden and Chili over a period of years/decades that failed to deliver on the promises made and were dropped in both of those countries for a return to the traditional model of public education. And before anyone jumps on traditional as a return to the factory model of the 19th century, I want to remind readers of the fact that Finland’s school, both private and public, all follow a traditional public school model that is no in the private, for-profit sector.
Sweden’s School Choice Disaster – Advocates for school choice might be shocked to see how badly the country’s experiment with vouchers failed.
“Two Stockholm University economists, Björn Tyrefors Hinnerich and Jonas Vlachos, have been analyzing the data, and their findings to date demonstrate the many ways that things can go wrong under a market-driven education system.”
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_dismal_science/2014/07/sweden_school_choice_the_country_s_disastrous_experiment_with_milton_friedman.html
The Failings of Chile’s Education System: Institutionalized Inequality and a Preference for the Affluent
Privatization of the school system in Chile represents the second major reform. This important piece of legislation established a voucher-type government subsidy available for use in both private and public municipal schools, which are distributed in numbers directly proportional to the size of a school’s enrollment.
The Problem with Privatization
Despite the government’s ostensible goal in equalizing the quality of education for students across economic lines, three discernible types of inequalities have emerged in its wake: stratification and inequality in access to private education, substantial differences in the quality of education received, and unequal opportunities for students pursuing higher education.
The introduction of education vouchers has produced an increasingly stratified school system in Chile on the basis of socioeconomic status.
http://www.coha.org/the-failings-of-chile%E2%80%99s-education-system-institutionalized-inequality-and-a-preference-for-the-affluent/
Then there is the study out of Stanford that clearly reveals where the challenge is to the entire world, a challenge that most corporate charters prefer not to deal with because it would cut into their profits and high CEO salaries. I’m not talking about the Stanford study funded by Bill Gates that repeatedly offer up results that clearly prove traditional public schools are not failures and are highly successful.
Poor ranking on international test misleading about U.S. student performance, Stanford researcher finds
The report also found:
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/january/test-scores-ranking-011513.html
To read about what is happening to your brain, Joseph Nathan, I refer you to the recent piece in Smithsonian Magazine that I mentioned earlier in this comment.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-fake-news-breaks-your-brain-180963894/
And I repeat, since 2014, over the last three years, an organization attempting to create true charters where the management is bottom up and the teachers are in charge has resulted in 120 school in about 18 states, versus almost 100,000 schools in all 50 states when we combine the almost 99k traditional public schools with the 7k+ corporate charters supported with hundreds of million of PR dollars from autocratic.
Stop cherry-picking the facts out of my comments that you think you can challenge to change the subject. Stay on topic if you can, but if you can’t I understand because I’ve read that Smithsonian piece.
“a new study published this week in the journal Nature Human Behaviour shows that the limitations of the human brain are also to blame. When people are overloaded with new information, they tend to rely on less-than-ideal coping mechanisms to distinguish good from bad, and end up privileging popularity over quality, the study suggests. It’s this lethal combination of data saturation and short, stretched attention spans that can enable fake news to spread so effectively.”
IT is obvious to me that you are a victim.
You denied that you said all charters are rotten. You did.
Like Trump, you’ve moved on to name-calling.
Happy July 4.
Comparing me to Trump is name calling of the worst kind, and I am not even close to being a Trump. Compare the context of all that he tweets and says to all the comments I’ve made on this blog. Slicing one one sentence of hundreds, or thousand does not define me.
site – not sight
Lloyd, the teachers and principals in Finland all belong to the same union.
I don’t know if the teachers in the publicly funded private schools in Finland that make up about 1-percent of all the schools in that country also belong to the teachers’ union too. I read somewhere that most of the private 1-percent schools only exist for religious reasons since the children that attend them are not Lutherans, and those schools have no problems obeying all the same rules and laws the public schools must follow.
No double standard in Finland’s K-12 schools, the private 1% or the public 99%.
There are other publicly funded options besides religious schools in Finland.
Why do you continually ignore the fact that more than 99-percent of Finland’s children attend traditional public schools and not private schools?
“There are few private schools (in Finland). The founding of a new private comprehensive school requires a decision by the Council of State. When founded, private schools are given a state grant comparable to that given to a municipal school of the same size. However, even in private schools, the use of tuition fees is strictly prohibited, and selective admission is prohibited, as well: private schools must admit all its pupils on the same basis as the corresponding municipal school. In addition, private schools are required to give their students all the education and social benefits that are offered to the students of municipal schools. Because of this, existing private schools are mostly faith-based or Steiner schools, which are comprehensive by definition.”
“Teachers, who are fully unionized, follow state curriculum guidelines but are accorded a great deal of autonomy as to methods of instruction and are even allowed to choose their own textbooks.”
“Classes are small, seldom more than twenty pupils.”
“The majority of the private schools in Finland are religious.”
http://ncee.org/what-we-do/center-on-international-education-benchmarking/top-performing-countries/finland-overview/finland-system-and-school-organization/
“During the school year 1970/1971, fifty-five per cent of pupils in upper secondary general school attended private educational institutions. The situation was, however, changed by the comprehensive school reform. The majority of state and private upper secondary general schools were taken over by the municipalities. During the school year 2005/2006, eight per cent of all upper secondary general school pupils attended private upper secondary general schools.”
http://www.stat.fi/tup/suomi90/marraskuu_en.html
“There are only 24 private comprehensive schools in Finland (0.5%).” But there are 3,953 schools in the compulsory education sector.
Click to access Finland-Education-Report.pdf
Not ignoring this.
BS!
Finland has unrestricted choice among public schools because equity is the highest value, not competition.
For some educators and families who create new options, equity is a very important value. We recognize that there is no single best kind of school for all kids.
We also think all kinds of families deserve options, not just those who can afford to move to exclusive suburbs or get their kids into elite magnet schools.
While a quick Google search shows that Ms. Ward does appear to exist, it also shows that this story is being aggressively pushed by charter interests in Missouri, where her story’s wide publication coincided with a legislative vote to expand charter schools.
So convenient, that.
But I’ll give it to you Joseph, it truly is news when charter schools enroll and provide services to very needy students, so congratulations: now we know there appears to be at least one that does it.
Joseph Nathan – You say, “I have huge respect for the vast majority of people working in the public schools, district or charter…”
That’s the problem, you don’t understand the difference:https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/stolen-language-charter-schools-are-no
After 45 years as an urban public school teacher, administrator, parent, PTA president, researcher and newspaper columnist, I’ve learned that there are many parts to public education. These include
a. statewide schools that use admissions tests to determine who gets in
b. traditional districts not run by locally elected school boards (that’s the case in a number of large cities)
c. suburban districts that in some cases hire detectives to make sure that people who can’t afford to live in the district don’t send their children to the “public schools”
d. elite magnet schools that the vast majority of students can’t get into because they can’t pass admission tests
e. colleges and universities that students in some states can attend with state $ following them, paying all or part of their tuition and books
f. Alternative schools created by teachers to work with student with whom traditional schools have not succeeded
g. Chartered public schools that in virtually all states are open to all, with no admissions tests.
h. Alternative schools created by groups of districts
State legislatures in various states have created some or all of these options.
I find it humorous when charter parents tell us what a “miracle” a charter school has been for their child, especially one with special needs, because for her one anecdote, I can give you 15 of students with special needs that languish in charters with no services at all, and come back to public schools WAY behind academically and socially.
As you should know by now, Joe, an anecdote is NOT data.
Hi Michael and Threatened out West.
Agreeing that an anecdote is not data, there are schools created by parents of students with special needs who have worked with educators to create options that target, for example, students on the autism spectrum and students who want to learn and use American Sign Language.
Two examples in the Minneapolis/St Paul area are Lionsgate (serving primarily students on the autism spectrum) http://lionsgate.academy/
and Metro Deaf -created by parents and educators who wanted a public option that used and promoted American Sign Language. http://www.mdsmn.org/
There are similar examples around the country.
Joe
In Utah, we have at least two charters specializing in Autism. You would be surprised at the turn-over, though. Some parents are satisfied, but many take their students out of the charter and back to public schools. Part of the reason is because some of the teachers there are not certified. The schools fire and lose teachers at will.
Joseph,
You don’t want choice. You want privatization.
There is no reason that KIPP couldn’t run a school that was welcoming to a student with Aspergers under the oversight of the public school system. That is what many choice schools did when they began.
The lack of oversight means that for every one person whose child is lucky enough to be served there are thousands who are drummed out who the oversight agencies say are not their concern because there is a (now underfunded) public school to pick up the pieces.
The NAACP wants a moratorium on charter schools until there is ACCOUNTABILITY AND TRANSPARENCY.
The GOOD charter folks should be cheering them on instead of promoting single anecdotes to try to convince the public that transparency and accountability are not necessary.
There is something wrong about pretending that a single white child with Aspergers being served means there is no reason for charters to open their books to see what is really happening to children with special needs all over the country.
It is worthy of Betsy DeVos who will no doubt be using that same anecdote you did very soon.
There are few things more democratic than giving families educational options to families who can’t afford to live in affluent exclusive suburbs, and whose students can’t test into exclusive quasi private magnet schools of the kind that NYC has.
The NAACP has every right to its views – and do the families of millions of low income families who have chosen to send their kids to charters.
As has been noted regularly, there are lots of public school district and statewide school options not open to all students.
It seems increasingly clear that many who post here are fine with district and statewide schools that screen out students.
It’s also clear that growing numbers of families want additional options that district and statewide schools don’t offer.
Joseph Nathan,
You are lying if you insist ALL of those families who choose charters agree with you that accountability and transparency is bad. Why would they? They don’t have anything to hide. Do the charter schools they go to have something to hide?
Your condescending treatment of those parents speaks volumes as does your failure to address why you believe that the NAACP calling for transparency and accountability would harm those parents ability to choose their charter.
“It’s also clear that growing numbers of families want additional options that district and statewide schools don’t offer.”
Joseph Nathan, THAT is the best argument for pure white Christian schools I have heard in a long time. As long as some families want those segregated charters, why shouldn’t taxpayers give it to them? As long as parents want schools that won’t spend their money on kids with disabilities, why shouldn’t the state give it to them?
No wonder the NAACP sees through people like you who are happy to educate their children as long as they follow your rules and shut up and don’t ask questions. If they don’t like what is happening, they should just CHOOSE another school, according to Joseph Nathan. Because transparency and accountability is something you fight instead of welcome.
I wrongly thought you were one of the good guys. You won’t veer from the party line no matter what.
And you have the chutzpah to post about a (middle class?) white boy with Aspergers being treated well in a charter school as if that fact alone should give the charter carte blanche to suspend as many African-American 1st graders as they please. Because, choice uber alles, is the new racist mantra. “We’re just choosing to suspend the violent African-American children and they can choose to leave but look how nicely we are treating this white kid” and Joseph Nathan says All is fine. No transparency necessary. Because some racists like it that way.
As of 2014, 66% of those attending charters in the US are students of color according to the (federal) National Center for Education Statistics. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgb.asp
In terms of “pure white” schools that you mention – many suburban schools that are 90% or more white.
Our Center works with both district and chartered public schools in a variety of ways. Our major work over the last 5 includes helping them increase the # of high students who are earning college credit.
Are you involved in efforts to improve schools in your area? If so, what are you doing? Just curious.
The youngster from KIPP is African American.
NYC PSP,
You may recall the KIPP school in NYC that punished children by locking them in a closet. Would not be allowed in a public school.
Actually, Diane. I was an assistant principal in a St. Paul Public School where the district, placed a “level 5” special ed program because we had what they considered a few “extra” classrooms. The school principal was not consulted – we were just told the district was doing this.
One of the forms of discipline that they used was placement in a tiny, locked room. When I found out about this, I urged changes. Some parents expressed legitimate concerns, and ultimately this was changed.
Locking kids in a small room should be an unacceptable form of discipline.
“Locking kids in a small room should be an unacceptable form of discipline.” Not at a charter school. After all, you keep claiming that those parents can CHOOSE a public school that won’t lock their kids up. Choice uber alles, you keep saying. No oversight necessary.
And you still avoided addressing the fact that the NAACP and BLM called for TRANSPARENCY and ACCOUNTABILITY in charters and you refuse to support them in that? Why?
Your racist excuse that you don’t HAVE to support transparency as long as some African-American families are choosing charters is truly appalling. Many of the people at the NAACP convention had their children in charters and they STILL supported transparency and accountability. Why wouldn’t they?
So the bigger question is why a white man like you OPPOSES accountability and transparency for charters that serve primarily African-American students if most parents in them do not? If you really had faith that a there was no funny business going on and they had a lot to teach public schools, you would welcome it. As many of the African-American parents in those schools do. Although I’m sure you would have no problem telling them that they should leave the charter if they want transparency and accountability because the charter should be able to do what they like to whomever they like and as long as their kid is not one of those kids they should b e grateful and shut up or go to that public school whose resources we’ve lobbied to cut.
Nice choice people like Joe Nathan want to give parents. According to Joe Nathan, every African-American p[arnt at a charter agrees with him that there should be no transparency or accountability. And if they don’t, Joe Nathan is happy to show them out the door. Since no one is looking, just like he wants.
ALERT-I think that there is an error in this post since the following text appeared, mid-article: “Once and for all, eliminate New York’s charter school cap.”
Joan Daly-Lewis, thanks for pointing that line out to me. In copying excerpts from the article, I must have picked up a reference to another article taking the opposite point of view. The New York Daily News, owned by billionaire Mort Zuckerman, is rabidly pro-charter. Today the DN ran an article by Arne Duncan’s former communications director saying that the switch from a charter to a public school showed that “school choice” works. I wondered if he is now the communications guy for Betsy DeVos in addition to being editor of Education Post, funded by the Walton, Broad, Bloomberg, etc.
If we demolish teachers’ unions, unhappy charter teachers won’t have anywhere to flee to. Turnover problem solved!
I recently retired after 40 years in the classroom in the NYC PS system. I cannot begin to tell you the horror stories I have heard from parents, students and fellow educators regarding our local CS in Brooklyn, NY. These included students being punished for not walking in a straight line, not having a sharpened pencil, parents not being able to attend daytime school meetings, mandated political rallies., etc. One student had been so damaged by his two years in a CS, he wouldn’t speak the first two weeks he was in my class. I have seen first-hand how CS “counsel out” those students and parents who didn’t quite “fit in”. Fund neighborhood PS like the CS and hold CS accountable with the same rules and regulations.
Isn’t this the person who was in favor of common core state tests until her daughter had to take them?
Thank you for this, Diane.
Amen.