The Chancellor of the New York Board of Regents, Dr. Betty Rosa, and the state Commissioner of Education, Dr. MaryEllen Elia, released this statement:
“”We strongly disapprove of today’s actions by the SUNY Charter Schools Committee. With the adoption of the latest proposal, the Committee ignored our concerns and those of many others in education. Over the past several years, the Board of Regents and the Department have raised standards for our teachers and are working to uplift the entire profession through efforts such as TeachNY. This change lowers standards and will allow inexperienced and unqualified individuals to teach those children that are most in need – students of color, those who are economically disadvantaged, and students with disabilities – in SUNY-authorized charter schools. Lowering standards would not be acceptable for any other profession; this is an insult to the teaching profession. With this irresponsible action, the SUNY Charter Schools Committee has eroded the quality of teachers in New York State and negatively impacted student achievement.”
Charters need lower standards for teachers because they can’t retain teachers. They have high turnover of teachers. The working conditions and hours are difficult. Many teachers leave because of the harsh disciplinary regime.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
While I have seen one news article, I have seen nothing that told me whether this was a unanimous vote by the trustees. How did new trustee Meryl Tisch vote?
And, sadly, I have seen the usual mediocre journalism about this. Since no one else except the SUNY Charter Institute seems to have any oversight whatsoever over charter schools, how does the august rubber stamp body plan to oversee the charters using these teachers?
Will they continue to ignore every parent complaint and refuse to investigate it because “the charter school is getting stellar results with the students they want to teach so why should we, as the oversight agency, care one iota about any of the students who are unworthy of remaining in these charters”?
What a nasty group of people the charter school trustees are. Truly, when you are given a public trust and you use it to promote an agenda so you can get in favor with the billionaires, you should be ashamed of yourself. Not one of those white people on the board cares at all about the at-risk students in New York State and getting them the best education possible. They care about promoting the favorite charters of billionaires. Period.
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I agree that there is something pretty rotten going on with the Charter Institute. Since when is a guy who is a lawyer specializing in asbestos and mesothelioma litigation qualified to make decisions about taxpayer-funded elementary and secondary education. His wife works at “the Shed,” a new performing arts space under construction in the new Hudson Yards project. It is very close to the new District 2 location of Success Academy, the one they spent millions of dollars buying. Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but it all seems pretty fishy.
They also have two children. I wonder where they go to school. We can probably guess that they don’t go to a charter school. His bio on the SUNY website also lists his family as living in both NYC and Woodstock. That’s really pretentious.
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It’s shocking how many times Joseph Belluck and the SUNY Charter Institute have bent over backwards for Eva Moskowitz.
The chair of her board said that an African-American legislator was worse than the ku klux klan, and Belluck said “tsk tsk should I let you oversee the training of teachers with no oversight from us? Yes!!”
Where is the media asking questions? The early renewals for Success Academy. The lack of any investigation after the myriad of complaints. The fact that two years ago Belluck claimed he didn’t have the resources to do proper oversight and suddenly he decides he does?
It almost sounds like he knows they have some dirt on him so he will do whatever they want. I can think of no other reason for him to so completely abandon any pretense of oversight. He must feel protected. And given the media’s lack of concern with the stink of funny business coming from SUNY, perhaps he is.
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Here’s a big part of why (if not the biggest part) Eva did this:
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2014/08/citizen-jacks-compendium-of-teacher.html
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The vote was 4-1. Tisch was a yes. She asked one question that she should have known the answer to, about which schools could apply (the rule was clear on this). Eric Corngold was the only “no” vote.
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Thank you. I know that is typical of the rubber stamp body. Joseph Belluck decides and they do. Who is Eric Corngold – interesting that there seems to be one trustee who isn’t falling in line. Will Cuomo be removing him soon?
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Lisa, were you there?
Were any journalists asking questions at all? Or did they just dutifully report it as he said she said and record SUNY’s self-serving statement without question?
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He had expressed hesitation in July. I think he worked for Cuomo in the past?https://www.suny.edu/about/leadership/board-of-trustees/meet-the-trustees/board-of-trustees-eric-corngold/
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Perhaps because he is a former US Attorney he wants to act in the most ethical manner possible?
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For anyone who is interested in how the SUNY Charter Institute does “oversight”, this video (which I assume they will take down immediately) of a typical rubber stamp meeting is enlightening:
SUNY Charter Institute meeting October 2014:
https://livestream.com/hvccstreaming/OctCharter/videos/64314064
It is worth watching the entire meeting for an example of how SUNY does “oversight” of the 140+ charters it is responsible for. As in “look at how well the kids who were allowed to stay in the school did on state tests, our job is done”.
During this meeting, SUNY rubber stamped a change that turned out to be illegal. Why did they do this? Because Eva Moskowitz demanded it the day before the meeting when she heard some reporters were asking question and thought if she changed the location no one would notice. You can view it at:
30:25 Belluck mentions what he calls a “non-material” revision change to a proposal that Eva Moskowitz wants. He approved the proposal with the revision. Days later SUNY was found to have broken rules in order to push this “non-material revision” that Eva Moskowitz demanded here.
At 27:58 Belluck refers to “a little concern” raised by the fact that a parent group noticed a lot of empty seats in the same charter network claiming to have thousands of kids on the wait list. (Surprise! It’s Success Academy again!). Belluck explains that SUNY is satisfied with Eva Moskowitz word that they just couldn’t find any parents to take the spots since the school is new. No problem.
At around 19:00 in, Belluck claims that he is concerned about enrollment targets and discipline practices and warns the charters he is planning some real oversight about that. Years later, not only has Belluck not cared about discipline practices, but he endorsed Eva Moskowitz’ claim that she only suspended violent 5 year olds and Belluck agrees with her that she just happens to get huge numbers of those violent 5 year olds. Belluck agrees that it has nothing to do with untrained teachers – it’s all the child’s fault.
SUNY needs to be investigated for not doing the job for which they were appointed.
And if anyone here knows how to save that video which I suspect SUNY will quickly remove, they should. If they remove it, it will show how corrupt SUNY has become.
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This is disgusting. Or even worse, for which I have no words.
It’s even more disgusting that the SUNY Charter School Committee is associated with a New York State university that educates teachers. How can they even do this???
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Yes. I should correct “illegal” and change it to “improper” to be fair. Nothing that the Charter Institute does seems to be illegal but they are constantly doing things that improperly favor Success Academy and ignoring any complaints about them.
A few years after granting Success Academy 17 new schools in this October 2014 meeting based on the laughable oversight we saw in this video, SUNY gave improper early renewals to some Success Academy schools. Although SUNY claims it was perfectly proper because they had done so much oversight. Big oversight. Trumpian oversight.
Their oversight is horrendous. The fact that they are now saying “train your own teachers” is appalling.
This is how the trustees oversee. They rubber stamp what Belluck and the director of the charter institute tell them to approve.
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By the way, when Belluck says in the video that they have allowed charters the supposedly “non-material” change as long as it is somewhere in the same borough in the past, they are referring to their action when they ALSO favored Success Academy in a post-meeting change they wanted that led to their chair Pedro Noguera resigning. He was pro-charter but not “I’ll do anything charters tell me to do as long as they have billionaires on their board” unethical as so many of the current board seems to be.
It is laughable that Joseph Belluck and his lawyer insisted that it would be non-material to change the children who the charter will serve as long as they live somewhere in the same NYC borough! As if locating in rich Cobble Hill is no different than very poor East New York. They got away with it under Bloomberg as they had the DOE enabling them. But when they did it at this October 2014 meeting, one hand didn’t know what the other was doing, and SUNY kept changing where they told the public the charter was to be located. First one district, then another, then back to the first. All to please the billionaire donors to Cuomo who want Success Academy to be enabled. Their behavior as a so-called “oversight agency” is laughable. Anyone watching how they do their “due diligence” in this video can see for themselves.
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Here is a link to an article that explains what happened after this video, when the SUNY Charter Institute delightedly changed the location of a charter at the very last minute because Success Academy told them to do so. But then got called out. And then changed the approval back. And then claimed that they never approved what they had just approved and what anyone can see if they view the video at 30:25 above where Belluck talks about the non-material revision that the rubber stamp board approves.
https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20141016/lower-east-side/suny-blames-admininstrative-error-for-success-academy-confusion
This is an example of the so-called educational journalists at major newspapers not bothering to ask questions that a writer at a local news website does.
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Sick!
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This is how SUNY Charter Institute does “oversight”:
https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/ny/2015/10/19/charter-school-demographics-coming-under-fresh-scrutiny/
This article is from 2 years ago, when due to some bad publicity, Joseph Belluck pretended to have some concern about charter school demographics:
“When Success Academy Upper West comes up for review this year, officials will likely note that its test scores are among the best in New York state. But it might fall short by another metric: its demographics. About one in three students qualified as low-income last year, and 3 percent were English language learners. But the school’s share of low-income students should be closer to 50 percent and its English learner population closer to 7 percent, according to state calculations devised to nudge charter schools to serve more high-need students.”
So what is the latest data on Success Academy Upper West:
Instead of “one in three”, there are even fewer low-income students! — only 26% of the students were economically disadvantaged. https://data.nysed.gov/enrollment.php?year=2016&instid=800000070184
In today’s vote, SUNY basically flipped off the educators at SUNY, the educators on the State Board, and instead said “We at SUNY trust the SAME charter CEO who said Betsy DeVos is a terrific choice because she cares about children and is wonderful” more than we trust any of you losers.”
In today’s vote, SUNY basically flipped off the educators at SUNY, the education professionals on the state board, and the public and said “We trust the charter CEOs who tell us that 20% of the kindergarten children in their schools act out very violently with their “well-trained” Kindergarten teachers only because so many very violent children win their lottery” far more than we trust you losers who spent your lives in education.”
SUNY basically said “didn’t we keep our 2 year old promise to make sure charters were serving their share of at-risk kids?” Oh we didn’t? ha ha ha!
I can’t believe no journalist has investigated them after the myriad of incidents of behavior that is more about enabling bad charter practices than doing real oversight.
This is the same Joseph Belluck who insisted it was of vital importance and perfectly fine to give Success Academy schools renewals years before SUNY was supposed to because he already had completed all oversight necessary. That’s Belluck’s idea of “fine oversight”!
Where are the questions from journalists about this favoritism and lack of oversight?
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Charter school teachers should absolutely have their own independent standards for teaching acumen. I see no reason why they have to have the same credentials and licensing as public school teachers.
Children and families who use charter schools are freely choosing to subject themselves to free market forces, competition, profiteering, and privatized, corporate interests that trump civil and human rights to a free and appropriate education. Free market forces – ones that inevitably produce winners and losers with vastly redistributed wealth and power – are far more important than the individual child’s right to an excellent and equitable education.
Free market forces weed out the weak and retain the strong. Therefore, the quality of the child or teacher does NOT matter in charter schools. Eventually, pure cognitive rote-and-drill Darwinism will select those who can survive and get to attend and teach in a charter school until either individual leaves the school for something “better” and more promising in the open marketplace.
As for the rejects, they eventually won’t have a public school to go to because many of them will have been turned over to privatization.
It makes no sense, therefore, for charters to have any kind of standards other than excellence in making money for those high up in executive administration. I’m sure there are rubrics that assess how well a charter turns over a profit.
Profits over people and humanism drive the economy.
It’s the ruling class economy, stupid.
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I’m kind of with you on this one. They already use TFA for fake teachers, so I don’t know how letting them have their own fake teaching program is doing any more harm? I’m not a Charter fan and never will be. These people will do just about anything for money including stealing from children and denying them any decency in life.
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If citizens – I mean consumers – want to act like slaves by using the services of a charter school, then so be it that they be treated like slaves.
That’s what you get for attending or supporting a charter school. If slaves did not have anything of quality that they deserved, why should charter schools provide quality teachers? It makes no sense to provide quality.
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A periodic reminder: the student population of NYC charter schools (115,000 kids) is 93% black or Latino and 76% low-income. 7% are homeless.
These parents must be zoned for some pretty awful traditional public schools if they’re choosing — with alacrity, no less — to to send their children to what you describe as Darwinian profit mills.
Assuming the entirely union-funded attempts to stop this fail, SUNY has placed a lot of responsibility in its schools, and it will also likely see an influx of NYSED charters who want to change authorizers. I hope the state gives them the resources they need.
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They are choosing to go to a very rich charter school that has millions of dollars to spend on the luxuries instead of that overcrowded, underfunded public schools that also use some of their precious per pupil allocation to subsidize their charter school.
If they are one of the growing number of white affluent parents, they are choosing to go to a very rich charter school where the population of black and latino kids is NOT “93%” but in fact the poorest students of ANY race are not to be found except in disproportionately small numbers.
And they are choosing to go to a very rich charter school that is more than willing to educate their kids (if they are smart enough) at the expense of the extraordinarily high number of students who are MIA and are far more vulnerable because they are much poorer.
They are choosing to go to the very rich charter school subsidized by the same people who are donating to politicians who will do their bidding to cut funds from the public schools in their neighborhood and all the services that benefit poor families.
They are choosing to go to a very rich charter school because like you, Tim, they look the other way at the kids who get drummed out so that their kids can have more. Sometimes the rich people in this country like to tell some of the “chosen” poor people that they can either ignore the plight of others and join them, or be one of the others who suffer.
Imagine a charter school like Success Academy except it was run by a person who had a conscience instead of a lust for money and power. Imagine a charter school that said “we are happy to teach the most well-behaved of you and we support small classes and much larger budgets for the schools that teach the kids we don’t want in our schools.”
But that’s not what we have. You can choose to suffer, or you can choose to look the other way and get the luxuries given by someone who says that others of your race are disproportionately likely to be violent 5 year olds. You can choose to suffer in underfunded publics, or you can choose to look the other way when we lobby to cut funding from the kids with special needs.
And we have a SUNY Charter Institute of all white folks who say “Eva Moskowitz is so fantastic at recognizing and speaking out to educate the public about the natural violent tendencies of African-American Kindergarten students so let’s reward her by allowing her to train more fresh out of college teachers to be better at recognizing their violent tendencies, too. We promise to ask no questions as long as she gets rid of all the kids who will bring down test scores and those billionaires keep supporting us.”
No wonder Trump adores Eva Moskowitz. No wonder Eva Moskowitz adores Betsy DeVos.
You and Betsy DeVos won, Tim. The “violent” African-American children will continue to be called out by the woman who recognizes them better than any educator in history — Eva Moskowitz. No doubt that makes you very happy. After all, you never say a word except to defend her when she tells the world how violent so many African-American kindergarten children are. I assume you do so because you agree with all your heart. Sorry if I can’t agree with your racist beliefs, Tim, but carry on defending the suspension of high numbers of non-white 5 year olds. Now there will be no need to hire any teacher who is smart enough to recognize how racist the charter schools who train her to understand that “truth” really are.
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Tim,
A periodic reminder: I have asked you many times to provide one example of SUNY providing oversight of the myriad of complaints the richest charter chain receives. You always disappear.
Your silence enables the corruption. If you were really what you pretended to be, it would bother you because keeping rich charters honest should be something you’d want. Instead, you defend every single transgression or say “but SUNY is on it”.
And yet when asked to provide how SUNY is overseeing them, you are silent. You are complicit. I’m not sure whether you are paid to be, or if the racism implicit in how those charters are run appeals to you.
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Well said. Apparently it doesn’t hurt badly enough or we’d do something about it.
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This is disgusting and the stuff of lawsuits including class action lawsuits. It will also exacerbate the chaos within Succeggs Academy. Lowering the bar for entry will increase turnover even more and cause painful mistakes to be made in the classroom. If you hire low skilled labor to do a high skilled job, problems will certainly ensue. More lawsuits! They’re grasping at straws and these straws have barbs.
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Speaking as a born-&-bred upstate-NewYorker…
Let’s get some perspective here.
Yes, Success Academy represents 67% of all NYC charter school students [16k vs 24k] -[ SA represents 1.5% of all NYC pubsch students (16k vs 1.1 million) — of whom 2% total are charter school students]
But, Success Academy represents only 15% of all NYS charter sch studs [16k vs 108k] – [SA represents 0.06% of all NYS pubsch studs (16k vs 2.7million) — of whom 4% total are charter school students]
Is the tail wagging the dog?– i.e., are Eva’s backers exercising so much $clout among Regents Charter Sch Comm members that they are reduced to mouthpieces for a 15% minority of NYS charter schools, while the other 85% sit back & let NYC Charter Inc [SA] do the work?… Or are there other charter-conglomerate-backers in play?
Inquiring minds want to know 😉
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Looks like the others are free riding on Eva’s coat tails
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I think not all charters like it but they are complicit in this way:
If they stay silent, Success Academy will not compare the results her schools get directly with theirs and call them failures who should be shut down so she can take them over.
If they stay silent, they will be thrown some crumbs. Some people can be bought very cheaply and the operators of many smaller charters can be bought relatively cheaply. I used to support them, but their silence makes them complicit. And – as we see with Trump – when you silently watch as lies are offered as truth, you are complicit.
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Hey, where’s Tim?
I was looking forward to some crass charter shilling, along with his usual hare-brained attempts to defend Eva’s indefensible maneuvering, and it”s /he’s nowhere to be found.
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Did he die?
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He’s buffering… buffering…
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Stay classy, defenders of zoned traditional public schools.
P.S. My comments are moderated and often aren’t published, even though I don’t comment that frequently, never engage in ad hominem argument, or jokingly wonder whether commenters I disagree with are dead. It’s good to know there are people who are interested in my thoughts.
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And yet you claim to send your children to public schools. Your contempt for them shines through. Why don’t you send them to SA so they can have the Stern discipline they need?
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They are all now officially too old for Success schools, and they’re fine where they are currently–the state’s charter school law wasn’t written to help privileged parents like us, who can afford to move to better school zones or pay for private schools.
That said, if AQE wants to pick up the legal tab, I’d be happy to fake it and be a named plaintiff in a lawsuit over backfill and stopping new admissions after grade 4 or whatever it is now.
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Oh, no, SA is opening a high school. Put your kids where your heart is.
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The network does not take new kids after the first day of fourth grade. The HS (which is in either its third or fourth year) and MS are fed only by kids coming from the K-4 elementary schools.
http://www.successacademies.org/apply/
It is a ridiculous state of affairs, especially given how starved many districts are for good, safe MS/HS. Like I said, if AQE ponies up the $, we are standing by to be added to the lawsuit.
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Tim,
You can’t be added to the lawsuit without a name.
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Yes, obviously AQE and their lawyers would need all of my information. I believe there are other means of transmitting it apart from the comment section of your blog.
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Tim said:
“the state’s charter school law wasn’t written to help privileged parents like us, who can afford to move to better school zones or pay for private schools.”
This is true. But thanks to the SUNY Charter Institute it is being used that way. Why else would SUNY force three Success Academy elementary schools in very rich district 2 (where they all serve far more affluent and middle class kids than disadvantaged ones)?
Why else would the SUNY Charter Institute look the other way as Eva Moskowitz tells them how violent the at-risk kids are and how she can’t help but suspend them frequently and often? When they are 5. Not teens. Five years old.
You obviously have no problem with privileged parents being first in line for the precious seats in charter schools. So spare us your “I can afford to move to better zones or pay for private schools” white privilege view of life.
Out here in the neighborhoods you are too good to live in, parents who could afford to move to better zones or pay for private schools instead dare to attend those “failing” schools you wouldn’t set foot in but work so hard to undermine even more.
That’s something you don’t understand. That you don’t have to appeal to the racism of white parents to get ahead. You can do good things without lying. Without appealing to racism. Without fighting hard to convince America that Betsy DeVos is the savior of children of color.
When you have to lie and mislead and throw some children out with the trash to do what you think is good, it is ALWAYS because what you consider “good” isn’t good at all. And deep down you know it. Whenever you rationalize the lies and the intentional sacrifice of the very youngest children to benefit your “cause”, it is your cause that is wrong.
I’ve challenged you many times to explain how the SUNY Charter Institute has addressed the myriad of complaints as to how SA gets rid of the students it doesn’t want to teach. And you ignore it. You aren’t fooling anyone. Your silence demonstrates that you actually know how disgusting it is, but you don’t really care because it benefits you.
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Unfortunately, this is no surprise that charter schools make their own rules or are exempt from laws like 3012-d that public schools must abide by. Do public schools have an application process for prospective students like charters? NO. Do public schools make parents sign contracts and come for day long interviews to see if they are a fit? NO. Do public schools fire, release or counsel out students that are struggling? NO. The system is gamed in their favor to make them appear superior by using test scores that are manufactured through these processes.
Don’t worry because the best and brightest will land in public schools due to severe shortages in the years to come. Charters conditions will only get worse and they will game the system even further.
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There is a skills shortage . A shortage of qualified teachers willing to work for less and under poor working conditions . So what other choice is there than to lower the skills requirements and train on the job. Isn’t that the way it works .
Political decisions have nothing to do with facts. They are expressions of power , end of story. Unfortunately NY teachers are not willing to risk expressing the power they have ,where they have it. They unfortunately are no alone.
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There’s a skills shortage the same way there’s a Ferrari shortage. I had an extra couple bucks in my pocket the other day, so I stopped by a Ferrari dealership. Can you believe there are no Ferraris to be had for a couple bucks? Someone needs to address that shortage!
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Let’s lower standards for everything while we are at it. Firefighters endure rigorous physical training to demonstrate they will be able to perform their job duties. Medical professionals have to pass challenging board certificaton exams. Attorneys sit for exams to be admitted to the Bar. Accountants take exams to be CPAs. All of these stumbling blocks could easily be eliminated.
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Yet somehow, Abigail, nobody is suggesting any of these.
And there are certainly areas in this country, poor rural areas, parts of Alaska, Native American Reservations, etc, which lack, for instance, trained physicians or even nurse practitioners or physician assistants. Or physical, occupational, and speech therapists. But we do not hear calls for lowering the standards for such medical practicioners, or calls to train “their own” versions of such.
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