The Onion reports on an exciting and innovative concept in the world of charter schools: a school without students!
“One year into its founding as the purported “bold next step in education reform,” administrators on Monday sang the praises of Forest Gates Academy, a progressive new charter school that practices an innovative philosophy of not admitting any students. “We’ve done something here at Forest Gates that is truly special, combining modern, cutting-edge pedagogical methods with a refreshingly non-pupil-centric approach,” said academy president Diane Blanchard, who claimed that the experimental school boasts state-of-the-art facilities, a diverse and challenging syllabus, absolutely zero students, a world-class library, and the highest faculty-student ratio in the nation. “
The Onion says the charter has received $80 million from the state of Georgia.
It probably also received millions in federal funding as well as from the Walton Family Foundation.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Hilarious!
Don’t they also have the lowest faculty-student ratio in the nation : )
Sadly, in a few years this will probably be the norm.
Actually, the faculty-student ratio goes way past being the nation’s highest and extends well into infinity!
“To infinity and beyond,” said Buzz Lightyear. (It was Buzz that said this, right?)
Now, now. As you know, you can divide by an arbitrarily low number (say, Trump’s IQ), but you can’t divide by 0!
Can we divide by a negative number like say a minus 1,000?
But Bob
0! = 1
And you CAN divide by 1
Good eye, SomeDAM!
Excuse me, but student/faculty ratio. 🙂
This is a beauty. It is also a perfect example of disruptive innovation.
Oh my Lord. Yes. LMAO!!!
I think they need a new public relations head.
They neglected to mention that their graduation rate is 100%, that 100% of the students who start there graduate and that 100% of their graduates go on to college.
This is an oversight that no self-respecting charter school would ever make.
And their sports teams have never lost a contest. That will bring more corporate funding.
You are clearly in the wrong business, SomeDAM. I understand that versifying is very lucrative, but. . . .
Even a math genius/ charter debunker Gary Rubenstein could not touch my claims.
And with regard to lucre
What poems pay
Is worth today
What yesterday
Was nought, OK?
The poets wage
The poets wage is lower
Than limbo, I suppose
And poets raise is slower
Than tortoise ever goes
As Donnie T said to his party,
Just follow me. I’m such a smarty.
So I wanna know,
How low will you go?
Is any amount of idiotic,
Psychotic, despotic,
Falsely demotic,
Too low?
(Perhaps debasement is asymptotic,
Perhaps there always new depths one can plumb.
Is nothing too racist, ignorant, dumb?)
I gotta know.
How low, how low can you go?
Limbo lower now
Limbo lower now
Your verses, SomeDAM, bring me such joy. And I’m sure that they bring you joy, as well. What is that worth?!!? QED
Measure that!
Bob
Writing goofy poetry is the only thing that keeps me insane.
And if you don’t have your insanity, what DO you have?
I write the goofy poetry
To mollify my brain
The poems are enough for me
To make me stay insane
The Secret to Maintaining One’s Insanity
To maintain my insanity
I have a little trick
I write a goofy verse, or three
Enough to make me sick
Definition of Insanity versified
Insanity’s repeating
The things you did before
Expecting you’ll be meeting
A difference at the door
The Measure of Insanity
The measure of insanity
Is unsupported faith
In every new inanity
That crazy person sayeth
By the latter measure, belief in Imbellus ,(aka Imbesull — use of video games to supposedly “measure” critical thinking) is certainly enough to certify one as insane.
Yet, there are already some who believe (sight unseen) that this is the next great thing in education “metrics” (aka metricks) on the horizon.
Kinda like those who adopted Common Core, VAM and Pearsonalized learning sight unseen.
Education seems to have more than it’s fair share of insanity.
And so it comes to pass, what Theodore Thomas wrote about in his short story “Test,” written in 1962. Thomas, who was a sci fi author, a chemical engineer, and a patent attorney, would have been most amused that it had taken so long for assessment folks to catch up to him.
https://www.globest.com/2019/03/28/two-florida-charter-schools-trade-for-45m/?slreturn=20190228132220
They need to add how much money they made for their hedge fund.
“the school offers a Personalized Learning Plan for every student, designed to provide an individualized approach to learning for more than 1,100 of its current students.”
They save a lot on teachers, so they can pour public money into the privately owned “assets” – the real estate.
Just queue up the Khan Academy videos and call it “done”.
Do people in Florida know they’re paying the mortgage on these schools and the charter management company retains title?
It’s absolute robbery. And so incredibly convoluted they’d need a forensic accountant to untangle it. Layers on layers on layers.
I laughed, but I should not have laughed, because this scenario is plausible.
Imagine 50 million children on the streets shooting at each other while modern, up-to-date schools built like fortresses that could keep Grizzly bears out are on every corner, … empty of children.
And, there would be no risk of any school shootings happening because there would be no children to shoot on those empty K-12 campus buildings. The only thing to shoot and kill would be the books in the library, the new never used furniture and a computer for every child (50-million of them) sold by Microsoft or Apple.
In fact, why not build child robots that are AI compliant so they are capable of learning on their own without teachers and fill the schools with those bots that would never get a test question wrong and never be a challenge to teach.
If I had seen this without knowing it was the Onion, I would have at first believed it. It’s not that far from reality. Charter scams have truly become stranger than fiction.
Perhaps schools without parents makes more sense:
I thought that was what publicly funded, private sector corporate charters were, schools without parents.
Haha!
Yeah, I think we should just get rid of the traditional classes, and offer more 21st century ones kids can actually use, like MOB Psychology, Effective Bullying I and II, Elementary Nuclear Weaponry, Philanthropical Lobbying, Texting, and Sexting.
You forgot the most important one,: Hooking up 101
Then again, I guess 101 might be too elementary.
you would undoubtedly want to offer more advanced graduate Hooking up classes.
Wait, this is High School!
This is great satire (still, but almost not satire) from The Onion.
&–esp. for you, Diane, did you read the article on the side, “Self-Actualized Historians Urge Nation Not to Get Hung Up on the Past?” Perfect!
In case the Onion performance boosting scheme fails, plan B could be to implement a scheme where the students are given tests along with the solutions. My feeling is that that could also increase the scores and hence rankings of charter schools which would adopt this innovatively simple scheme. The student/teacher ratio could be made extremely high, but the efficiency numbers surely would make up for it multiple times and would satisfy any parent.
http://wd369.csi.hu/apu/earbud_method.html
I am not sure it’s needed, but what could be plan C? Let’s let our innovative imagination loose!
Reminds me of the fabled tailors whose profit-making scheme to clothe the emperor included a big sales budget, but no materials at all.
I admit, there is nothing more peaceful than a college campus during spring break.
How about s college campus that has been shut down?
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/education/corinthian-colleges-shuts-down-ending-classes-16-000-overnight-n348741
I suppose it is only peaceful for the mice and other rodents who remain.
Diane asked for a easure of JOY. Well the next best thing is this effort to measure “happiness,” country ratings to start. Guess who wins.
http://worldhappiness.report/ed/2018/
Yes, Laura, once again those @!&# Democratic Socialist countries are at the top!!!
Finland, Sweden, Denmark. I recommend everyone see Michael Moore’s Where to Invade Next?
That should shut up all those who keep cracking not-so-wise about Venezuela.
Let them eat lingonberries!!
Pretty sad when the Onion has to use cite reality for its satire.
Also, one of the funniest (honestly, you will laugh until you cry or your sides split) stories (&–how prescient was this?!–was preceded by disclaimer “Fake News”) I’d read was on Mr. Teachbad’s Blog Spot (“a place for teachers to laugh & complain”): it was reprinted in “The Answer Sheet” (Valerie Strauss, WaPo) on Dec. 15, 2010–“Principal Seeks to Replace Student Body, Improve Test Scores.” It is a MUST read, if you can find it.
(Mr. Teachbad was discontinued some time ago; the genius who wrote it, Washington D.C. Public School Teacher Peter Gwynn was fired in 2011 {believed to have been the result of the Teachbad Blog}. Don’t know what he’s doing now…have to Google him.
But he really did make teachers laugh (&, boy, did we complain!).
Peter, we miss you. Hope you read Diane’s blog, & will compile a book from your posts.
We need laughs more than ever! (Although, I just burst out laughing when I saw Anthony Cody’s facial expression at the DeLoss hearing.)
Thank you.
Yeah, actually having to teach students cuts into profits too much.