Charter vs. charter!
Charters in California are angry at the Inspire Charter chain for poaching their students. Inspire is the chain that caters to homeschooling parents.
https://www.nbcsandiego.com/investigations/Inspire-Charter-School-Unethical-Practices-557802161.html
Critics of Inspire accuse the charter of using unethical practices to entice parents and students to leave their current charter schools and go to Inspire. A spokesperson for Inspire says the criticism is the result of the charter school’s “incredible growth.”
Inspire Charter runs a network of home schools operating throughout California; some of those schools are authorized by the Dehesa School District…
Through Inspire, parents receive instructional funds totaling $2,800 per year for students who are in kindergarten through eighth grade, according to the charter school. High school students can receive $3,000 every year. That money is used for curriculum and extra-curricular activities…
Another critic is Terri Schiavone, the Founder and Director of Golden Valley Charter School in Ventura. Schiavone says her school is one of many that are losing students to Inspire Charter.
“They target a school and then they try to get as many of their teachers and students as possible,” Schiavone said.
Schiavone said families and teachers are enticed by incentives like using instructional funds to buy tickets to Disneyland and other theme parks. Schiavone says there is a lack of oversight and accountability.
No one is making sure teachers are checking up on students’ work, and Schiavone says parents can buy whatever they want from vendors who she says are not fingerprinted or even qualified.
“It’s very desirable for some parents to enroll in schools in which nobody’s looking over their shoulder,” said Schiavone. “They can utilize whatever curriculum they want, including religious curriculum, which is illegal if using public dollars…”
But while supporters defend Inspire, the charter school has made moves to change its operations. It ended the option of using instructional funds to buy tickets to Disneyland and other theme parks last year, according to a letter sent to parents.
Then on August 1, Inspire closed its “Enrichment Adventure Program.” Through the program, parents could use their instructional funds for dinner theater productions, tickets to the Smithsonian, for example, when a family is on an out of state field trip.
Inspire says the other charters are jealous of their success.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The feed from Diane’s blog stopped appearing in my e-mail a couple of days ago. That is a first. I do not see how that could happen unless malicious software from a black hat caused it.
I’ve had to go directly to Diane’s to see her new posts. I tried to sign up again in case I was dropped but that didn’t work.
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Lloyd,
I have complained repeatedly to WordPress about the mysterious “dropping” of woolens who subscribe to the blog. They always profess complete bewilderment.
Something is definitely happening. People like you who have been faithful readers suddenly disappear. WordPress claims the disappeared readers unsubscribed.
I am not overstating when o say that in the last three years, thousands of daily readers were dropped.
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Thank you.
Next time you contact WordPress, tell them Lloyd Lofthouse did NOT unsubscribe. He was dropped, and it seems he can’t get back in because he thinks some Trumpish black hat’s malware is getting in the way.
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I’ve been going directly to Diane’s blog & scrolling down several times a day for years, just like I used to open the NYT in the a.m. & continue reading it later. So far wordpress has never messed with my account & blogpage (which I rarely use, but also go to directly). I stopped w/Outlook long ago because they’s delete all my stuff now & then – keep everything at my server (comcast). However my husband tells me Outlook et al are virtually bug-free these days, & the problem lies w/wordpress, as you say.
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how much of the poaching is a response to what people of color are demanding? That does make it right, but it is a sign that this is a battle being lost by public education.
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They are eating themselves alive.
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So the charters criticizing Inspire say that just because some parents choose a school, that doesn’t mean it’s a “great school”. Doesn’t mean school choice is beneficial. Aha. Ahem. Glad we got that cleared up.
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“They target a school and then they try to get as many of their teachers and students as possible,” Schiavone said.
This is a charter proponent who’s unable grasp the concept of irony.
For more on this, read how charter operators hire poachers whose job it is to “target” specific public schools, with those poachers charging the charter operators $850 each for every child successfully poached, or where that child is persuaded to leave the targeted public school. and move to the charter org paying the poacher’s salary:
This unethical practice was fine with certain players in the charter industry … that is, until it started backfiring on them.
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“This is a charter proponent who’s unable grasp the concept of irony.”
Heh heh, yup. Welcome to the free market, charter folk.
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This
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Charters are accused of using disreputable practices. Oh my!
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I have heard that there is also poaching of alligators in Louisiana. Since charters dominate the city of New Orleans, maybe it was a natural transition.
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Thank goodness, Lloyd, I still get email notifications. Of course, I’m more of an observer, and you tend to expostulate. Nevertheless, it shouldn’t be up to ‘WordPress’ or anyone else to restrict access to communication on a platform (the Internet) that was originally created with public money (barring, of course, and incitement to violence against the People).
We are living in ‘interesting’ times.
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I do not think the times we are living in are “interesting”.
Global Warming is not “interesting”.
The threat of nuclear annihilation is not “interesting”.
World Wars are not “intersting”. Being homeless is not “interesting”.
All the wars since the last World War are not “interesting”.
Almost a billion people starving around the world in our times is not “interesting”.
The illegal global sex industry that kidnaps children all over the world and traffics them to other countries is not “interseting”.
Have you watched “CSI Cyber” or kept up with the news of how many government agencies, banks, and/or corporations have been and still are being hacked: identify theft, trolls that stalk people on-line, lack of laws and internet infrastructure to protect people, et al?
This reveals just how messed up and dangerous the internet is. It does not matter that the internet was allegedly built with public money. I doubt that claim by the way. The first internet used by the military was built with public money but since then, I don’t think so.
I pay more than $80 a month to use the internet through one of the two providers in my area, Comcast. I won’t do business with AT&T.
WordPress is a private sector, for-profit company headquartered in San Francisco and should be responsible for their paying customers to make sure their product works. If it isn’t working properly, then they should fix it. I do not think public money (from taxes) built WordPress.
“Who owns WordPress and how does WordPress make money?”
https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/who-owns-wordpress-and-how-does-wordpress-make-money/
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The inevitable result of putting public money into private hands.
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