[satyanar]

Why Charter Schools in your title dergon? I dont see one mention of them in the article. 

[btomba_77]

 
You are absolutely right. It’s not in the OP article.
 
I put the Christian home-schooling movement and the Christian (and even secular) charter school movement together as frequently driven by people who are set to end public education as we know it, all under the umbrella of the “school choice” (now “parents rights”) movement
 
[link=https://www.thedailybeast.com/betsy-devos-and-the-gops-plan-to-destroy-public-schools] Betsy DeVos and the GOP’s Plan to Destroy Public Schools[/h3] [/link]
Through school choice, conservatives can kill two birds with one stone. Theyll have the ability to eliminate public schools and significantly weaken teachers unionssuch as the National Education Association, the countrys largest union, and American Federation of Teachers, both of which are huge Democratic Party donors, active in crafting education policy, and whose members largely vote for Democrats. Conservative anti-tax crusader [link=https://rethinkingschools.org/special-collections/why-the-right-hates-public-education/]Grover Norquist admitted as much[/link] in 1998 when he said, school choice reaches right into the heart of the Democratic coalition and takes people out of it.
 
Since 2000, Republicans have tried to win over another Democratic coalition, [link=https://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/gop-school-choice-minority-voters-102393]Latino and African American communities[/link], by selling them school choice. In particular, the GOP promotes charter schools as the best chance for their children to advance educationally, and escape [link=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/12/21/to-trumps-education-pick-the-u-s-public-school-system-is-a-dead-end/]dead end[/link] public schools.
 
 
 
_________
But there’s hope
[link=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2019/05/30/feature/charter-schools/]Charter schools were supposed to save public education. Why are people now turning against them[/link]?[/h3]
 

[amyelizabethbarrett28_711]

Just like many government programs, public education is a money pit. Public school funding per pupil is markedly higher than private school tuition per pupil. New York City spends $38,000 per pupil per year! Waste on top of waste on top of waste. Bureaucracy bureaucracy middlemen waste.

[satyanar]

Quote from dergon

 
You are absolutely right. It’s not in the OP article.

I put the Christian home-schooling movement and the Christian (and even secular) charter school movement together as frequently driven by people who are set to end public education as we know it, all under the umbrella of the “school choice” (now “parents rights”) movement

[link=https://www.thedailybeast.com/betsy-devos-and-the-gops-plan-to-destroy-public-schools] Betsy DeVos and the GOP’s Plan to Destroy Public Schools [/link]
Through school choice, conservatives can kill two birds with one stone. Theyll have the ability to eliminate public schools and significantly weaken teachers unionssuch as the National Education Association, the countrys largest union, and American Federation of Teachers, both of which are huge Democratic Party donors, active in crafting education policy, and whose members largely vote for Democrats. Conservative anti-tax crusader [link=https://rethinkingschools.org/special-collections/why-the-right-hates-public-education/]Grover Norquist admitted as much[/link] in 1998 when he said, school choice reaches right into the heart of the Democratic coalition and takes people out of it.

[b]Since 2000, Republicans have tried to win over another Democratic coalition, [link=https://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/gop-school-choice-minority-voters-102393]Latino and African American communities[/link], by selling them school choice. In particular, the GOP promotes charter schools as the best chance for their children to advance educationally, and escape [link=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/12/21/to-trumps-education-pick-the-u-s-public-school-system-is-a-dead-end/]dead end[/link] public schools.[/b]

_________
But there’s hope
[link=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2019/05/30/feature/charter-schools/]Charter schools were supposed to save public education. Why are people now turning against them[/link]?

 
Thanks for being honest. That’s a common tactic. Lump the good with the bad to discredit a valuable idea.
 
I asked because I recently saw an inspiring talk by Ian Rowe who runs charter schools in NYC. It would be worth your investigation of his work. I would be anxious to see how you discredit it.
 
It usually starts with making the connection to bad Republicans, Christians and conservatives.
 
 
 

[btomba_77]

[link=https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/redirect-to/?redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.orlandosentinel.com%2F2023%2F09%2F01%2Fflorida-school-vouchers-can-pay-for-disney-tickets-and-tvs-is-that-ok%2F]Florida school vouchers can pay for Disney tickets and TVs. Is that OK?[/link]

…

Theme park passes, 55-inch TVs, and stand-up paddleboards are among the approved items that recipients can buy to use at home. The purchases can be made by parents who home-school their children or send them to private schools, if any voucher money remains after paying tuition and fees.Participants inquired about the possibility of vouchers paying for tickets for fan fests and conventions. They discussed whether they could get a television and a projector, or just one of those. They shared sample wording to submit for requests to get theme park passes paid for something that was prohibited a year ago.

Every child in Florida deserves an enriching, quality education, said Holly Bullard, chief strategy officer for Florida Policy Institute, which has raised repeated concerns about the potential cost of voucher expansion. But is it fair to students in our public schools, whose teachers often pay out of their own pockets for classroom supplies, that taxpayer dollars are being spent on Disney passes and big screen TVs for voucher families?

[kayla.meyer_144]

“Fleecing the taxpayer.” 

[satyanar]

Darn. By the title, I thought this thread would be a good place to discuss the work by people like Ian Rowe, and the difference they are making for youth of color in NYC.

[kayla.meyer_144]

Dumbing down American education.
 
Vocational education supplants Liberal Arts education. What good is learning about Socrates to get a job?
 
[link=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/03/opinion/colleges-civics-core-curriculum-culture-wars.html]https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/03/opinion/colleges-civics-core-curriculum-culture-wars.html[/link]

Generations of students grappled with Socrates argument that the rule of law cannot survive if people simply ignore laws they dont support. By [link=https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpoliakoff/2020/03/11/whos-afraid-of-western-civ/?sh=743713065f59]debating[/link] plausible answers, students learned to see disagreement as a necessary ingredient of both learning and of life. They also confronted hard questions about civil disobedience and social change. And the common references that students picked up in their first year provided a foundation for future conversations and courses.
 
The widespread adoption of a free-market approach to the college curriculum has had other noxious effects, as well: It has fueled a rampant [link=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3838750]vocationalism[/link] among students, leading them to desert humanities classes in favor of pre-professional tracks aimed at lucrative careers. When universities do not signal the intrinsic value of certain topics or texts by requiring them, many students simply follow market cues.
 
Civic education, by contrast, is a public good. Left to the market, it will always be undersupplied. It is rarely a priority for employers or for job seekers to promote the skills of active listening, mutual reasoning, respecting differences and open-mindedness. We need to reinvest in it.
 
In the absence of civic education, it is not surprising that universities are at the epicenter of debates over free speech and its proper exercise. Free speech is hard work. The basic assumptions and attitudes necessary for cultivating free speech do not come to us naturally. Listening to people with whom you disagree can be unpleasant. But universities have a moral and civic duty to teach students how to consider and weigh contrary viewpoints, and how to accept differences of opinion as a healthy feature of a diverse society. Disagreement is in the nature of democracies.
 
Universities and colleges must do a better job of explaining to our students the rationale for free speech, as well as cultivating in them the skills and mind-set necessary for its practice. The free-market curriculum model is simply not equipped for this task. We cannot leave this imperative up to student choice.

 

[satyanar]

Cool opinion. Now can we discuss charter schools like the title suggests?

[kayla.meyer_144]

So discuss. Ball in your court since you raised it.

[satyanar]

Great. Dergon starts a thread with Charter Schools in the title, admits it really had nothing to do with his and your beliefs in them and now its in me to explain what is good or bad about them. Lovely. Thanks for confirming the goal of the AM left.

I already suggested anyone interested should read about Ian Rowe and what he has accomplished in NYC. Not hard to do.

[kayla.meyer_144]

And? Other than providing an alternate place, charter schools in general provide no better education than their public school alternative. Some provide better opportunities than their local public school. The analysis of why almost always seems to be missing. Are the successful students different or is the school different? or both? Do Charters have to assume the same responsibilities as public schools or do they have more choice in who to accept? Do Charters have to report and be accountable as do public schools?
 
Providing more options is good and I am not opposed. But what’s the draw? What’s different about Charters to public schools that allegedly make them superior? I haven’t found any other than regional differences, if that.
 
So what make Charters better than public? And how are they better? Especially when Charters are publicly funded? Are student fully provisioned with books and other materials whereas some public school teachers have to supply their students out of their own pockets?
 
What
 
[link=https://www.brookings.edu/articles/charter-schools-a-report-on-rethinking-the-federal-role-in-education/]https://www.brookings.edu/articles/charter-schools-a-report-on-rethinking-the-federal-role-in-education/[/link]

Charter schools are public schools of choice (rather than residential assignment) that are operated autonomously, outside the direct control of local school districts.
 
Nearly all large-scale studies that have examined the effectiveness of charter schools across many states have relied on statistical controls to handle differences in student background between students attending charter schools vs. regular public schools. Several of these studies find that students attending charter schools do no better than students attending regular public schools.
 
Critics of these studies point out that no amount of statistical adjustment for observed differences, such as correcting for divergence in the proportion of minority or low-income students attending regular vs. charter schools or adjusting for students prior achievement scores, can handle unobserved differences between parents and children attending the two types of school. For example, parents who enroll their children in charter schools may have different expectations for their childrens academic success than other parents. Or the students themselves may be different, e.g., students who transfer out of a regular public school into a charter school may have had particular problems adjusting to school. These unobserved differences in students and families may affect academic outcomes independent of the type of school students are attending.
 
There are presently five randomized trials that have addressed the performance of charter schools. Four found positive charter school impacts on student achievement[link=https://www.brookings.edu/articles/charter-schools-a-report-on-rethinking-the-federal-role-in-education/#_edn7][vii][/link] whereas one found no overall effect.[link=https://www.brookings.edu/articles/charter-schools-a-report-on-rethinking-the-federal-role-in-education/#_edn8][viii][/link] The four studies finding positive impacts each involved charter schools serving minority populations, three in large urban school districts (Chicago, New York City, and Boston, respectively) and one in a smaller, low income city north of Boston. The study that found no overall impact examined charters across multiple states and types of locale. Interestingly, the multi-state study that found no overall impact nevertheless identified subgroup effects, such that students from poor, minority, urban backgrounds did better in charter schools in contrast to students from middle-class, suburban backgrounds, who did worse. Thus all the randomized trials are consistent in pointing to the success of charter schools in large urban areas. 
 
One limitation of these randomized trials is external validity (i.e., the ability to generalize the results to other settings). Because there are few non-urban, sufficiently oversubscribed charter schools, the randomized trials have taken place primarily in large, urban areas with a high percentage of minority students. The results of the randomized trials may not extend to the areas outside of the major urban areas and more research using other methods is needed on the effectiveness of charter schools for non-urban areas. 
 
 
In summary, the overall body of research on the academic effectiveness of charter schools suggests considerable variability in impact. Thus knowing that a school is organized as a charter school does not, in and of itself, say much about whether the school is good, bad, or mediocre. Some charter schools are unambiguously providing a more effective education for students than is provided by regular public schools serving similar students. Other charter schools are no better than the public schools with which they compete, and some are worse.

Prior to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, federal involvement in charter schools was minor, with approximately $200 million appropriated annually through the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to make charter school grants to state education agencies and charter management organizations. During the 2008-2009 school year, federal involvement was approximately $1.40 per student.[link=https://www.brookings.edu/articles/charter-schools-a-report-on-rethinking-the-federal-role-in-education/#_edn15][xv][/link]Neither the amount of funding nor the conditions of competition afforded an opportunity at the federal level to have much impact on charter schools.
 
ARRA provided the Secretary of Education with a $650 million innovation fund from which awards were to be made to education entities that had made significant gains in closing achievement gaps. The purpose of the awards was to expand the work of the award winners and to identify and document best practices that could be shared and taken to scale based on demonstrated success. The KIPP Foundation, a large national charter operator, was one of the big winners under the innovation fund competition, receiving $50 million to scale-up its leadership training model.

 

[satyanar]

Thanks for agreeing to a discussion. You ask the right question and quote the right answer.

The four studies finding positive impacts each involved charter schools serving minority populations, three in large urban school districts (Chicago, New York City, and Boston, respectively) and one in a smaller, low income city north of Boston.

They appear to be particularly helpful when targeting urban minority youth.

Why might that be? I can say that Ian Rowe believes a large part is taking on the teachers unions.

[satyanar]

[link=https://www.wsj.com/articles/charter-school-sued-teachers-union-vertex-academies-united-federation-of-teachers-rowe-mangual-bronx-new-york-education-achievement-gap-hispanic-latino-black-impoverished-students-11657300011]https://www.wsj.com/artic…d-students-11657300011[/link]

[satyanar]

I’ll say it again because I would like to learn. I was excited to click on this thread since I recently had the privilege of hearing Ian Rowe speak. He made a great case for his use of charter schools in NYC. He is someone who, IMO, will go a long way to helping level the playing field for urban minority youth. His mission is one that I would like to, and encourage wealthier friends, to support.
 
I was disappointed to see that dergon lumps charter schools in with the conservative, Republican, “right”. However, I was open to listen to what problems there were with charter schools so that I didn’t “give cover” to the MAGA right by arguing their virtues without understanding their potential pitfalls.
 
This is how discussion sites like this should work. If it can’t happen here does anyone have a good place to go to share ideas?
 
I am fortunate to be exposed to people and places that the vast majority will never see in person, including “rich” radiologists. I like to be able to share my experiences with people. They always leave me optimistic. It doesn’t matter if these people are labeled “left or “right”. They behave decently with each other.