However, it should be noted that because this is a highly advanced, demanding program, it may not be appropriate for everyone. Targeted advertising can also carry a message. LISA Academy in Little Rock, Arkansas, in sent out targeted recruitment mailers to area neighborhoods — skipping over the three zip codes for the heavily Black and Latino parts of town.
The school later apologized and explained that its plan was to subsequently reach out to those populations through digital advertising. Charter schools sometimes require multiple essays or a minimum GPA as a condition for initial or continuing enrollment.
Minimum GPA requirements can be imposed at the application stage or once admitted. At Lushor Charter School in New Orleans, parents and students are asked to sign a contract that requires students to maintain a 2. Some charter schools require parents to volunteer a certain amount of time at the school, or pay money in lieu of volunteering. These requirements place an additional burden, in terms of time and money, on families that are already struggling economically.
Some of these schools repeatedly suspend students and call parents to leave work to pick up a suspended child.
These practices influence which students are admitted to charter schools and then stay in those schools. Many charter schools have inadequate facilities for sports, art and music, and many teachers are not certified or qualified to teach the subjects that they teach. One of the reasons some charter schools are successful is because the parents.
Charter schools are part of the answer. Schools can use some of the successful methods from charter schools. But saying charter schools are the answer to fix education is like saying giving jobs to 1, people in Hawaii will solve national unemployment. All Rights Reserved. I do not know the answer other than to reinstitute rigorous discipline, high expectations, hold kids back when they do not meet the standard for the next higher grade, put trouble makers in a segregated spot so they do not disrupt those trying to work.
Get rid of the nonsense perpetrated by unions and let teachers teach. Especially students coming from low-income homes who will be left to languish in an even more diminished and inferior learning environment. Better idea, as what used to be done decades ago, so that those with ambition and drive are not drawn to mediocrity.
We seem to want to level the field by dragging back the workers, not lifting the dead beats. Some kids will never make the grade, why pretend? In some instances it may be because of parent involvement, sometimes it is simply because charter schools can choose who they service.
Forget the apples and oranges for a minute. No one would argue that being selective will produce better results. But consider where the observations indicate there is a homogeneous mix of students. Why do the charters perform better? Teachers in my state are right back to unequal pay, dismissal without cause or proof and little to no representation. This has been going on for at least the last 30 years.
The accountability of charter schools may vary by state dependent on their charter and educational laws.
In Maryland, based on the law, Charter schools are public schools in the school district serving the students of that district. The charter schools have the same expectations for state testing and special education as two examples. Students enter the charters through a lottery system, validated and observed by district personnel.
They have to renew their charters with the district every years, dependent on their contract. The renewal is a very rigorous process that includes an in-depth multi-measure audit, interview and observation of the school.
As it should be, since they are supported by public school funds. One innovative end-run strategy was locating the school in a largely affluent area and then stipulating the enrollment zone a five mile radius which made it impossible for any poor kid to attend. But if you pull back the curtain the truth of the matter is that your population of attendees in many instances has been carefully cherry picked.
Forget the bias situations. Of course if there is selection, the results are skewed. That is not the point. If there is provable bias, call out the lawyers. Putting bias aside, why is the charter model so seemingly desirable?
It can not possibly be just selection and anyone who says parental involvement and expectations is not a huge indicator of good results…… well go find a better reason. When charter schools carefully skim the best kids or choose to eliminate undesirable ones, this creates an uneven playing field.
The result is a re-segregated school system where the poor and kids with special needs are all relegated to underfunded public schools. This speaks to a need for more rigorous oversight of charters. The studies support the fact that charters work better for less. This holds true with the most needy students. Tpool is made up of kids whose parents are more driven to success rather than complacency. Not all, but more than in the general population. I do not believe that you mean any harm but you are promoting information that does not include enough factual information.
In a nutshell, this country is truly doomed if we do not find fair and equitable methods to educate our children in diverse atmospheres. We have more in common than not and must allow our children to learn that while young than to turn into zenophobic and low level thinkers who fixate on skin color rather than character!
Sir, your post reads plausible. I think that since our public school system has fallen under both political and parental attack for so long, it has unfairly been stereotyped and branded inefficient and unsuccessful.
Public schools were the only option against private schools when I attended school. Everyone cosigned private school education programs superiority above public schools, possibly because parents paid with the premise that their child would fair better academically and subsequently socially and economically. Well after retiring from the military in June , and having two elementary schools aged daughters, whom my ex-wife had enrolled into a charter school in Lancaster, Texas, I experienced the difference between charter and public schools.
A brief summary of my experience with this particular charter school is there is no accountability, the principal is frequently absent from the campus for entire days, many teachers are uncertified, inexperienced, and cannot reach students where they are, poor time management, etc…This school is a prime example of the school to prison pipeline.
I would have removed them this year, but a bitter divorce required caution and consistency. After I finally caught him at the school, I spoke with the principal about several situations within the third and sixth grade classrooms. His reply was maybe I should enroll my daughters into another school since I appear unhappy with their school. I almost lost it. However, my reply was the school is for the students, not the teachers or the principal.
School privatization would definitely bring about the worse in this already divided country. I believe the answer is for parents to support public schools, connect with their community members and community programs, and for everyone to dedicate two hours per week volunteer time within a school or an organization that reaches into other communities. All hands on deck. However, more could start and that would make a difference. We follow open meeting laws, take the same standardized tests as the traditional public schools, include children with disabilities and have a wonderful PTO.
We are successful and are coming up on 20 years. Please when you bash charter schools, do not make blanket public statements about charter schools. Your stereotypes do not belong to every charter school.
You are bashing paying members. Great comment Schelli. Every time an article makes a blanket statement about charter schools it angers me. When the person writing this article is NEA, I am very disappointed and appalled, Public charter schools that are not for profit are held just as accountable as regular public schools.
Just a question for my own curiosities. You say you are in a union so this is not true correct? Schelli, Congratulations on finding an exception to what a lot of teachers have seen in charter schools. We have several in our area, and it seems to be the solution for some kids, but for others, they bounce back and forth between charter, cyber and public schools, sometimes all in the same school year.
There are some who have been taught something in the charter schools, but there are many more who return to the public school behind their classmates. In one charter school, students were returning so far behind their public school counterparts that they were retained. My objection is giving tax dollars to a for-profit entity. In my opinion, if you want to send your kids to a for-profit school, you should be responsible to pay the tuition.
Charter schools are a bad idea. Although education is important, history has shown that children can be educated by their parents or by themselves, many of our early presidents were home educated and they turned out fine.
Teachers had to give up their own time during a regular school week to pack up their things and move to second and third floor classrooms. A huge parent protest meeting was a sham, with more than a thousand people speaking out against the move, it happened anyway.
After the charter school moved in, I observed that charter school students were very lax in their behavior and dress, a contrast to our regular students. Our students certainly also observed it. One year later, the charter school moved out. After all that hooplah, our campus was not good enough for them. Our district was very callous towards parents and the teachers who objected to this travesty. It was one of the most disgusting displays of administrative arrogance that I ever observed in twenty five years of teaching.
In Ohio the largest online charter school is sponsored by a man that keeps a certain percentage of the money from each student, he owns the 2 software companies that the online school has to buy from. He has become a millionaire off the backs off our students and give huge contributions to the Republican to keep the charters going.
His school is fighting with the state auditor because that school states that they should not be held accountable for students hours in school. They should get the money as long as the students or someone with the password signs on. They feel that as long as they provide the curriculum, computers, teachers and books, that they do not have to make sure the students are actually doing anything else.
The state auditor says they should have to account for students attending and participating so many hours a year or give millions back they cheated to get. Public education is a cornerstone of our democracy Call your rep in the house and senate while HR is still on the floor. Call them repeatedly. Inform them of these facts and the loopholes that allow charters to operate without public oversight and accountability on our tax dollars. They lack information as much as the public.
Charters have done a great job making profits on our tax dollars. We have to do a better, more united job of pushing back. No classroom had more than 10 children. And her child bloomed! As did the other 9 kids in every classroom. Thanks again Mrs McD- you touched many of us in all the right ways and it stuck!
Not a bit. And public schools do such a great job of teaching. And students in the public schools are so well-disciplined, so respectful.
And when a public school fails year after year, it too closes down and goes out of business. In most places, charters are giving the public want they want: safe schools that teach kids well.
Is the system perfect? Of course not. But if charters can turn the crisis in education around, more power to them. I agree with DMH. Many of our California charters are not only high performing, but models of integration and excellence. I have worked in public, private, and charter schools and see the wide range of school options, benefits and perils.
In Los Angeles, our school district is in disarray due to mismanagement bureaucracy and and parents of all socio-economic levels who have options flee. Schools districts and public education need overhauls.
I bet Betsy DeVos owns or bankrolls a few herself. DeVos has a long and controversial record of advocating for school choice nationally, but especially in her home state of Michigan.
DeVos and her family members have collectively spent tens of millions of dollars to further the issue. The DeVoses helped support a drive by then-Gov. John Engler to overhaul school funding in the state. The effort, which was ultimately successful, also allowed for the creation of charter schools aimed at replacing alleged failing public schools. Always look behind fRight Wing rhetoric and find what source of power for ordinary people they are trying to destroy and who are they trying to make richer.
I, too, am clear about the value of public charters. Private charters need to sell their program and services and attract parents who choose to pay for said programs and services.
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