Oh, I’m sure there will be at least one.

In the comments - objecting to the lottery. There is just as many lotteries in the public school sector for entry into the magnet schools and other specialized schools.

In the conclusions of the study - ” Importantly, however, gaps between charter applicants and non-applicants
are shrinking. In the most recent year, we see almost as many special education students applying as exist in the BPS population. At the same time, some gaps remain. This is important because our analysis of charter effectiveness (here, as in earlier work) uncovers substantial differences in impact. Students from groups least likely to apply, including English language learners and students with low achievement scores, are those for which achievement gains are likely to be the largest.”

POSTED ON BEHALF OF DOUG

The report is done by a pro charter group not an objective observor.

Charters became beloved of privatizers when it was clear that vouchers would never be willingly supported by voters.

Charters are about 4% of American education, they are mainly killing catholic schools.

Many charters are exempt from the teacher evaluation schemes of public schools even though most of the money is public.

In many states charter teachers do not need certification.

Charter schools are notorious for limiting their SE, ELL and any difficult or expensive to serve students

In many states they are owned by hedge fund managers and venture capitalists as investments

There are tax breaks to encourage construction.

Charter operators insist their schools are PUBLIC schools even when they operate for a profit, have private management boards and gain exemptions from state labor laws.

School staff are not requitred to pass criminal background checks.

Charter schools are often found to have double and triple the expulsion rates of public schools

Schools like KIPP get a full public school allottment of funds topped up by millions of private sector dollars.

The largest charter chain in the USA Gulen schools is controlled by wealthy Turks. Only Turkish men can sit on its boards and all its contracts are with Turkish American companies

Charter schools spend more on admin and less on instruction than public schools

Some place children in fron of computers for many hours to keep their labour bill low

Charter schools in Ohio are far less successful than public schools yet the government continues their liscences year after year.

Is the American Learning Disabilities association not an objective observer when they put out their damning reports concerning the public education system? Or the Autism societies? 

If you went to the trouble reading the report, you would not lay the charge of bias reporting. Actually it was quite objective…......but then again I supposed that you never actually read the report, because it came from an organization that you don’t like. I think the bias person is actually Doug.

That said, how about listing the sins of the public education system, Doug, and compared them to the charter schools who have a common funding source - the taxpayers’ purse?  I am sure the sins of the public education system will be a far lengthy list that would be a mile wide and a mile deep. Oops, I forgot you can’t be objective wearing your blinders, while defending the costs on $165 for the installation of a pencil sharpener and $800 or would that be $3000 for the installation of a plug outlet at the schools of the Toronto District. Or the busy activities the Toronto School Board are undertaking to sell every last inch of green space of Toronto public schools. If not that, busy trying to close down schools, only to send students on a lengthy bus ride or subway ride 10 kms away in rush hour traffic. Let us not forget the recent criminal charges of one of the education gurus at the OISE and if I search, it probably won’t take long to see what reasons that parents are being banned from school property to students expressing their fundamental rights in free speech, and having a 3 day suspension for daring to criticizing the administration of the school to checking on the progress of the 8 lawsuits, initiated by parents because the school would not do anything concerning bullying. Of course Doug, I could go on and on about the deficits of the Toronto school board, but to be fair, the Toronto School board does have their good points, in the same way as charter schools do.

To end, since both charter and public schools in the USA are funded by the taxpayers’ purse, are not the public schools a wee bit jealous of the charter school’s ability to fundraise money at a higher proportion than the public schools? After all, that young man who is in his first year in college, would not be there if he did not have the luck of the draw in the lottery to attend the charter school. After all, the public school for all their good intentions, do write off a lot of kids from the very beginning especially the ones that are the struggling in learning. Compounded by low expectations, is it any wonder why kids figure it out real early that school is just another playground   and not a place of learning? At least the young man called the public school a playground, which is a step up from other struggling learners who will call the local schools, jails.

POSTED ON BEHALF OF DOUG

We all just agreed in Tom Bertrands thread that

- Finland has a fabulous education system

- one of the major reasons for their fabulous system is teacher education programs and requirements.

Finland has no charters, no vouchers, almost no testing, no TFA, no merit pay, no parent trigger, no privatization.

Finland does have very strong teacher unions

Finland does have 5% child poverty (USA 20%)

Finland does have a project oriented system and very short in school hours.


So I guess we can all see there is no need for charters and vouchers, little need for testing and the way to control for quality teachers is right at the very beginning with teacher supply and training and education.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/ravitch-why-states-should-say-no-thanks-to-charter-schools/2012/02/12/gIQAdA3b9Q_blog.html

Doug, has not been keeping up to date on the new measures for poverty levels.  I now see the new methods being used at global levels, to reflect more accurate numbers. ”  The reasons given because - ” measured in relation to the median living standard of each country. Thus, the living standards of poor people in rich countries can not be compared to the poor in poor countries.”
http://inequalitywatch.eu/spip.php?article99

Makes perfect sense to me, that it should be measured to the median living standards of a country. For Finland, it stands at 13.1 at the 60 % threshold.

The threshold most commonly used is 60 % of the median income.”  In Europe and the OECD, they are now using this type of measurements in the latest reports. Although, it is a work in progress, I believed it is represents an accurate picture of the poverty levels of a country or even a region, considering that countries are not equal when it comes to services, the price of food and shelter, and other basic commodities.

To which brings me back to the public and charter schools. Is standardized test scores an accurate measurement to judge schools?  Some will argued like Ravitch, no it isn’t, but I bet if there was changes to the current measurements - the Ravitch crew would howl until the cows came home because the list of reasons why charter schools should not exist would vanished overnight.

Now I know, measuring a school by a single set of scores of standardized testing, does not reflect an accurate picture of a school, whether it is public or charter. What would happened if another measure stood together with the outcomes of standardized testing? A measure that would allow a more accurate picture of the individual school and allow for comparisons between schools , between charter and public schools?

It would be rather illuminating to compared charter schools to public schools of how many students are hugging the 50 % line, the 60 % line, the 70 % line and the 90 % line, in the individual schools. I get the feeling that if this was done, there should be a pattern in the charter schools that would reflect steady progress and achievement from one year to the next, and where the lowest achievers that came from the public schools would reflect the greatest gains.

I believed charter schools does a much better job at ensuring students are steadily progressing in their learning, which is mainly due to the autonomy of the charter schools and their freedom to innovate on the spot. This is the opposite of the public schools, where 50 % is the golden ratio. If a student is receiving a 50 % or higher, there is no effort to ensure steady progress moving away from 50 % to 60 % to a base line of 75 % or higher.  The latter is reflective in the public school stats and in Canada it clearly shows up in the stats and in the anecdotal stories from parents and parent-teacher interviews.  The public schools do not have the freedom to innovate without the expressed approval of their superiors. Ergo, students in the public schools have a tendency to maintain their primary grade averages right through to grade 12, with little upward progress from a D to a C to a B or higher.

Just something to think about, because of some conversations I have had with some young people who are A) repeating grade 12 B)  repeating a few subjects.  The reason being, they are comparing themselves to my youngest child who was truly at the bottom starting in grade 1, and she was the one with all the learning problems. Yet, the school saw no learning problems that would be a cause for alarm, to begin remediation or access to SE services, because she was passing. The secondary reason, is that my parents back in the 1960s, had two numbers - the grade average and the percentile compared to my classmates. Between both, they saw steady improvement from one grade to the next, and by grade 5, I was in the top 20 % of achievers. I have no idea how it was measured, but I have a feeling it has something to do with the big ledgers that classroom teachers kept, to record each and every mark . The calls to parents if little Johnnie failed a test, who normally received a 70 something. There was no waiting around to see a pattern of failure, like it is done today in the public schools. Or a very belated phone call to the parents from the school, by the way Johnnie is at high risk of failing grade 10, three weeks before final exams.

If one wants a true picture of the worth of charter versus public - one should have accurate measures, in the same way as the new measurements in poverty for developed countries, that produces a reflection on the realities on the ground. Blaming external SES variables is not becoming for the educators who claimed the altar of professionalism, and when they do blame external SES variables, what does that say about the educators and their ability to teach all students?

pobod

Pro charter candidates defeated in Boston and New York for mayor by strongly anti-charter candidate