I could have put two check-marks for each of the six questions posed. I see myself as a pragmatist and a Jeffersonian with a tad of an expressionist. I ended up in the pragmatist category, but the idea school for me would be the combination of the Pragmatist, Jeffersonian and Expressionist for my children.

What a poor tool.

tried to take the quiz - but it allowed only one choice for each self-selected paradigm.  What if you want the entire package?

Was a bit like which of your four children is the best?  I choose Johnny?  YUCK.

POBOD

I’m for one size fits all students (not parents). Kids should have, as much as we can control it, exactly the same program K-10. They ALL need basics, they ALL need art music, shop, and so on.

You can see what a disaster the charters program has been in New Orleans.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2013/09/20/post-katrina-the-great-new-orleans-charter-tryout.html

I was a ‘test score hawk’.  Sounds a tad insulting; yet I firmly believe that first and foremost, children need strong academic skills—the critical thinking will follow naturally.  High standards as far as conduct would have to be in place in order to properly teach, and children would learn from these same high standards that they are to respect their teachers, fellow students, and themselves.  Of course music, art, sports, would be absolutely wonderful, but only second to the above; not first and foremost.  Any child (especially a child from a working-poor family) who is lacking in reading and numeracy skills will not go anywhere career-wise, and the fully equipped band and olympic-sized swimming pool will have offered him a negligible amount value to carry him through his adult life. 

A perfect example why one-size doesn’t fit all parents.

“A parent trying to get answers regarding the curriculum his children are learning, was aggressively thrown out, arrested and charged with second-degree assault on a police officer during a school board meeting in Maryland last week. The father, Robert Small, challenged school officials arguing the Common Core curriculum is preparing kids for ‘community college, not Harvard.’

According to Michelle Malkin.com, the confrontation took place during a question-and-answer meeting in which questions were censored by only allowing submitted written questions, which prohibited parents from standing up and speaking.

“In a nutshell, it was an hour and a half long and the first hour was Dallas Dance, [county superintendent] Lillian Lowery, a PTA leader, and a teacher from Cantonsville High School basically tell us how great this was going to be,” said an email from a Baltimore County parent.

“Finally, a frustrated parent [Robert Small] got up and interrupted Lillian Lowery [state superintendent] and was challenging one of her pre-planned answers, reports Malkin.

“He was not rude but they had security come in to take him out.”

“He was just a dad trying to get some information about his children’s education and ended up in jail for not sitting down and shutting up,” said the email.”
http://www.infowars.com/parent-charged-with-second-degree-assault-on-cop-after-he-questioned-common-core-curriculum/

Common Core is not everybody’s cup of tea. More so when children are require to learn the new vocabulary of the 21st century, such as “Po Pimp” and “mobstaz”.......perhaps the above parent is correct that the American U.S. public education system is now preparing children for community college.

If anything it certainly shows the desires by parents wanting something more than what the one-sized-fits-all public education system is willing to provide. Another call for choice in schools is in the winds in the United States, when police security is hired for school meetings to arrest parents who don’t followed the pre-determined protocol of the school officials.

Of course, the charges were dropped which started another ball rolling, “State Del. Pat McDonough said he believed the failure of education officials to give Small a chance to speak was “outrageous.” McDonough plans to introduce legislation that would put a moratorium on the use of the common core standards in Baltimore County schools.”  And now everyone is waiting for the next series of questions to be answer - “Questions remain: Will Small file charges against the cop who clearly manhandled him first? And when will the school officials allow parents to ask real questions about Common Core without threat of bodily harm and prison terms?”  http://michellemalkin.com/2013/09/20/parents-you-need-to-question-these-people-shock-video-of-dad-arrested-at-school-meeting-after-challenging-common-core/

In the last link, read the comments - the call for choice in home schooling and FB groups calling for change. https://www.facebook.com/TheOneRoomSchoolProject/info

POBOD

Here is the example of $7 Billion wasted on charter schools.

http://www.networkforpubliceducation.org/news/the-failure-of-charter-schools-in-ohio-7-billion-later-diane-ravitchs-blog/

Back to one size fits all. Far better system. Charters failing in New Orleans, new york, Ohio, everywhere.

School authorities need to hire security because parents are getting so frustrated with a system that is collecting mega tax dollars, but simply not delivering.  Obviously, they are also angry that they have absolutely no say in what is actually being taught in classrooms.  This frustration/anger can be seen all across N.A.

In Ontario, we have had a lot of press about poor math curriculum and teachers lacking basic numeracy skills themselves; yet no follow-up on what is actually going to change as a result of this very serious information.  We are also in the dark about Bob Levin, the accused pedophile who was deputy minister under then ed. minister, Kathleen Wynne.  Some people are suspicious about the explicit new sex ed for elementary school children, and that Levin was somehow involved, and that it’s actually going to poison young minds and prep them for perverted adults.  It’s too sickening to even want to think about, and I hope it’s all over-the-top panic; however, because this involves our children, and our publically-funded ed system, why aren’t the press and public all over this?  As usual, the media has dropped the ball.

Charters may be failing, Doug, but public schools are failing as well.  The charters will be under pressure to improve; otherwise they’ll fold.  Public schools, under our current unaccountable system have no incentive to improve, and because of this they have actually been getting worse.

Following the link of Doug’s to the original article - “A “noble” experiment to force the improvement of the public common school: Fifteen years and $7 billion dollars later the charter school gamble has not made the grade.”
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/09/24/the-failure-of-charter-schools-in-ohio-7-billion-later/

Since charter schools are funded by the public tax purse, what is the total education dollars being spent in Ohio? Unlike Canada, the American feds publishes the vast majority of data streams on everything between A to Z, including education expenditures. For Ohio, since 2003, 24.6 billion dollars to 2013, 35.12 billion dollars. Estimate education expenditure starting at 2014 will be, 36.25 billion dollars to steadily rise to 44.8 billion dollars in the year 2018. Guess what? No significant change in population in Ohio since 2003, and remaining steady at 11.5 on average.  http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_2003_2018OHb_14s2li111mcn_20t20t

So what is 7 billion dollars that have been spent in the last 15 years on charter schools in Ohio? Not very much - less than 1 % of the total education dollars being spent in any given year for the past 15 years.

Now moving unto the failures of both the charter and public schools - tons of papers in the recent years explaining any innovation occurring outside and inside the public education system cannot be measured with any great degree of accuracy because all the teachers are basically using the same pedagogy, instructional methods and curriculum. One can compared the school system like using a desktop computer with the ME Windows system in 2013. If one has the ME system, one won’t be able to do much on the high speed networks of 2013. More than likely, the ME desktop will crash, whenever there is too much flash on the web site or game sites. Most of the papers, teacher training, curriculum and pedagogy all needs to be upgraded and real fast, if one wants innovation to work more effectively inside the schools and in the end, stemmed the rising costs in the K to 12 education system. 

The other week, I was reading another set of data - the amount of education dollars going towards charter schools in the United States is at the 1 % mark of over 600 billion dollars being spent each year in the K to 12 education system.

The vast majority of education dollars being spent is going to the one-sized-fits-all public K to 12 education system. And how the education stakeholders howl, when a few crumbs are tossed to parents who want something a little different than the one-sized-fits-all.

POBOD

Bev, You understand the low hanging fruit argument, the easy fruit to pick is at ground level but later you need the ladder and it is hard to get. Well the charters signed up kids from highly motivated families in the past but now this source of students is almosr exhausted and a fierce competition has broken out in some neighbourhoods among many charters so they are now “taking anybody” to survive financially. As a result, they grow but their scores continue to fall.

The leaders of the reform-charter movement now recognize that the larger they get the more they look like the public school system but with the added features of low paid low qualified teachers who turn over rapidly. The average charter scores continue to fall year over year as has been recently well documented in many cities and states.

The way the charters are going, they are proving the public school-progressive case that they have nothing to add to the quality debate. They keep asking for exemptions from testing, exemptions from rating systems, exemptions from teacher evaluation schemes that the same reformers have foisted on the ps system.

Charters were envisioned, first by Albert Shanker famous AFT president, as “experiments” not as an ‘alternative public system’.

BTW this failing public schools narrative is slowly falling apart at the seames. It is a joke in Canada as one of the world’s top education nations and it is increasingly seen as a joke in the USA as the parents remove their children in mass numbers from testing, protest the closing of public schools and so on.

Mayor Bloomberg of NYC was a huge reformer. He is soon to be replaced by a new Mayor who says everything Bloomberg did was wrong. NYC did not benefit in the slightest from “moving kids around” instead of upgrading the whole system.

Did you know PISA says Canada is #6 in the world in math ahead of many Asian nations?

The glass is 90% full Bev not 10% empty.

POBOD

The triumph of ideology and profit over common sense costs a lot of money.
 
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/cyber-schools-flunk-but-tax-money-keeps-flowing-97375.html

Mirka, I can’t see what the problem is as far as taking the quiz.  Excellent numeracy and literacy skills have to be number one—no exceptions.  When they’re firmly in place and children are doing well, addenda can be added.
A large part of our problem nowadays is that we all stray from the core.  Without a firm foundation in the basics, one way or another kids will flounder.  This doesn’t mean that teachers can’t enjoy their students, but the extras shouldn’t crowd out the most important educational tools. 
Stay focused teachers!

Are you kidding Doug?  would a for-profit school pay a teacher close to 6 figures and allow someone to remain employed who takes an average of 15 sick days/year?  Would they only hire according to seniority and risk closing because of incompetency? 
Your article can blather all it wants, but unfortunately, it’s missing a few facts

Put the numbers in Doug’s last link into context. My, my how the education stakeholders do howl and protest too much. “Taxpayers send nearly $2 billion a year to cyber schools that let students from kindergarten through 12th grade receive a free public education entirely online.”

Apparently, the number of students enrolled in full-time online public K to 12 courses is indeed 250,000 students in United States. Another link, that provides the breakdown in the K to 12 facts - http://www.edreform.com/2012/04/k-12-facts/

The 250,000 number is based on older data, but is widely used as the number cited in 2013. More then likely, its probably higher but just remember the number represents full time enrollment for public school children who are registry in the school districts.

Moving unto another study, Increasing Online Learning Options For K to 12 Students - another set of data that will put Doug’s cyber schools article into the proper context, a whole lot of howling from certain public education stakeholders as more rhetoric, than valid concerns. http://publications.sreb.org/2012/12T01_Inc_Online.pdf

“What types of online options do districts provide?
In general, online learning options fall into two major groups: part-time programs in which students enroll in selected online courses as supplemental courses; and full-time programs. The majority of district offerings are part-time, supplementary online options for students. (See Figure 3.) Such programs are less expensive and time-consuming for districts to implement and manage, compared with full-time programs. While the percentage of districts offering fully online schools is small compared with those offering supplemental courses, it is relatively equal across all levels. Clearly, students at all school levels appear to desire fully online programs.”

And…...“The 67 percent of school districts that manage their own online learning options provide them in different ways. Just over one-third of districts administer their online learning options in-house, using either district or school personnel. Of 86 districts that contract for their online learning options through other online programs, most do so with the state-run virtual school in their state — but some do so with a virtual school in another state. As an example, some districts
in Delaware (which does not have a state-run virtual school) contract with the Florida Virtual School (FLVS). Florida’s arrangement with Delaware is not unusual; the FLVS has such arrangements with many districts throughout the United States and even internationally.
In addition, 40 districts indicated that they have more than one arrangement for managing their online learning options, and 24 contract with a nonprofit or for-profit entity. Of those that contract with a nonprofit or for-profit entity, eight different companies were identified, including Apex and K12 (both for-profit), which manage 14 of the options identified by the districts. Finally, two districts indicated they are part of a consortium or network of districts that offers
online instruction, and three said they partner with a local college or university.”

http://sloanconsortium.org/publications/survey/K-12_06
Another survey - 2007 - comparing to the 2012 results.

Going back to Doug’s link - The article of rhetoric, are using Ohio’s data. According to the data, there is 31,955 students enrolled online. How many are full time? How many are part time/supplementary?  More than likely, only 10 % of the 31,995 are full-time online students. Are the homeschoolers counted?

As for two billion dollar amount for United States compared to the 600 billion being spent in United States in the public K to 12 sector. The two billion dollar amount includes in-house being run by the school districts and state level, as well as private online school under contract by the school districts or at the state level.

I just don’t get it - when the opponents attack the private online schools, they are also attacking the in-house online schools being operated by the public education gang. Should probably dig up the data streams for the in-house online schools…..probably nothing to toot about, and why parents are selecting private online schools for various reasons.

POBOD

Your faith that the private sector can do a better job is misplaced Bev. Their incompetance brought us 2007 Wall Street and they needed the government to bail them out as usual.

Check this one: I could bury you in these.
http://www.networkforpubliceducation.org/news/fbi-documents-charges-against-cyber-charter-founder-diane-ravitchs-blog/

The chuckle of the day, and all thanks to Doug’s last link.

On Ravitch’s blog posting - “They wiretapped phones, so there’s a lot of dialogue.
My favorite part is where the digital learning pioneer tells one of his criminal associates he can no longer accept bags of cash in the Pizza Hut parking lot.”
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/09/25/fbi-documents-charges-against-cyber-charter-founder/

No doubt, exchanges of bags of cash was with other people with education degrees working in and outside of the public education system. In the news articles, many articles will leave readers with a bad taste in their mouths. Lots of facts are being omitted…....but Wikipedia saves the day - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Cyber_Charter_School

” To give these students another option, community and school board members started PA Cyber Charter School. Initially, more than 500 students enrolled in the school. The first graduating class had 17 students. PA Cyber Charter School employs nearly 600 people and has regional offices in Philadelphia, Wexford and Harrisburg…...........The school is governed by a seven voting member, appointed Board of Trustees with an additional 4 nonvoting members, under the supervision of the local school board, the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the State Charter School Appeal Board.[6] The Board of Trustees operates school in accordance with the provisions of Act 22 of 1997 (Charter Schools Act). In 2011, the Board includes 2 local school executives, 2 bankers, a retired school teacher, and a local business owner. The Board submits an annual report to the Pennsylvania Department of Education.”

The bio of Dr. Nick Trombetta who is facing what appears to be tax evasion charges - http://www.wtae.com/news/local/beaver/feds-to-lay-out-charges-against-pennsylvania-cyber-charter-school-founder/-/10927942/21618844/-/2503v6/-/index.html

“Dr. Nick Trombetta’s Overview

Past
CEO at PA Cyber Charter School
Superintendent at Midland Borough School District
Principal at Aliquippa School District
http://www.linkedin.com/in/ntrombetta

About The Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School
http://www.pacyber.org/about.jsp?pageId=2161392240601286973678471

“The archive of reports seen here documents a history of incremental success and financial stability for PA Cyber.  Please feel free to download any available PA Cyber Annual Report, Audit Report, or Report Card evaluation below.”  http://www.pacyber.org/about.jsp?pageId=2161392240601287060513404

Its rather ironic that the former CEO of PACyber had 27 1/2 years of working as a teacher, principle and superintendent in the Pennsylvania public education system. More than likely collecting a pension, while founding the Cyber Charter school. Only to be replace by another person in 2012 who also has an education degree who appears never to have worked in the Pennsylvania public education system. http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Michael-Conti/381484853

Really odd when the opponents at the Ravitch blog, are slamming the cyber school, the cyber charter school was designated by the “Pennsylvania Department of Education’s Division of Federal Programs, PA Cyber will be honored, along with its fellow distinguished schools, at the 2013 Title I Improving Schools Performance Conference, which is taking place in January in Pittsburgh….After all, that is a big part of why the charter school law was enacted - so that the unique educational approaches we take can be adopted to help a broader audience,” Conti said.” http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Michael-Conti/381484853

And here - http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/pa-department-of-education-designates-pa-cyber-as-distinguished-school-174979541.html

This cyber school keeps on winning awards and having their contracts renew with Pennsylvania. In fact, 15 cyber schools including PA Cyber….... http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/charter_schools/7356

Moral to the story - be wary of hiring former employees of the public education systems to run cyber charter schools having access to the large cash reserves and insider knowledge. ” Trombetta left PA Cyber — the largest cyber school in the state — in June 2012. In the months after the raids, PA Cyber fired several leaders. NNDS spokeswoman Christina Zarek said several board members left and were replaced.

“If you go back and look at the original indictment, it alleges activity that happened without the boards being aware,” she said.”

Read more: http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/4733755-74/trombetta-affidavit-avanti#ixzz2g1MNt3A3
Follow us: @triblive on Twitter | triblive on Facebook

Likewise Doug, lots of bad apples and irregular activities on the go within the public education system. But it still does not detract, that one-sized-fits-all school systems will not stop the cyber schools from expanding within and outside of the public education system.