Frankly i dont mind these experiments because the larger they become the more they fail to show any achievement gains. Many parents however do not care very much about achievement because they are a backdoor way to fund religious schools. That does not matter much because society is secularizing at a very rapid rate.

I’m almost afraid to feel so optimistic about the fact that NA is finally starting to break free from this monopoly, but I think that the teachers unions, as much as they loath what’s happening, are unable to stop choice:  it’s like a run-away train!  Perhaps if the teachers unions and educrats had thought more about what’s best for students, rather than their salaries, benefits, shorter working hours, and fewer days, this whole thing wouldn’t have begun in the first place.

I for one am happy to see vouchers spread in poor areas since,it will demonsrate once and for all that unless vouchers use exclusionary policies keeping out low,achievers, English learners and behavioural students, there will be no achievement gains and the larger they become, the less likely achievement gains will manifest themselves on an apples to apples comparison.

Naturally, some parents dont care so long as religious schools get funded. This is not really a problem since American society is finally secularizing at a very rapid rate.

More Questions than Answers, but one can’t get answers without questions 

To choose or not choose, that is the question? Or is it, do we have choice or no choice? Is choice the slippery slope to hell and eternal subjugation by the overlords?  Or, might this approach add balance to a public education system that is largely a closed shop union environment?  Do unions have horns?  Are folks who want choice immoral?  Is there something inherently bad about letting folks have a public educational alternative?  Is a vote for choice, a vote to send children to learn how to become fascists?  Or, does a vote for choice reflect a desire to see different pedagogical approaches which may or may not be more effective; that might have clearer objectives; maybe offer more transparency and accountability; while addressing a substantial, unmet, well expressed, public need. 

Do unionized, educational workers and their public administrators view choice as a threat to a relatively stable and predictable way to earn a good living?  Do choice inclined parents see a static, union driven pedagogical environment as a handicap for their children in a constantly changing, dynamic, challenging environment that is more and more deterministic and accountable? Is this why more and more parents are choosing to supplement their children’s education with expensive tutoring?

Are determinism and accountability inherently heartless?  On the payment equation side, both appear highly desirable to educator stakeholders. On the performance side of the equation, it would appear that unionized educators see these characteristics as less desirable while at the same time strongly suggesting that such an approach would threaten a proper, balanced, child centered, union led education.  On the flipside, many parents would like to see more accountability, transparency and determinism in the pedagogy delivered by the educational system.  Choice seems like a reasonable way to respond to parents who would like an alternative.  If there is no choice, we have a publicly funded union dictatorship with the only alternative being to pay twice every year and use a private, publicly unsubsidized school.

Whether it be for local humanity to more quickly adapt to the rapid social changes which are afoot or not, is a question, one would think, should be answered by having an open dialog between educators and parents of the students and society in general.  Is there a meaningful dialog between the educational establishment and parents presently?  What does meaningful mean? 

What about the administrative layers of the educational system? How will choice affect the folks who wear the managers’ hats?  Might their pay rates come under increased scrutiny?  Might their responsibility for results both operational and academic become clearer so that accountability might impact their day to day work? Is it possible that choice might lead to a more customer facing and performing system in fact rather than in posture?  Will school choice make schools operation and performance more transparent than they presently are?

There remain many, many questions more than I have thought of to be answered before I sleep. Perhaps school choice might make better neighbours, perhaps not. Only time and open dialog will tell the tale.

The unions and school boards are behind it, funding and supporting the legal troop needed to fight the pro-voucher/choice gang.

“That’s because those who oppose the voucher program depend on the public school system for their livelihoods. Local school boards want to prevent vouchers from siphoning away students and the state tax dollars attached to them. Teachers unions fear competition from private schools will reduce demand for public school teachers, and ultimately bite into their dues revenue.

Teachers unions have filed suit to challenge a similar voucher program in Indiana. That case is currently in court.

In both states parents are making it clear they want better educational options for their children.”
agnews.org/union-led-louisiana-voucher-lawsuit-to-be-heard-in-court-this-week/

Ravitich one of the king-pins having a hard time dealing with parents who like choice of all kinds.
She likes to divide parents up to uneducated and educated ones.

All started with the first comment - “Diane, I think it would help if we all acknowledged the obvious failures in the public school system so that they can be addressed and maybe some day, fixed.”
http://dianeravitch.net/2012/08/24/the-power-of-involved-parents/

The talking points in court - http://www.indianaeconomicdigest.net/main.asp?SectionID=31&SubSectionID=120&ArticleID=67484

7 Reasons Why Public Dollars Should Stay with Public School Students and Should NOT Be Diverted To Help Private Schools

by a parent coalition funded by union dollars -
http://www.icpe2011.com/Why_public_schools.html

The one thing that the judges at the upper levels of the court system, will look at and be counted to - is the compared the outcomes of students to the talking points and claims being made.

To argued that public dollars should be for only public schools, becomes a losing battle, when the outcomes of public school students are used as the evidence. Dismal outcomes and more so with the kids who are struggling in school, and what they will and will not do the kids who are struggling academically in the public schools.

Choice becomes a manner of justice, where parents have the power and control to seek out the best education for their children. On Dropout Nation - ”  And ultimately, this amoral and immoral denial of power and choice to happens in spite of growing evidence that American public education’s policies and practices are serving all children poorly — and kids in special ed even worse.”

Where human rights, civil rights are meeting at the intersection where the traffic lights are under the control of the public education system. The same public education system, that refuses choice, and provides poor quality education outcomes for public school students - ” Far too many kids are condemned to schools and programs that do harm to their futures, while their parents are restricted from playing their well-deserved lead roles in education decision-making. And this is especially the case with special ed.”
http://dropoutnation.net/2012/07/18/why-choice-and-parent-power-matters-the-case-of-d-c-s-special-ed-ghettos/

The unions and school boards are going to loose, because what is said is just pure rhetoric, without the supporting evidence of the data streams of the individual students. To which, they don’t dare use, because they would have to acknowledge a few things first - that the public education system is serving all students poorly.

Human and civil rights are at the traffic intersection of the public education system - forcing the red light of no choice to the green light of CHOICE.

To add, how desperate the public education system is to keep their turf, their authority and control - in California - “Straight from the “careful how you defend yourself” file is this insight from the California Department of Education, which recently defended itself from allegations that our kids are receiving a substandard education by arguing that, “There is no constitutional right to a ‘meaningful’ education.”

Read more at the San Francisco Examiner: http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/2012/11/california-department-education-says-you-have-right-bad-education?goback=.gde_889607_member_193317828#ixzz2EaJwrGcF

In other words - “But instead of stopping there or saying all our kids do receive a meaningful education, it made this depressing claim in a public document: “the constitution guarantees only ‘equality of educational opportunity, but no minimum level.’” As long as it’s equally bad, there’s no problem.”

Just like the Canadian Moore case, and other U.S. court cases, so far zero cases have been won by school boards and education authorities using the ‘equality of educational opportunity’ argument. The public education authorities will be loosing their turf, and it is just a matter of time…especially when the education authorities are arguing for discrimination and equally poor education quality and outcomes, on the taxpayers’ dime.

There seems to be some belief ouut there that vouchers and charters will be union free. Many charters are already union and the unions will devote their staff to organize the rest. Unions will proise all the rights and benefits of ps teachers and most will join. Many private schols in Ontario are unionized. All of that is just a matter of time.

Bueaucracy will eventually grow as vouchers and charters realize they can only grow as corpoate entities.Already many corporations are attempting a corporate take over. Soon only giant chains of Kipp, Green Dot etc will take over.

There have never been demonstrated achievement gains.

All people employed in these state-run monopolies would rather maintain the status quo, even though it’s ruining millions of children’s lives, rather than improving their product (so to speak).  They’re in charge of children and their futures; yet they only care about themselves.  Human nature is truly amazing.

Joe - “Many parents however do not care very much about achievement because they are a backdoor way to fund religious schools. That does not matter much because society is secularizing at a very rapid rate.”

It is the new argument of the teachers’ union, the new spin on the older political talking points of teachers’ unions, that parents don’t care about the academic achievement of their children. Parents care about the softer values, such as happiness as teachers’ union keep on insisting, which plays nice with their other educational theories of happiness.

“I for one am happy to see vouchers spread in poor areas since,it will demonsrate once and for all that unless vouchers use exclusionary policies keeping out low,achievers, English learners and behavioural students, there will be no achievement gains and the larger they become, the less likely achievement gains will manifest themselves on an apples to apples comparison.”

Another trick used by both the teachers’ unions, school boards and in the upper levels to change the picture and prevent discussion on education quality, is the dancing on the fault lines of the outliers of the school, that includes the large sub-group of students that are composed of many sub-groups of low achievers. Teachers’ unions bring it up all the time, as Joe has because there is an assumption that charter and voucher schools, will followed the same educational practices and polices as their counterparts in the public education system. In other words, the structure of the education model does not change significantly, and therefore no achievement gains. It is the red-herring that Joe offers, because in reality public teachers’ unions and school boards (at least in Canada), will fight tooth and nail to prevent vouchers, charters and other alternative choice, to maintain political and authoritative   control over all aspects of the education model. Over what will be and what will not be the education basics for a child. If the education quality increases in the voucher and charter schools, the forces within the public education system, will joined to shut down the school. as their ultimate goal. One just has to mentioned the KIPP charter schools, to get the U.S. teachers’ union in a lather.

“Many charters are already union and the unions will devote their staff to organize the rest. Unions will proise all the rights and benefits of ps teachers and most will join. Many private schols in Ontario are unionized. All of that is just a matter of time.”

Joe, supply the evidence. Found none, except for union blogs - ” Across Canada the teachers in public and many private schools are organized into unions that protect the rights of their members and help teachers to get fair contracts.”
http://www.unitehere.ca/Teacher_Unions.asp

But still no data, names of private schools, and other supporting evidence. However, I did find this little gem - ” More than 1 in 5 public school teachers said their children attend private schools.

In Washington (28 percent), Baltimore (35 percent) and 16 other major cities, the figure is more than 1 in 4. In some cities, nearly half of the children of public school teachers have abandoned public schools.

In Philadelphia, 44 percent of the teachers put their children in private schools; in Cincinnati, 41 percent; Chicago, 39 percent; Rochester, N.Y., 38 percent. The same trends showed up in the San Francisco-Oakland area, where 34 percent of public school teachers chose private schools for their children; 33 percent in New York City and New Jersey suburbs; and 29 percent in Milwaukee and New Orleans.”
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/15/almost-40-of-chicagos-public-school-teachers-send-their-kids-elsewhere-to-learn/

So I wonder what is the percentages for the big Canadian cities are? By the way Joe, KIPP and other charter school outfits are already corporate entities, but not organized in the same way as the public education counterparts, with a top heavy union demanding their best interests must be fulfilled before the best interests and academic interests of the students.

Fundamentally, the question of choice is not so much about cost and unionization as about openness, flexibility and commitment to pedagogical approaches that demonstrate success with repeatable results.  Frequently, I have observed that “open, results oriented” shops often deliver higher employee earnings and overall compensation coupled with greater satisfaction than more rigid union environments. Dofasco was an interesting example of this phenomenon in the steel industry.  There are many more examples of open shops in the US, far fewer in Canada. 

Ultimately, there is no simple solution to this problem. Success is/will be borne of continuous commitment to excellence and very, very hard work by all stake holders.  When the commitment to repeatable standards and results disappears, hard work generally will be undermined by bureaucratic indifference,  incompetence and greed.  Compare and contrast is a useful way to shed light upon hidebound beliefs on both sides of the discussion.  There are many classroom educators who will welcome an opportunity to exit the confines of their union limits for the promise of openly doing what they know works and for which they will not be punished or blackballed. Market forces will insure that compensation packages will not get too far out of line.  However, in a more open situation, there will be the opportunity for performance compensation beyond the standard pay packet.

No system is perfect but I will bet that the demonstrated improvements in one will spur change in the other…and so on.  Next, of course, we need some more objective standards to establish an even playing field.

That is how you feel Bev, i have no doubt. Most people feel differently.

The only reason pay and conditions at Dofasco were good was because unionized Stelco was across the street. Interesting that every time osstf shows up tp organize a new school, all of a sudden the raise that was impossible last year is now possible.