After six years of watching me bask in the fame and fortune of bloggery, my mother has decided that it’s time for her voice to be heard on the pressing issues of the day, sending the following Letter to the Editor, printed today in the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Who benefits from charter schools?
My friend, a dedicated, enthusiastic, and highly regarded guidance counselor for 15 years in the Philadelphia School District, has decided to look for a new job. Her school, which she loves, is becoming a charter school. Why in the midst of revelations of mismanagement and fraud is the city establishing at least nine more charter schools and displacing up to 200 teachers, and why does my friend want no part of it?
Charter school staff earn less than comparable staff in public schools. Could these be the real reason that the government is pushing charter schools? Yes, charter schools have the ability to exclude troublesome students and to insist on parental participation. If traditional public schools could exclude students and mandate parent involvement, then they, too, might see improved standardized test scores.
As we funnel money away from traditional public schools to charter schools, we leave our most vulnerable students behind, and see quality teachers fleeing. I ask, who is really benefiting?
Sylvia Goldstein Salvat
Merion
I couldn’t agree more, although I’d add at least one more cynical reason as to why Republicans, at least, support charter schools and vouchers: they want to destroy public education so as to destroy the public teachers unions.
Which brings me to a curious observation. Cynical as I am, I couldn’t help but read my mother’s letter with a cynic’s eye, and wonder how I, as a snarky blogger, might belittle her letter, were I on the other side of the issue. And what immediately jumped out at was the phrase “Could these be the real reason…?”
“Hah!” the righty critic might exclaim. “Learn how to write proper English before pontificating about education!”
Only problem is, that’s not what my mother, a retired Philadelphia school teacher herself, wrote. The Inquirer edited her letter and inserted the error. Here’s the original text my mother emailed me the other day:
My friend, a dedicated, enthusiastic, and highly regarded Guidance Counselor for 15 years in the Philadelphia School District, has decided to look for a new job. Her school, which she loves, is becoming a charter school. Why in the midst of revelations of mismanagement and fraud is the city establishing at least nine more charter schools and displacing up to 200 teachers, and why does my friend want no part of it? Charter school staff earn less than comparable staff in public schools, they have no pension (what a savings for the city and state!), and no union representation. Could these be the real reasons that the government is pushing charter schools? Yes, charter schools have the ability to exclude troublesome students and to insist on parental participation. If traditional public schools could exclude students and mandate parent involvement then they too might see improved standardized test scores as some charter schools report.
As we funnel money away from traditional public schools to charter schools, we leave our most vulnerable students behind, and see quality teachers fleeing. I ask, who is really benefitting?
Sure, the Inquirer did a reasonable job breaking my mother’s letter up into smaller paragraphs, but look at what they chose to excise in the process. My mother’s stated “reasons” the government is pushing charter schools…
Charter school staff earn less than comparable staff in public schools, they have no pension (what a savings for the city and state!), and no union representation.
In the Inquirer’s editor’s hands became one “reason”….
Charter school staff earn less than comparable staff in public schools.
A much less compelling argument, that fails to document the district’s anti-union bias. Then the editors merely dropped the “s” from the word “reasons” while lazily forgetting to transform “these” into “this.”
Huh. Perhaps the Inquirer’s editor is a graduate of one of those charter schools? Or perhaps this is just the kind of editorial sloppiness that comes from being so hasty to cover up the inherent anti-union bias of the charter school movement?
I have to give Fairview Fannie credit where it’s due: The last time I wrote them a “letter to the editor”, I subsequently received an email from a member of their editorial staff. She and I then electronically tossed the ball back and forth, until we arrived at a mutually agreed upon version of my original text that did a better job of expressing what I wanted to say, while still fitting into the space they had available for it.
You also forgot to mention that Rethuglicans want to steer students into Xtian schools.
The area of public education is one the Liberals don’t have on the front burner, and this issue has the potential to do the most harm to Liberalism in the long run.
As Thomas Jefferson once wrote:
“I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.”
–Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820
The Republican ruling class has figured this out, which is why they insist on dumbing down their base with scaled back funding for education. That’s why “bumper sticker” slogans to complex issues, like “drill, baby, drill” resonates with their base.
Right now Texas is in the process of rewriting American history text books in the image they WISH America was formed.
This is dangerous because the size of the public school system in Texas will cause the book publishers to run huge quantities. Smaller states are unable to afford their own copies of the text books and will purchase in the same press runs. Thus, expanding the reach of the revisionism that is going on with Republicans in Texas.
Don’t fool yourselves, Charter schools are a threat to public education. The problems that exist in public schools can be fixed. Don’t let any Republican or news story convince you that Charter Schools are the solution.
In previous posts, Goldy has suggested charter schools are a secret plot by group of Christian elders to turn America into a theocracy.
Troll @4,
It’s no secret.
@ Troll.
That is their own stated purpose. Government enforced christianity. Privatization of public schools, and enforced governmental support of private, for-profit corporations through the use of charters and contracts. Where only the wealthiest can afford to have their kids educated beyond the minimum level, and their investments subsidized and guaranteed by taxpayer funds.
Could the Inquirer have left out union representation because
the now Republican owned paper is fighting it’s own employee’s union?
Ommission is a form of propaganda via the ‘spectrum of thinkable thought’:
http://www.zcommunications.org.....t-burchill
And three cheers for Mrs. Goldstein!
It’s a shame that the letter was edited poorly, but it serves as a useful reminder: When writing a Letter to the Editor, keep it as short as possible!
Please correct me if I’m wrong. Isn’t President Obama pro charter schools and wanted to double federal funding for them? I lean right, I’m not pushing for charter schools. I don’t know anyone who is. It sounded like an option to the mire of traditional public schools. What I have read is they really aren’t anymore successful than tradition schools. At this time, state cuts in education seem to becoming from democratic Governors and Legislatures that have mismanaged state funds.
@10
Yes, Arne Duncan is pushing charter schools; subsequently Obama is as well in support of his friend and (unqualified) head of the Dept of Ed. Duncan has been drinking from the kool-aid of capitalism and Social Darwinism when it comes to schooling – unproven market-based ideologies and survival of the fittest/winners and losers. His track record in Chicago is abysmal, as studies by the Consortium on Chicago School Research are beginning to show.
Unless the “research” comes from charter-loving conservative think tanks like the Hoover Institute, the Cato Institute, Fordham and others, peer-reviewed studies have shown that on average, charter schools – and even voucher programs – are no more effective than traditional public schools at educating kids. Obviously there are always a few success stories here and there, but they are the exception rather than the rule. They are also becoming responsible for the resegregation of schools – often because of white flight – particularly in places like Arizona.
Schools without diversity
Charter school review
Charter school teachers don’t usually stay on the job very long, and some of the charter schools in New York, MA, PA, and Chicago have voted to unionize. Go figure.
I think the primary reason Republicans want to destroy public education is they want to dumb down the public/voters. Poorly educated people are more likely to buy into GOP nonsense–witness, for instance, Teabaggers.
Goldy’s Mom beat me to it. This isn’t the real Inky any more, not by a long shot.
FWIW, I observe that Goldy’s principal spelling/grammar mistake (it’s for its) might have a genetic origin.
:-)
“Enforced Christianity”? Naaaah…more like enforced money-worship.
A few years back, there was a big flap about one of the charter schools in Los Angeles. It seems they started out holding classes in the ballrooms of a rather swanky hotel, on the school district’s tab, pending renovation of a building they’d acquired. Four years into the program, the supposed permanent digs were still unfit for human occupancy, and they were still using the hotel, still at the taxpayers’ expense.
So what was it that this particular charter school brought to the party? Well, their mission statement explained that they were all about imbuing children from an “early age” in the virtues and methods of “free-market capitalism”. What this meant was that the poor kids were getting the Ned Beatty “Primal forces of na-tuure” harangue from the movie “Network”, with a spicy dash of Gordon “greed-is-good” Gecko, all the way from kindergarten through high-school graduation.
N @13,
I can’t vouch for my mom, but to be fair, my its/it’s problem is more of a typo/proofreading thing. I know the difference, but my fingers do not, and as Roger can attest, I’m a crappy proofreader of my own writing.
To 12. proud leftist, I’m not as up on this debate as some of you seem. I don’t believe Republicans want to destroy public education. I think they believe unions have a negative impact on schools. Republicans want people to be well educated. They can get better jobs, be productive and better able to take care of themselves. The way you are presenting dumbing down seems to fit more with the left. If people aren’t educated and can’t take care of themselves, they need the government to provide and care for them. I don’t think it is a right-left issue. It would be more of “federal government” (no matter who is in charge)agenda to keep the masses from taking action.
@16..someone gets it…
Well, I think the left is missing (part of) the boat here. I think if you’d do any valid poll and asked folks their opinion of teacher’s unions, I doubt they’d get a very high favorable rating. My father-in-law, a 30+ year educator, and someone who hasn’t voted Republican in decades (if ever), cannot stand the union because his experience showed that all the union was really interested in was salary and it was impossible to get rid of bad teachers.
I heard more than one teacher say they didn’t care where the state got the money for the required COLA for teachers initiative a few years back, as long as the state delivered. We all know bad teachers in the system who should really be doing something else, but they can’t be fired unless they do something REALLY bad.
I think there’s a compromise possible where teachers can be protected from capricious administrators and get decent pay, while bad educators can be weeded out. If that were to happen, it would increase the public’s confidence in the schools and take a lot of steam out of these arguments being pushed by the right.
Personally I have a firm belief that education should be separated from the state for the same reason that religion is. We sure as hell don’t need someone telling us how to think.
“they want to destroy public education so as to destroy the public teachers unions.”
I thought they wanted to do it to keep ’em ignorant and barefoot so they’ll vote Republican. (See, e.g., the trailer park trash who attend Palin rallies.)
19
So, who then should provide an education and who should pay for it? Is there a right to universal education or not? If a 6 year-old cannot pay for her education, and she may or may not have parents who may or may not be able to pay for an education, what happens to the 6 year-old? Your proposal is ludicrous. The state has to be involved in education or this nation will be toast within a generation. Separation between church and state is a constitutional mandate. Separation between education and state? You have to be kidding.
@18
Perhaps because the teachers had been screwed by the state for many, many years over not getting a COLA, they were apt to say something like that – at the time, money had just been handed over for a baseball stadium, yet teachers were being told sorry – no money for a COLA to help you take care of your families as costs increase. However, I can guarantee that if they were told that the only way the COLA could be funded was to take money from student programs, 99% of them would have opted not to take the money. And yes, there are bad teachers, just like there are bad fire safety officials, bad police officials, bad lawyers, and bad doctors – they are human. However, I have only had occasion to experience 2 bad teachers, one who was fired (which can be done when the proper documentation is completed ) and the other who was transferred around because administrators kept passing the buck. The union has no control over that – yet they are obviously to blame.
So why is it that teachers and their unions have become the new scapegoat for all that is wrong with education? Because the conservatives have made sure to throw it out there time and time and time again, and the public now blindly repeats it. As Bill O’Reilly well knows, once you’ve put it out there enough, it becomes truth, even though it may not really be the truth. The conservatives have long had issue with teachers unions because they are generally Democratic, and usually quite active politically – their endorsement can bring a lot to a candidate. The Cato institute put this into play decades ago with their railings against “government-run” schools. Then came A Nation At Risk, with its falsified and/or skewed statistical data striking fear into the hearts of parents. Suddenly we became a nation of failing schools, even though we were doing a better job of educating most students then ever before. (SAT scores are often used to show that schools are “failing”, yet the population taking the SAT has changed dramatically over the years, from solely white, upper-class, college-bound high school students in the 60’s to large numbers of minority and low income students who may or may not be college-bound, and the trend line stays relatively stable from the mid-70’s through the 90’s. Unless, of course, you choose to alter the scale of your graph to make it look bad, which is what the fear-mongers like to do.)
Most states with strong unions have better schools and better test scores, although certain financial conditions (like the Prop 13 fiasco) do mediate the effects in some places. Most countries with strong educational programs also have teachers unions (take Finland, for example). Meanwhile, Arizona just passed union busting legislation, enabling them to retain just their newest – and cheapest – teachers after a RIF. Think their test scores are going to go up? Perhaps their state test scores might – especially given Arizona’s low cut score for NCLB. After all, test prep doesn’t really require teaching – just administering sample tests and drilling facts and rehearsing skills – and with teachers there now lacking the job security to question administrative directives and with their pay now tied to test scores, they’ll probably spend even more time prepping for the test to make sure their students can regurgitate the low-level factual recall that is all that is required by these accountability measures. But when the NAEP is administered – a test that is much harder than it should be, BTW – it will show the discrepancy between state scores which are abnormally high, and the NAEP scores which are trending down for AZ. And yes – the Republicans do want the masses educated, but only to a point. Basic skills – yes, critical independent thought – no.
I believe Karl Rove probably said it best:
“As people do better, they start voting like Republicans…..unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing.”
Lots of passionate rhetoric for “public education”; not so much for “meaningful education reform” and, yes, “charter schools” as an option. Chaters are not the only solution but neither is public education as currently constitutued. Competition can be healthy. Quality education and quality teachers targeted to those schools who most need them is what is needed.
Instead of spending time bashing each other with our best “talking points” while the “concrete hardens around our feet,” let’s actually talk about what mix of strategies might work.
There is an excelent analysis done by the non-profit Partnership for Learning available at their website. http://www.partnership4learning.org/
This is after all what is the best “education for children” and not about “how many political points” each side scores. Far too frequently, it seems like the latter is the goal.
SamIAm farts
Trying to hide the true meaning of your comments by throwing in an obtuse reference the graph scale? What a bunch of racist HORSESHIT! Once again we see a progressive FUCKWAD on this blog providing their true mindset regarding minorities being “stupid” and where is Steve and others on this crapola? Puddy didn’t expect the arschloch to react. He proves SamIAm correct each day!
Goldy and his Ma are wrong on this issue.
Charter schools ARE public schools. Is this a problem for teachers as workers? Yes! Unions are important. But, that does not mean our current Unions are good for the kids. The model of the teacher’s unions is a trade union, a monopoly. These unions do poorly in the fragmented world of private schools too. But, the right to organize still exists. The only difference is that unions can not impose work rules or curriculum on a District wide basis.
In the system Goldy’s Mom eschews, those who want choice and can afford it exercise THEIR choice by taking their kids to private school, moving to a different district controlled by like-minded people, or by using their money and talents to tae over the Seattle District.
The children of the less affluent,less educated, less political parents get left behind because the drive, the money, the sheer power of parents moves their kids out of the public schools, leaving a system that more and more resembles a charity.
Goldy himself is evidence of this. His Mom was a teacher but his family did not live in the District where she taught. Goldy’s daughter? She attends school on Mercer island! Noblesse oblige?
Cross Posted at SJ
Charter schools are publicly funded schools, but they are not public schools. There is a difference. In most states, charter schools are not held to the same accountability standards as a public school, either in management or in academics, nor are they required to take every child who walks through their doors. Among other things, this means a school could conceivably close its doors mid-year due to mismanagement of funds, as happens frequently in AZ, and it also means that anyone who wants to can start up a charter school – they have only to apply. There are some great schemes going on in AZ and UT right now with family members starting up a charter, contracting with another family member’s construction company to either build the school (which the state pays for) or else they rent the building from them. They also hire their family members to run the office, “teach” (don’t have to have a teaching certificate in those states to teach in a charter), and hold other highly-paid functions within the school – is this how you want your tax dollars spent? Additionally, because they don’t have to do the state testing, there is actually less accountability than in a traditional public school. There are some good charter schools who are run well and do opt to follow the same accountability methods as the public schools for transparency’s sake, but they are the exception rather than the rule. There are also charter schools that have opted to unionize because they have found that they need the protection from administrators.
Seattle is lucky in that it has good public, parochial, and private options, and the private schools are NOT just for the wealthy. All of them offer financial aid, and some of them offer a significant amount of financial aid, as an unemployed friend who has a child who will attend Billings Middle School – an independent middle school – next fall found out. Not every city has as much selection as the Seattle area does.
We need to get out of this left-right mindset. Yes the left has had a huge impact on public education and yes the right is battling back. But, for average citizens trying to get our children a good education we need to come together. Lets look at what has happened to education over the last 40-50 years. The value the kids put on education and why that is. The philosophies and policies that the schools operate under. I know a WSU student in her Junior year in the Education Dept. I asked her what the latest and greatest theories/philosophies are in education now. She said that the classroom is a community and that teachers have to entertain/put on a show to keep the children interested. My response was “seriously”. What happened to this is school. It is now time to sit down, put your things away, be quite and pay attention. Little Johnny or Susie might have some difficulty with that but I think it works for the majority. There are ways to help Johnny and Susie without changing the whole system to accommodate them. A lot of people think Asians are just smarter than other races. I don’t believe this. As a culture they put a very high value on education and professions. The education system in Taiwan for example is very rigorous and disciplined. I have friends that grew up there and they just shake their heads at the low level of expectations here. Most of our little angels would turn into puddles of ooze if they were thrown into that. It’s about studying and working it until you can do it correctly every time. My son is a Freshman at WSU he is still having a hard time with that concept.
Oh, I forgot, there is a NY Times/CBS poll (April 14) about the education level of Tea Partiers. For those of you on the hard left, don’t worry, it still makes them out to be stupid, racists.
When’s dear old Mommy buying your next plane ticket to Philly, Goldy?
SamIam?
With all due respect, your post is worthy of a tea partier.
First, “public school” means just that. There is no reason that a law allowing charters would NOT set some standards.
Hell, we even have standards that home schoolers are supposed to meet. (BTW .. here in WASTATE, we do not have vouchers BUT we do allow LAKESIDE to use the State’s credit and issue tax free bonds!)
There is NO reason that charter schools can not even be REQUIRED to use Union labor .. at least as long as you are no in a right-to-work state. What charters avoid is the intrusion of unions into work rules that undermine the ability to create distinct curricula. For example, in Seattle, we can not refuse a gym teacher’s right to teach calculus if she has seniority. The STU will not even allow the schools to require teachers to post their qualifications to teach a subject!
Second, WADR to your horror stories, corruption is a real thing .. whether you call the corruopt entity a charter school, a bridge to nowhere, or a ferry. Why would charter schools e more or less corrupt than any other government financed program?
Third, if I took your tea bag sucking seriously, the obvious implication is that we should force all kids to go public schools and those schools should meet the same standards whether they are the Hunt’s Point system (YES Virginia it exists!) or the SPS. Err ahhh .. do you think this will ever happen?
Fourth, certainly charter schools could be created with no standards. Do you really think that solid black, naturally segregated schools (aka white flight) get the same sort of support and meet the3 same standards as schools in affluent (white) suburbs.
The bottom line is that our current system creates an unholy ocnfluence of interests. The Teacher Union have every reason to want to conjtrol all they can and the well to do have every reaosn to segregate their kids out of the resulting mire.
In Boston the teacher’s union has opened a charter school. And in Sweden, that right-wing capitalist cradle to grave nation, they are using vouchers for education.
By Allah we are doomed …
SJ: Tea partier I am most definitely not – leave that to the old white racists who watch Faux Snews. I am simply a skeptic about charter schools being the panacea to public education in WA, especially given the mixed research on their success (or lack thereof) elsewhere. And once again, charter schools are NOT public schools – they are merely publicly funded – and there IS most definitely a difference. A charter school can set its own admission criteria if it choses, or it can simply use the hidden criteria that eliminates those who do not meet a certain SocioEconomic Status. For example, a charter school does not necessarily have to offer transportation. If the charter school building is not in a high poverty neighborhood, allowing poor students to walk to it, then what does that automatically do to the population who can attend the charter school? It limits it to 1) families with transportation, and 2) families who can afford to have 1 parent not working and can take kids back and forth to school, or families who have work flexible schedules/work at home, or 3) families who can afford daycare that comes complete with transportation. These are generally families with a higher SES, most often White or Asian. The public school is then left with the poorer students, most often Black or Latino, who need the transportation, thus you frequently see charters exacerbating segregation in both race and class. Furthermore, a charter school does not have to have a special ed program, meaning any child who requires special ed services and is at a charter that does not offer them would need to return to the public school system to receive them, or move to another charter than does offer them.
Public schools have been set up to fail by NCLB, and schools are being held accountable for many factors that are not under their control – among them child poverty. It is well documented that students of poverty who enter the school system are already significantly behind a child who grows up in a middle class household. They generally have fewer experiences such as visiting a park, zoo, or other locales outside their immediate neighborhood to help build their background knowledge, which aids in reading comprehension. Their language/vocabulary development is often months or years behind their wealthier peers. They often have poor nutrition, untreated health issues (though perhaps not so much in the near future – something to thank Obama for), and are more likely to have some type of disability – be it learning or physical – due to exposure to lead paint or drug/alcohol ingestion during fetal development. They are also less likely to have support at home – someone to read to them, help them with homework, etc. Yet these students are being held to the same standards as a child who comes from an upper middle-class family – even though they may start at a major deficit – and students, teachers, unions, and schools are being punished for that deficit. Until the various federal and state entities address that deficit – meaning early intervention (starting with comprehensive sex-ed to prevent teenage pregnancy, parenting classes, and high-quality preschools for all) add in nutrition education w/quality grocery stores located in poor neighborhoods, and significantly reduce class sizes in the early grades in higher poverty areas (and by that I mean down to 15 or so kids – check Tennessee’s STAR class size research study), cut down on the long summer break, and provide safe, enriching, after-school activities – and also provide a way for schools to be measured via multiple measures, all public schools will fail. Those students will not get what they need, will probably dropout of HS, and the poverty cycle will continue. A child is in school for about 9% of their life (ages 5-18 or so), and the school can only do so much. The issues with public schools are a reflection of a greater societal problem, and much more is required than just measuring and punishing them. But then, all of what I proposed is probably considered socialism, in which case it must all be bad.
In case you STILL think I am a teabagger, SJ, let me assure you I am a strong supporter of public schools, and believe that education is the cornerstone of our democracy. However, I get tired of the accusations, shallow reforms, and band aids that are thrown around as ways to “fix” a “broken” system – including charters, vouchers, getting rid of unions, and high-stakes testing – mostly proposed by those who are not even in the field of education and who clearly don’t want to address the root of the problem. Is there any other professional field where outside interests like politicians and businessmen make the rules on how the professional can do their job? Do politicians and businessmen dictate how a doctor does surgery? Just because everyone has been to school doesn’t necessarily qualify them to determine how schools should be run, what should be taught, how it should be taught, and how it should be measured. I would never presume to tell a doctor or a lawyer how to do their job – yet everyone seems to think they can tell a teacher how to do their job. Just check the comment sections on any news story on education, teachers, or unions.
The system itself is not necessarily broken, but we DO need to look at the inputs – i.e. the children – and address the issues/needs there before we can hope to see major changes in the outputs and allow us to make other changes. A multifaceted issue requires a multifaceted approach.