In 1900, seven percent of Americans graduated from high school and three percent from college. The poverty rate was also about forty percent. If we the people lose our accountable Public Schools to publicly funded, private sector unaccountable Charter Schools, the United States may return to those 1900 ratios.
Yes, in case you didn’t know it, real public schools are accountable to state and federal laws, but publicly funded, private sector Charter Schools ARE NOT!
Public Money we pay in local, state and federal taxes and fees, funds both OUR public schools and those Charter Schools we do not own. Every public dollar that goes to an unaccountable Charter School is lost to OUR accountable public schools.
What should we call schools that are not held accountable to the same laws that guide our public schools, laws from our democratic process passed by our elected representatives, laws that are supposed to protect all of our children and insure that all of our children are allowed to learn.
A regular commenter, who signs as NYC Public School Parent, is sharply critical of the games charters play. She doesn’t like the way they push kids out as young as 5 or 6 for misbehaving. She doesn’t like their boasting about test scores when the schools with the highest scores are selective, either in their admissions or their attrition or both.
She writes approvingly of schools that seek out those students with the greatest needs, like the one funded by LeBron James in Akron.
Didn’t the LeBron James-funded school in Akron do just that — specifically took the most struggling students? And wasn’t it part of the public school system? THAT is what all charters should be doing.
The so called “successful” and expanding charter chains have almost universally prioritized the needs of their CEOs over the needs of the most vulnerable children. Their approach to teaching students is that…
View original post 772 more words
Crazy Normal - the Classroom Exposé 