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posted by cmn32480 on Monday September 07 2015, @06:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the public-money-for-private-profit dept.

Common Dreams reports

The Seattle Times reports that

The ruling--believed to be one of the first of its kind in the country--overturns the law [I-1240] voters narrowly approved in 2012 allowing publicly funded, but privately operated, schools.

Teacher and author Mercedes Schneider offers more on the Act:

As is true of charter schools nationwide, the charters in Washington State (up to the current ruling) were eligible for public funding diverted from traditional public schools. Charter schools were approved via a November 2012 ballot initiative (I-1240, the Charter Schools Act) in which charters were declared to be "common schools" despite their not being subject to local control and local accountability. And also like America's charters in general, Washington's charters are not under the authority of elected school boards.

Thus, Washington voters had approved to give public money to private entities--a one-way street that provided no means for such funds to overseen by the public.

[...] The new ruling (pdf)[1] states that charters, "devoid of local control from their inception to their daily operation", cannot be classified as "common schools," nor have "access to restricted common school funding."

[...] "The Supreme Court has affirmed what we've said all along--charter schools steal money from our existing classrooms, and voters have no say in how these charter schools spend taxpayer funding," said Kim Mead, president of the [Washington Education Association], in a statement.

"Instead of diverting taxpayer dollars to unaccountable charter schools, it's time for the Legislature to fully fund K-12 public schools so that all of Washington's children get the quality education the Constitution guarantees them," Mead continued.

The Associated Press reports that the state had one charter school last year, and eight more have opened in the past few weeks.

I pity Ms. Schneider's students if she routinely starts sentences with conjunctions--especially consecutive, redundant conjunctions.

[1] I had trouble with the connection.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by aristarchus on Monday September 07 2015, @07:51AM

    by aristarchus (2645) on Monday September 07 2015, @07:51AM (#233174) Journal

    Oh, frojack! It was sixth grade English, wasn't it? Mrs. Durocher? Just couldn't diagram those sentences, so you came to the conclusion that public education was a scam and that teachers were meanies, and so teacher unions were meanies. Let me tell you something. Teachers in charter schools want unions more than teachers in public schools, since they work for capitalist bastards who have no interest in education. And so eventually, they will get unions, and charter schools will fade away with all the fads of yester-year, like hula-hoops and Sara Palin. Yes, the wealthy will continue to be able to send their spawn to private schools, but only on their own dime. They will continue to produce such prodigies as George W and Jon Elias. But all you people who hate public education ought to come to terms with your personal issues with your own educational history, rather than blaming the institution as a whole.

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  • (Score: 2, Disagree) by frojack on Monday September 07 2015, @08:38AM

    by frojack (1554) on Monday September 07 2015, @08:38AM (#233189) Journal

    You seem to have missed a few years of your own education.

    Charter Schools are not the same thing as private schools.
    Charters are small, and they couldn't care less about unionization.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by aristarchus on Monday September 07 2015, @08:55AM

      by aristarchus (2645) on Monday September 07 2015, @08:55AM (#233192) Journal

      Camel's nose private schools, that is what they are. Charter Schools (which, after all, are businesses) probably couldn't care less (hey! got the idiom right!) about unionization, but that was not my point. Teachers, on the other hand, really do not see themselves as working class unionists, until they are faced with politicians and business persons intend on destroying education for the sake of profit. Then they reluctantly form unions for the sake of their students>. Charter school teachers would do the same in a second, they are, for the most part, professionals, except for the fear of termination that the quasi, or pseudo-private nature of charter schools makes inevitable.

      Charter schools are not private schools. If they were, they would not be chartered, like corporations are chartered. Time to go back to public school, frojack! It will be good for you!

      • (Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Monday September 07 2015, @04:41PM

        by Nerdfest (80) on Monday September 07 2015, @04:41PM (#233334)

        Good teachers help sell schools. Better pay will attract better teachers. If you chase out all the good teachers by driving down wages you put yourself out of business. Good pay and the ability to get rid of bad teachers (which most unions make exceptionally difficult to the point of near impossibility) will balance out. For these schools to work they need to be perceived as being better than public schools.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 13 2015, @03:26PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 13 2015, @03:26PM (#235901)

          I moved my son from the public school to a charter school.

          The Public school:
                  Decent teachers
                  Union that didn't want teachers working over hours for free
                  An administration focused on keeping costs down
                  Administration that didn't teach
                  Focus on making sure certain hires didn't work the hours needed for benefits
                  Teachers taught how administration wanted
                  Doesn't allow the vo-tech to recruit at the schools because it reduces the school's funding.

          The Charter school
                  Decent teachers
                  non union
                  got paid less then the public schools
                  Administration all taught classes too
                  Teachers had input into teaching
                  Parent involvement is required (we had to at least put our kids in the lottery)
                  Low emphasis on sports

          I think the teachers are roughly the same. I think the administration is better in the charter and motivates teachers more.
          The culture at the charter school is different; it seems like its all band or theater club type kids. The kids are self motivated learners. Kids participate in sports, but they'd be JV, not varsity.

          I like that I have a choice. One size doesn't fit all. Otherwise there would never be special ed classes. For some students, I think the town's public schools are quite good. We recently built a new high school and I've liked what I see there.

      • (Score: 2) by BK on Tuesday September 08 2015, @05:26AM

        by BK (4868) on Tuesday September 08 2015, @05:26AM (#233621)

        ...do not see themselves as working class unionists, until they are faced with politicians and business persons intend on destroying education for the sake of profit. Then they reluctantly form unions for the sake of their students.

        BS.

        Teachers form unions for the same reason everyone else forms unions.

        1 - In the public sector, everyone does it...
        2 - More pay & benefits
        3 - Protect retirement
        4 - Easier for everyone if a district has one negotiation instead of hundreds or thousands
        5 - Shield against political dismissal

        All of these are legitimate reasons for a union btw. But "the sake of their students" is maybe # 20 on the list and a stretch even there. Learn to recognize marketing when you see it.

        --
        ...but you HAVE heard of me.
        • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 08 2015, @05:50AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 08 2015, @05:50AM (#233632)

          I infer from this that you do not know any teachers. These are people who pay for supplies out of their own salaries, and accept abysmal wages, and get disrespected by the vocal majority of Americans. Of course they are not like other unionists, they are professionals.

          • (Score: 2) by BK on Tuesday September 08 2015, @11:05AM

            by BK (4868) on Tuesday September 08 2015, @11:05AM (#233706)

            Right. But that isn't _why_ they formed unions.

            --
            ...but you HAVE heard of me.
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 07 2015, @11:05AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 07 2015, @11:05AM (#233222)

      Think again.
      Firing Day at a Charter School [wordpress.com]

      -- gewg_

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by albert on Monday September 07 2015, @05:06PM

        by albert (276) on Monday September 07 2015, @05:06PM (#233346)

        OK, I read it.

        That sounds kind of typical for education. Schools seems to attract small-minded paper pushers. It's just like how police departments attract bullies who love having power over others. What else is new, hmmm?

        Nobody is forced to work there. This isn't slavery. Evidently, some people find the employment at that school to be a better deal than the employment at other places (school and otherwise) that they could get. Some people change their minds, as the author did. This isn't France you know. Employment-at-will has an obvious downside to go with all the upsides, the big upside being that employers are less hesitant to hire.

        All of her complaints are pretty normal for unionized public schools as well, except that really old teachers would be more secure than the newest teachers. This is without regard to teaching quality. Due to union rules, she herself would be virtually guaranteed to be laid off if she worked at a public school because it is normal to lay off all the new teachers at the end of the year. This is because the union requires that new teachers be laid off first and requires that notice be given early, but the school doesn't actually know the next year's budget yet. Thus a public school lays off all the new teachers each spring, then usually hires many of them back later.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 07 2015, @07:21PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 07 2015, @07:21PM (#233385)

    I grew up, and was educated outside the USA.

    I moved to the USA later in life.

    I have seen what kids here are taught, and how.

    I am disgusted by the low expectations, lax discipline and vast red tape. This has nothing to do with a bad experience in US schools, and everything to do with my children's future.

    I don't know what issues frojack might have with public schools in the USA, but I can certainly see a lot of reasons why those issues might be founded in the quality of the outcome, and have nothing to do with his personal background.

    • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday September 07 2015, @08:40PM

      by aristarchus (2645) on Monday September 07 2015, @08:40PM (#233420) Journal

      Point taken, the jab at frojack was uncalled for. Or at least not explicitly called for. Oh, hell, he was asking for it!!

      You have an interesting perspective. My response to fro, however, was based on one thing you don't mention: an ingrained anti-intellectualism in America that leads to dis-valuing of education and teacher bashing. When there are claims of a broken system and "bad teachers", often it seems to me the amount of emotion behind these accusations can only be explained by a bad personal experience with education. Even those who were not educated in public schools often manifest this. So how much criticism of public schools is just sub-conscious revenge on some, any, teachers? I don't know, but it is a better explanation than the Mighty Buzz, "out there edumacating hisself to the knowing of his own choosing, and no damn idiot with a piece of paper can tell her what to think" Freedoom!!!! explanation. And, everyone should read Naomi Wolf's "Shock Doctrine" so they know what we are dealing with when it comes to Mag Thatcher type privatization.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 07 2015, @07:50PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 07 2015, @07:50PM (#233399)

    I went to a charter school in Northfield Minnesota called Northfield School of Arts and Technology at the time, now called Arcadia Charter School. Everyone there is very passionate about education and their results show it. The majority of their graduates go on to 4 year universities. They do a lot of hands-on learning and the environment is totally different from a regular school. It's layed out like an office building, everyone has their cube, and they're separated into middle school and high school, and within that different color "advisories" that are under the supervision of a specific pair of teachers. Students propose their own projects to satisfy educational requirements. Classes are offered in some things though, like math, grammar, and languages, among other things like canoe building, high tunnel agriculture, solar power.

    That these facilities are available to even the poorest of children is of fantastic benefit to everyone. I can't speak to all charter schools but at least the one I went to is an overwhelming success.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 07 2015, @08:20PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 07 2015, @08:20PM (#233414)

      The 1st study I remember being done on charter schools was, interestingly enough, done on Washington State schools.
      It said that they did worse more than a third of the time and did better less than half of the time. [google.com]

      We also discussed here New Analysis Debunks the Myth of Charter School Success [soylentnews.org]
      that included Minnesota and Chicago which, again, don't live up to the hype.

      available to even the poorest of children

      ...if you're lucky enough to survive the cherry-picking process available to charter schools--but not to public schools.
      Charter schools can also expel students more easily.
      Despite this very "liberal" (heh) framework, overall, charter schools manage to do worse.

      -- gewg_

      • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 07 2015, @09:01PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 07 2015, @09:01PM (#233434)

        In other news, you need to read more broadly.

        Whatever you think of The Economist, they're renowned for their skilled display and explanation of statistics, and they have covered charter schools pretty extensively.

        Here's a link: http://www.economist.com/topics/charter-schools [economist.com]

        But to save you a lot of reading, what it broadly comes down to is that the success or failure of charter schools at outperforming public schools is how they are constituted, with the biggest differences occurring across state lines, based on the rules in each state. Washington laid out a questionable set of rules, with questionable results.

        So, yeah, keep reading.