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Way back when Bloomberg finally killed the Board of Education and replaced it with the Department of Education we had high hopes for our city's schools. Finally, we imagined, the city was in a position to cut back on the bureaucracy that plagues the system. One part of that hope was founded on the introduction of public charter schools into the mix. And so we were in agreement with Chancellor Klein, who we've had a lot of problems with otherwise, when he started pushing last year to lift the arbitrary 100 charter cap in the city.
We still think that the cap should be lifted, but after reading today's Daily News we'd be just as happy if the cap could even be reached. Last year the city hit its 100 charter school limit which means that no new charter schools can be opened in New York for the foreseeable future. But that is only half of it. While it is technically true that 100 charters have been given out, eight of those charters are no longer or will never be used.
The eight charters all had been issued previously to groups on a limited trial run and were then revoked when the schools failed to perform well or never opened. But state law now prohibits the coveted charters from being reused by the Board of Regents."There is no process at the time, that I know of, to fill those slots," said Philip Parr, the regional director for Imagine Schools. "I don't know why though, if they're saying by law they could have 100 charters."
Uhm, boo? There is far too much promise in the charter programs for it to be held back on such technicalities. We'll buy that charter schools are still an experiment and need to be capped, fine. But it is absurd to make it nearly impossible to even fill out the cap.
School Busses by jet200nyc via Contribute.
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NYC schools are the worst, here they finally got a promising program in decades and this is what happens. Shame on you Bloomberg for caving in to the teacher unions who are responsible for the situation in which schools are in now. BUST THE UNIONS ~!!!
Um, actually, the more traditional schools fare better when it comes to meeting standards, standardized test scores, etc. I'm not saying there is no place for charter schools, but they are certainly not a cure-all.
DJBONE's comment illustrates the reason Klein really supports them, as for as I am concerned: like a good corporate soldier, he wants to bust the union. I'm sorry, but that's not the cure-all either.
Incidently, it might interest you to know that the UFT itself is participating in the charter school program:
http://www.uft.org/news/teacher/in_news/what_works/
Yeah! I got a Horrible Education At Brooklyn Tech and Later, Baruch College! Public Education SUCKS!
(sigh)
The key to the argument is "BUST THE UNIONS", which is irrelevant to the topic at hand.
This is the definition of a Charter School I found:
Sounds Great, but how many of these Charter Schools actually deliver the Result set forth in the Charter? To me, it sounds like an excuse to put Public Funds in Private hands. Seems of like Outsourcing, sounds great on paper but does it actually deliver?I want to see the graduation rate and test scores for these Charter schools. Oh, while we're at it, audit their books.
I don't want my tax dollars spent on New Math and Revised History to make students feel smart if those methods don't work compared to a regular curriculum.
Actually, Randy Weingarten was one of the chief opposers of charter schools up until they were about to run out of charters and then she wanted to open a few.
Unions are to blame for most of the problems in city schools right now.
Period.
Bloomberg can leave tomorrow and there will still be problems with the schools because of idiots like Weingarten who bitch about the pittance teachers make while at the same time claiming hundreds of thousands in expenses and driving a union-provided GMC Yukon.
I'm against charter schools, too.
And I don't blame the Union because I a proud grad of the NYC public school system. I remember when students were being left back due to grades.
Charter schools are not the cure all.
Bloomberg has done anything but "cave" to the unions. In fact, teachers only recently got a new contract after over TWO YEARS without one. Even then it's a hack contract forcing all kinds of comprimise for a pittance of a raise, most teachers still not making even half enough money to live in the same city they teach in. The way NYC treats its teachers, and indeed the rest of this country, is beyond a disgrace. As long as teachers are on the bottom rung the school systems will continue to suffer. Idiotic talk from folks like "DJBONE" that try to pass the blame onto teachers and unions is the exact kind of nonsense attitude that keep our schools in the ditch they're in.
The concept of charter schools is not a bad thing, but one cannot help but see them as a slight attempt to (further) privatize the education system.
i blame john dewey. actually, i blame that motherfucker for a lot of stuff.
A good video regarding charter schools (a bit later into it):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfRUMmTs0ZA
There is a lot of misguided information about charters in these comments ... first of all, even the most dyed in the wool charter supporters do not think of charter schools as the panacea for all that ails public education.
Second, though unions are often an impediment to educational progress, especially charter schooling, to suggest that charter schools are an exercise in "union busting" or "privatization" is reductionist. Many successful charter schools employ union teachers, although one of the hallmarks of chartering should be freedom from the necessity of hiring solely union employees.
Charter schools offer school choice to students and families for whom choice was not available before. Middle- and upper-class America have had school choice in the form of private schools and moving to the suburbs for decades, and while choice in itself is not a solution, operators outside of traditional district bureaucracies deserve the chance to offer children a stronger alternative.
Systems of schools should be designed to help children learn, not to protect adults' jobs ... and they certainly shouldn't operate unchecked, and non-competitively to boot, if they fail to deliver on the promise of educating our children.
(Full disclosure, I'm the blogger from www.publiccharters.org)