Slashdot Mirror
How Good Are Charter Schools For the Public School System?
theodp writes "'You go to these charters,' gushed Bill Gates in 2010, 'and you sit and talk to these kids about how engaged they are with adults and how much they read and what they think about and how they do projects together.' Four years later, Gates is tapping his Foundation to bring charter schools to Washington State, doling out grants that included $4.25 million for HP CEO Meg Whitman's Summit Public Schools. So what's not to like? Plenty, according to Salon's The Truth About Charter Schools, in which Jeff Bryant delves into the dark side of the charter movement, including allegations of abuse, corruption, lousy instruction, and worse results. Also troubling Bryant is that the children of the charter world's biggest cheerleaders seem never to attend these schools ('A family like mine should not use up the inner-city capacity of these great schools,' was Bill Gates' excuse). Bryant also cites Rethinking Schools' Stan Karp, who argues that Charter Schools Are Undermining the Future of Public Education, functioning more like deregulated 'enterprise zones' than models of reform, providing subsidized spaces for a few at the expense of the many. 'Our country has already had more than enough experience with separate and unequal school systems,' Karp writes. 'The counterfeit claim that charter privatization is part of a new 'civil rights movement', addressing the deep and historic inequality that surrounds our schools, is belied by the real impact of rapid charter growth in cities across the country. At the level of state and federal education policy, charters are providing a reform cover for eroding the public school system and an investment opportunity for those who see education as a business rather than a fundamental institution of democratic civic life. It's time to put the brakes on charter expansion and refocus public policy on providing excellent public schools for all.'"
If charter schools are allowed to operate, then they shouldn't benefit from special privileges that public schools don't have. They should have to accept any students in the area (regardless of academic level, just like the public schools). They also should be required to have all students take the standardized tests (instead of finding reasons to exclude children who they know won't do as well, so the school looks better ranked in comparison).
If charter schools aren't cheating and they are showing an improvement that is one thing. But too often they are cheating to make themselves look better compared to public schools.
Yep, we're just churning out bright, qualified students one right after the other.
Geez, our present system is an utter failure in most of the US. I would posit that pretty much anything is worth trying, in an effort to start trying to reign in cost, and get more results from our efforts.
There is one thing, however, which I don't know how we can fix, at least not from a legislative or policy standpoint, and that is the lack of parental participation.
So many parents think of the schools as a dumping ground for their progeny for day long child care. They don't participate except to raise hell with the administrators they their little Bobby or LaTonya is accused of mis-behavior (MY child would never...), or if they need to be held back due to lack of progress.
Do they even hold kids back anymore?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The big difference is that Charter Schools are not compelled to accept a student. The standard public schools cannot turn away a student who is disruptive or below the curve academically. Charter Schools can. This allows them to select the best students and avoid the ones which would drag down the school and the other students. This has positive and negative implications, but it does mean that statistically the Charter Schools are going to show higher grade point averages.
...to be involved in charter schools as there are people involved, some more laudable than others.
But I don't see much upside for public schools.
Years ago Lester Maddox said that if you want better prison systems you need better prisoners.
Naturally everyone had a cow, but he had a point.
If charter schools bleed off all of the kids from homes where learning and education are prized, whose parents are going to be involved, and all that's left in the public school are the kids rounded up by the truancy officer, it's not going to go well.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
...sacrifice the lives of their children, send them for a poor education merely to prove a social "point"?
The point is people who have a stake in the public school system are motivated to maintain a quality public school system. People who don't often have other motives.
As long as charter schools are publicly funded privately run institutions that is all it is. Not unlike the private prison movement that has turned into a disaster.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
What else is there to grade schools on?
Having standardized tests is useful, as long as you don't take the results of those tests as the be all and end all. To use test results as the only way of judging schools is to fall prey to the MBA mentality - if there isn't a simplistic metric then it doesn't exist. Think of how that mentality has affected so many businesses.
Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.
The fact is that our education system in the US is outdated and terrible (as Sir Ken Robinson has brilliantly and repeatedly explained - example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U). It needs improvement in many, many ways.
HOWEVER, just throwing more, and more, and even more money at the system (as endorsed by teachers' unions and government bureaucrats everywhere) hasn't solved anything. The city of Minneapolis spends nearly $21,000 per student per year (http://www.better-ed.org/20911-minneapolis-public-schools-avg-spending-student). With an average class size of 26 (actually pretty good), that's $546,000/year/classroom*....which is rather obscene, particularly when you consider their abysmal graduation rates.
So yes, I might agree that charter schools are not individually the solution, but we have to try SOMETHING different, and accomplishing change in small charter school 'hothouses' (where the parents are essentially volunteering their kids for an experience that is HOPEFULLY better than the norm) is far more possible than in the shitty public school system that is overwhelmed and ossified with bureaucracy, teachers' unions, and a cultural aversion to substantive change. The hope is that these changes, if they're successful, might actually percolate back into the stultified public schools.
And no, I don't think schools should be held to the same standards as a commercial business - they are intrinsically and substantively different. But there is an analogy to a refining company: schools are processing raw materials (our children) in an effort to make them finished products (fundamentally-educated adults). The difference is that schools can't simply throw out the dross, but are compelled to reprocess and reprocess until there's something useful there, fighting the 80/20 rule all the way to the bottom of Zeno's dichotomy paradox.
*let's dissect that, shall we?
Let's pay the teacher ~$120,000 year - so their total cost is ~$146,000/year - that rounds out our numbers, and I don't think any teacher would argue with that salary. So $400k/year left.
Lease rates for commercial, furnished offices in Minneapolis: let's use high-end, as we want our schools to be nicer than most office places: $304/psqft/year. We'll use a generous 40x40 room for the 'classroom' to account for other, shared spaces like gymnasium, cafeteria, etc., and ignore that - as the building builders and owners, the actual triple-net cost should be far less than half that (note, they don't pay property taxes, either...) - $50,000/year; $350k per year left.
Let's spend $100k PER YEAR PER CLASSROOM on 'stuff' - materials, dvd rentals, books, shared costs of projectors, smartboards. $250k per year left.
So in waste/bureaucracy, you could hand each student nearly $10,000 PER YEAR.
-Styopa
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What does it do to the public school system? Who cares? The only question is what does it do to the students. Schools exist for the benefit of the students -- not for the benefit of the school system.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
You've managed to teach yourself some some subjects - good for you. Now, what about the rest of the students?
For the relatively SMALL subset of moderately intelligent students who are self organized AND self motivated AND who have living situations with enough stability and support to allow the student to thrive in an independent academic environment this is all that's needed.
For everyone else, not so much.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
What else is there to grade schools on?
The people that criticize standardized testing are usually opposed to any accountability whatsoever. We are not going to fix our schools until we can fix the politics. Public schools are more politicized than any other institution in America. Teachers unions are the single biggest donors to the Democratic party, and 20% of the delegates to the last Democratic Convention were members. Democrats will do anything to support the unions, and the Republicans will do anything to oppose them. Neither party is concerned about actually educating the kids. Charter schools are just a pawn in the game. Democratic politicians generally oppose them, and Republican politicians generally support them. Neither cares about any actual evidence about whether they are effective or not.
In contrast, traditional public schools which fail students do not close and are allowed to fail students year after year after year. Closing a charter school is a feature, not a bug.
How the hell are kids in Japan/China/whereever "beating" our children in school?
Oh right, rigorous testing.
China? Who knows. They only give international test results from Shanghai, and given the accuracy of statistics from the Chinese government, I wouldn't particularly trust those.
Japan? They do pretty well, but not as well as Finland. So let's look at some Finnish practices.
Finland does not give their kids standardized tests.
It is not mandatory to give students grades until they are in the 8th grade.
Finland has no private schools.
Finnish schools don't assign homework, because it is assumed that mastery is attained in the classroom.
Compulsory school in Finland doesn't begin until children are 7 years old.