In the latest episode of our cable access show, Education: The Rest of the Story, Ann-Eve Pedersen discusses the court decision against charter schools’ suit to increase funding for charter schools and why charter supporters are incorrect when they say they receive less funding than district schools.
This article appears in Dec 11-17, 2014.
Lease a boarded-up gas station, buy a few desks, hire your cronies and start writing lucrative “vendor” contracts with no oversight and start cashing those blank checks. Charter schools in Arizona have long been an inside joke and marketing scam to dupe frustrated parents and clueless lawmakers. Yes, we have BASIS. Oh wait, they have an entrance exam and don’t take special needs students. Meanwhile, excellent public schools can’t pay for even the most basic repairs. My UHS classroom had no heating or air conditioning for three months. Deny funding for the charter ripoff.
This needs to be renamed “Weekly Whine.”
TUSD stole money and wasted it.
End of story. Quit blaming charters. It sounds so petty.
Spending billions on charters. Extensive data over 20 years, no student achievement improvement measured. So charters, who answer to no one but themselves, are now about much more than improving student achievement, mainly ideology, cronyism, and segregation. Keep those English language learners and special ed students out!
Are you saying they are performing on par with the public schools?
I think you missed your own point. Publics answer to the government and the political hacks. Problem exposed.
Wait a minute.
Charter Schools Show Improvements in Test Scores While Public Schools Post Declines…
http://dcist.com/2013/03/charter_schools_show_bigger_improve.php
If they can do this in DC they can do it anywhere. DC schools are segregated by their very nature.
1. Couldn’t get the link to open
2. Didn’t open it
3. Trying to avoid facts
I can never tell with you guys.
Read this very carefully:
“The original study, conducted four years ago, showed that only 17 percent of charter schools managed to raise student math test scores above those of local public schools” New York Times
This means that 83% of charter schools were equal to public schools. The other 17% were ahead of the publics.
They went on to say that now 29% of charter schools performed better in math than public schools.
It’s the NY Times folks. Not exactly a beacon for freedom and choice.
sabasabas claims “no oversight.”
Well now what is this?
Three Arizona charter schools that received failing grades from the state likely will close by the end of the school year after receiving notice that the state charter board would revoke their charters.-AZ Central
That sounds like oversight to me. Glad the state is watching.
How long does it take to close and sell a public school?
Rat. get your own blog, and quit hijacking the Weekly’s Posts. You’re not even amusing anymore.
The only thing I disagree with in Pima Mujer’s comment is that I never found Rat T amusing in the first place. Besides that, the comment is spot on.
Shoot the messenger if that is the limit if your capabilities, but a thinking person will see that I am trying to help with a paradigm shift that may actually restore public education. Parents are voting with their feet by leaving schools, moving out to the suburbs and experimenting with charter schools. Why?
TUSD loses students, teachers, funding, and then closes schools. And they still fear competition. They try to discredit, defund, and outlaw it.
Two entities that successfully dealt with it, the US Post Office and some state motor vehicle departments. They identified it as “competition” and then they embraced it. Both are seeing marked improvements in customer satisfaction and employee attitudes. Competition makes us all better.
Americans are a freedom loving group that were told early on by educators to protect and encourage free speech. But fear is keeping you from that truth.
2014 will go down in history as the year that Jonathan Gruber exposed Americans to the leftist thought process. Sort of an higher educated elitist fifedom that knows best what is good for all.
Are you willing to go down with him?
Wow! well said Mr/Mrs Rat! I get it.
I am so glad we can support for-profit corporate schools and pseudo on line schools (100 kids per so-called teacher) with our taxpayer money. After all my brother in law needs to sell a $100,000 worth of paper to an on line school. And with an extensively reported election for the Sunnyside and TUSD school boards, I am sure Basis will want their board answering questions about their operations in public, with a public vote for their board. Read the Arizona Republic series from 2012 on charters. Read the Detroit Free Press series in charters in Michigan from 2014. Crossout Michigan and add in Arizona, and the story is a ditto here. That’s for your ditto heads who have a hard time reading anything.
I have seen administrators’ salaries from public schools published many times through the years. Yet, I have never seen, not even once, a list of salaries from charter schools – only tales that even small, rural charters have top people earning up to $200,000+ annually as they fire uncertified teachers who they don’t want to pay. Why has this information never been reported responsibly? Why do we have “dark money” in taxpayer supported education?
Great article about salaries.
Charter schools are public schools that operate with a great deal of autonomy, free from many of the regulations of traditional public schools. One difference is that teachers in charter schools generally have less job security – by design. They have no tenure, work under year-to-year contracts and risk dismissal if they fail to contribute to student achievement as judged by the school. In return, however, they usually have more teaching flexibility, less paperwork and participate more fully in decision making. If Arizona’s charter school experience is typical, they also often earn more than their public school counterparts.
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba285
How can tax dollars be dark money? Or is this just your “hands up don’t shoot” attempt to appeal to a certain group?