More On That Moratorium
I told you yesterday about how the House Ways & Means Committee amended legislation to put a moratorium on charter schools in Indiana and cap their funding so they can’t grow.
This is about two things. First, political posturing. Second, the argument that charter schools take money from traditional public schools (I will refer to them as TPS’ for the rest of this blog. Anyone who saw “Office Space” gets the joke) so they should be destroyed.
Although I am a big school choice/charter school fan, I’ve decided to give the anti-choice people a few ideas on how they can stop students from leaving TPS’ for charter schools.
- Make charter schools, private schools, parochial schools and home schooling illegal. Parents won’t take their kids out of school and send them somewhere else if there’s no place for them to go.
- Mandate all school district employees, i.e. teachers, administrators, staff, etc. have their children in public school. They should have as much skin in the game as the parents with no choice.
- Make it illegal for parents to transfer their children out of the school district. Once they’re in, make them stay in.
- If none of that works, slap a tax on people who send their kids to another school district, because all they are doing is taking money out of the TPS.
- Turn TPS’ into prisons. That way students could never leave and the we could save them the years it would take to get to prison because of their poor educations.
Or the TPS’ could just improve the quality of education and make their schools a place where no one wants to leave but sometimes the simplest things in the world are the most difficult to do.
February 4th, 2009 at 9:09 am
Well, I’ll be the first in line to agree that almost anything to do with education anymore is “political posturing”. Can’t fix budgets, taxes, infrastructure, ethics, you name it, but by the Supreme Being they sure plan to give “fixing” education a try. Politicians love concepts like chartered schools. Motivated parents are voting parents, by and large. Give those voters some bread & circuses and reelection will be a breeze.
I think it has become lost in the brouhaha that I don’t really mind parents taking advantage of other educational opportunities for their children. Education should be about the children.
That said, I don’t like the proposition that chartered schools will be able to adequately replace the existing system. In the limited environment of chartered schools today, they appear to be an appealing alternative. But, what happens when chartered schools have to accommodate the children of those parents who are alienated from the system, and are generally uninvolved and uninterested in anything beyond free childcare? I don’t see where chartered school proponents have thought that far ahead. Hooray! We’ve won. Oooo. Now what do we do?
I’m looking for a comprehensive, equitable system that will be able to accommodate all students in order to give them the opportunity to become all that they can be for themselves and for society as a whole. Concepts like chartered schools are just a single piece of the big puzzle. Until such time as politicians can see more than one tiny piece at a time, consider me still unconvinced.
February 4th, 2009 at 9:50 am
Charter schools should exist. However, they should exist as if they were a private school. Let the families pay tuition. No amount of tuition would be too high for a great education.
February 4th, 2009 at 10:00 am
Abdul, aren’t we all alresdy ‘prisoners’ of the system. Don’t we all have ‘skin’ in the game already? HALF OF OUR PROPERTY TAXES GO TO FUNDING A FAILING SCHOOL SYSTEM!! One that’s broke and at this rate (and school administration) won’t be fixed. What we should all be doing is rallying (or maybe taking a cue from foriegn unions and rioting, what do ya think ISTA) at Bauers office and DEMAND satisfaction for the CITIZENS AND STUDENTS. The legislators need to remember that they work for we the people who VOTED them in, not who pays them the most.
February 4th, 2009 at 10:33 am
I subbed in a charter school yesterday. Not my first rodeo there either. Charter schools work because of their size. The teachers, staff and administration know those kids by name and reputation. They don’t have smaller class room sizes, they just know who’s going to do what. I’ve subbed at dozens of schools and from my perspective, 99% of these parents/kids can’t afford lunch, let alone tuition. They are making a positive difference.
February 4th, 2009 at 11:11 am
Abdul,
I looked through the entire bill, didn’t see any reference to the moratorium you referred to above. Did I miss it someplace?
February 4th, 2009 at 11:46 am
An important factor in the education debate is a total ignoring of the old bell curve of ability (yes, I know IQ scores are out, Aptitude scores can not be used—everyone is equal in ability just short changed on opportunity or encouragement—even if after over 35 years in the education world I do not agree with “all are the same” idea). Charter schools are often able to cherry pick their students taking the top of the class (either by selecting top achievers or because of financial matters parents can make a choice) which leaves the regular public school with an even higher percent of students with “problems”. How many really “special ed” students are the charter schools taking, how many “learning disabled”, etc…..There are some other points of debate that should be able to be openly discussed without “fearing offending” anyone. Some of those attacking the teacher’s groups forget that much of what the class room teacher has concerns about are the conditions they see every day in thier classroom while trying to work with 35+ class size without adequate texts, lab supplies, or even ability to print off materials in adequate amounts. It is not as simple as some seem to think or at least wish to yell about.
February 4th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Jack,
Charters have to take all those students you mentioned. Also the data shows many of the charter students start out academically behind their TPS counterparts, but move ahead quicker in the new learning environment.
February 4th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Dear Jack et al: It’s important to recognize that all testing is bias; hence the need for multiple metrics to measure aptitude. MENSA is probably a great club with some “smart” members, but that’s what it is, a club. I just became a proud member of COSTCO myself; which reminds me of the one “Ellen” series show I watched / remember, where she & friends did an “intervention” with a friend who was hypnotized by the branding of a Saturn-style purchase & car club (think GM product)… Charter schools appear to have results on their side. IPS is adult day care for professional posers; not education. Pretend ought be reserved for individual imagination, theatre & toddlers, not the earned dollars of taxpayers.
February 4th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
I’ve had children in private and public schools, and have home-educated. Results were much better in private institutions and with myself perfomring the job as teacher because the job actually got performed. Actually knowing a student is far superior to a room full of unidentifiable faces.
The argument that really galls me is that these monstrosities (public school systems) are required because they are “cost effective”. Someone needs to compare the cost of public versus private/home and get real. It is much cheaper to educate privately because you don’t have the administrative layers (totally unnecessary), pools (totally unecessary), broadway quality stages (totally unecessary), buses with 10 kids on them (totally wasteful), on-site police departments that require a given layer of “crime” to justify themselves (totally wasteful), etc.
To change something you actually have to change something. Throwing more money at a failed system is not change. Try the private/home template, give people vouchers to pay for it, and watch the monopoly crumble. That’s not just change, it’s effective both from a cost and results perspective. Incompetent administrators/teachers will just have to find another trough. You’re kids will be much safer and better educated no matter how much they cry. Isn’t that the point?
February 4th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
You might comment on the sight of well trained poodles, our bought and paid for legislators, doing their stupid pet tricks for the applause. That our dolts are currently being outshone by our federal clowns does not take away from the digust parents should have to our more local losers. Tests may have a bias but they are very accurate at establishing IQ. IQ is the main predictor of academic ability/success. 50% of children in IPS are below average IQ. The true criminality of IPS and government schools is that they do NOT instruct to the capacity of the kids. At some point, reasonable people will count upwards on IQ, 10, 30, 50, 80, and agree that it is pointless to try to instruct to grade level at a certain low IQ. The attempt to bring these people along with the others penalizes the others and does damage to them. Success, for them and for the schools needs to be redefined along the lines that we have taken them their capacity for learning, period.
February 4th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
I spend about $10,500 to send my son to Cathedral, a college prep school. How much do we taxpayers pay to educate a kid per year in the IPS system. I think it is more than $13,000 per year. Does someone know the right figure? Anyway, do the math.
February 4th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
every public school could become a charter school if the administration and finances were decentralized, and parents had free choice within their district
February 4th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
schoolboardgreg might be onto something.
February 4th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Thanks varangianguard,
If we do not overhaul public education, it will continue to be less and less efficient and ultimately be destroyed. It continues to be hurt more by the special interests that hide behind our kids than those that are constructive in criticism and offer thoughtful revision.
February 4th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Schoolboardgreg, that was what I getting at in my last post. Seems to make sense to me.
February 4th, 2009 at 11:50 pm
This moratoriam should anger all of us as much as the day we received our property tax bills in 2007! How can this be much different? The results are equated to what will be the continuing increases in our property taxes. IPS is the reason our property taxes are so high, and the “Biggest Negative” resale value on our homes! For years we have been forced to pay for private schools while being forced to support the FAILING IPS system. Then there seems to be a ray of hope, charter schools, but wait no they work, parents are involved, test scores go up, kids even graduate and some believe it or not go to college!
I have read that many of those students are on government school lunch programs, so it’s not a matter of charter schools getting the cream of the crop, but rather like private schools, there systems are working. Not to mention that there is a waiting list of about seven hundred. Just imagine IPS having a waiting list of seven hundred parents wanting to get in – instead of out!
Seriously Abdul we need to come together, all of us, and stand up against these people who are not only raping us with there special interest groups, but the children in this city.
All of the parents of charter schools, and private schools, and on waiting list for those charter schools, along with the citizens that pay for the future of all of these kids. We need to rally, it’s time we overwhelm them with our presence. A field day at the State House.
We need to remember these kids are the future of our city and what it will be.
Maybe we should threaten to make all of our little private schools, charter schools, shouldn’t we get a piece of the pie too?
February 5th, 2009 at 12:03 am
I don’t have any kids (I’m single), but I’d be willing to head to the State House in support of something that works, and is being threatened by something that so clearly doesn’t.
February 5th, 2009 at 2:59 am
How do you expect to get anything even near to reform through the “House” with the blockade of “Fat Pat Bayer” in the way. Lets face it, the ISTA doesn’t want any kind of reform and they do Have “FAT PATS” ear.
February 5th, 2009 at 3:00 am
Bauer = Bayer.