Charter schools amendment: Say “no” to ed biz “shamans” and “snake charmers”
In the final stretch of the charter school amendment battle, I am going to run a few more pro and con pieces.
Here is the con from high school educator Ian Altman of Athens. Stay tuned for a pro piece shortly.
By Ian Altman
Georgia voters will decide next week on Amendment 1 and whether to allow a politically appointed commission in Atlanta to override elected boards of education. Hence, they will be deciding whether to let millions of their tax dollars evade the respectability of their provenance by enriching the lives and moral self-regard of the billionaire Koch brothers, professional disparager of teachers Michelle Rhee, and Walmart heiress Alice Walton, among other mega-donors outside of Georgia who are dissatisfied with the vintage of our state constitution.
The mellifluous promises of these white collared carpetbaggers would have us believe that the best interest of our kids is in the fragmenting of the public interest through the proliferation of for-profit charter school choices.
Their motivations are the same as those of the Milton Friedman shamans and Ayn Rand snake charmers and Lehman Brothers flat-earthers whom we assumed to know how to behave like adults, who would burn my salary in half a month’s worth of private jet fuel, and who left us high and baked in a desert economy from which they tell us we’ll never emerge if our students don’t learn the proprietary programming language to fix the pecuniary wings of our bumbling financial Icarus.
The business of learning is to be transmogrified by high-rent holy writ into the learning of business. In 2007, as now, I’d rather have had impoverished kindergarteners, who at least remember our lessons about sharing, handle my money.
Accordingly, I decline to accept that there is no longer such a thing as a common good which finds among its highest expressions a public school system. Under the control of elected boards which are accountable to voters, our public schools have, when we account for variables such as poverty to compare apples to apples instead of to pepperoni, kept achievement standards just as high as Singapore, Shanghai, Finland, and any other place a charter school company stockholder will point to as ostensible proof of a crisis.
You will not hear that from them because without that crisis, their product sits on the shelf like an ineffably gaudy chandelier, spun out of the poor imagination of the Gates Foundation – that Gatsby of educational theory – and discarded because it’s not bright enough.
None of this is to deny that public schools have problems. I live with those problems every day and know them far better than any politician, think-tank analyst, or armchair sociologist. The issue, however, is that the problems the apostles of for-profit charter schools would solve are not those we actually face, which nearly everyone who is both honest and serious in education research knows to be caused by poverty and exacerbated by the other private part of the education industry: the ship-boarding privateer proprietors of our standardized tests like McGraw-Hill and NCS Pearson, the latter of which writes Georgia’s tests. Every year they bring out from their opaque autoclaves these testing instruments which are as monkey wrenches for the performing of brain surgery, and every year we struggle to analyze the results which any competent teacher could have predicted without the extra consultants’ fees and the insult to our students’ dignity.
What do these tests have to do with the charter schools amendment, you ask? The two issues are the two sides of a silver coin proffered to buy away our trust in the very idea of the public as such, complimentary acts of skullduggery that undermine on the one hand the project of public education and on the other the professionalism of its employees.
Students in my literature classes read Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” and learn to separate the moral awareness of the narrator from the emotional awareness of the protagonist, understand the celestial rhetoric of Romeo and Juliet in relation to the earthy vulgarity of Mercutio, write analyses of the logic of competing editorialists’ views of Arizona’s ban of ethnic studies courses, and reflect on the theft of history as rendered in August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson.”
Such learning is difficult, emotionally unsafe, politically unstable, necessary for the mold-breaking lives of free-thinking citizens in a democracy, and utterly unrelatable to the choice of A, B, C, or D on a sterile scantron sheet. Whatever it is those tests measure or purport to measure, it just isn’t that important.
Many for-profit charter school curricula are bought and paid for in accordance with the wishes of the industry that designs their assessments. In other words, they pay and are paid to institutionalize that anesthetizing practice which we in the public schools have tried so hard to resist: teaching to the test.
Students can watch a video of a lecture on a computer and spit answers back at a computerized multiple choice test without having a teacher at all. That is exactly the model some for-profit charter schools use, and those are the charter schools Amendment 1 is designed to attract, as evidenced by the many thousands of dollars those companies have poured into Georgia from outside to influence our vote. It is a high-tech version of a 2,000- year old practice, and it is meant to save money, not kids.
There are plenty of good charter schools in Georgia already, and more no doubt will be approved by local boards of education, but we do not need a commission to force communities to have for-profit charter schools designed to siphon Georgia taxpayers’ money through proprietary canned curricula, textbooks, computer programs, and other materials specifically wedded to those curricula, and mind-numbing assessments, to companies outside of Georgia which will sell the package at a premium and call it a revolutionary success when it will in fact be the death of truly critical thinking.
Parents and voters need to realize what they’re really asking for if they vote “yes” to Amendment 1. They will not like many of the results of these new choices, and many of their kids will languish horribly if the amendment passes. The real solution to our public school problems is two-fold. First, make responsible social policies that do more than pay lip service to fighting the vitiating academic consequences of poverty. Second, hire the best teachers with the best academic learning and pedagogical training available, pay us properly and give us the resources we need, and get out of our way.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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107 comments Add your comment
Dr. Craig Spinks/ Georgians for Educational Excellence
November 2nd, 2012
3:36 am
This persuasive piece, like almost all such pieces, is full of baseless rhetoric and misinformation.
Dr. Stan DeJarnett, retired Morgan County SS superintendent, would provide a more closely reason opposition to Amendment 1.
Mary Elizabeth
November 2nd, 2012
3:52 am
“I decline to accept that there is no longer such a thing as a common good which finds among its highest expressions a public school system.”
“The real solution to our public school problems is two-fold. First, make responsible social policies that do more than pay lip service to fighting the vitiating academic consequences of poverty. Second, hire the best teachers with the best academic learning and pedagogical training available, pay us properly and give us the resources we need, and get out of our way.”
“There are plenty of good charter schools in Georgia already, and more no doubt will be approved by local boards of education, but we do not need a commission to force communities to have for-profit charter schools designed to siphon Georgia taxpayers’ money through proprietary canned curricula, textbooks, computer programs, and other materials specifically wedded to those curricula, and mind-numbing assessments, to companies outside of Georgia which will sell the package at a premium and call it a revolutionary success when it will in fact be the death of truly critical thinking.”
=========================================
I agree with the erudite essay, above, by Ian Altman, who is opposed to Amendment 1.
I particularly support the three comments that I have highlighted, above, which were penned by Altman. Ian Altman understands, and writes, the underlying truth behind why voters should vote NO on NOvember 6 to Amendment 1.
Pardon My Blog
November 2nd, 2012
5:27 am
I say NO to any publicly funded private “Charter” Schools, period. Basically you are allowing a select few to get a private school education and the rest of the kids be damned.
TimeOut
November 2nd, 2012
5:51 am
Public Education is not a ‘for profit’ venture. We would be wise to avoid the privatization of this particular institution. We should not allow profiteers or foreign interests to manage or staff our schools.
Rascal
November 2nd, 2012
6:03 am
People like Ian, so blinded by the notion that government has to run schools for them to be of decent quality, are the problem. Wake up and understand that there is nothing special about education that prevents healthy, free market competition from making it better and more efficient and less expensive. As long as government requires we all pay for education, the same government owes us a successful and competitive environment in which it can flourish. Amendment 1 is just one more step in the right direction. Vote YES
rcs
November 2nd, 2012
6:25 am
Hey TimeOut. Ask Alvin Wilbanks in Gwinnett, pulling $400k+, if education is a for profit venture…
Lee
November 2nd, 2012
6:43 am
Various educator groups have come out against this Amendment but still do not seem to understand that there are a lot of people out there who are unhappy with the current state of education. These same educators moan and groan about the NCLB act, but refuse to acknowledge that they gave the politicians justification to pass that law on a silver platter (Hint: passing students from grade to grade who could not do the work and graduating illiterates).
In response, these educators only response has been “more money, more money, more money” and “get the politics out of education” (ain’t gonna happen. That Genie was let out of the bottle a long time ago).
Well, that and to continue with their misguided social engineering experiments, such as the “Mix It Up” program promulgated by the politically correct, racist hate group SPLC. http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2012/10/about_70_alabama_schools_to_pa.html
Little wonder parents are trying every option to get their kids away from traditional public schools….
mountain man
November 2nd, 2012
6:46 am
Traditional schools have had forty years to address the problems within them and they have only declined, BECAUSE of and not IN SPITE of the changes they have made (attendance, SPED, discipline). They are getting worse by the minute.
At least with charter schools, the parents who CARE (who aren’t rich enough to move or use private school) have an option for their kids. Otherwise their kids would be TRAPPED in failing traditional schools that will not address those problems.
I voted yesterday YES, and I encourage all who wish parents to have a CHOICE to vote YES.
For those who say the state commission will be corrupt, the local school boards are ALREADY corrupt (see Dekalb County and Clayton County and even Cherokee County in the 90’s). They vote to maintain their own power, not for the good of the children. At least the amendment gives another option for parents who CARE.
2big2 educate
November 2nd, 2012
6:48 am
TOO BIG TO EDUCATE is the real problem. Over sized and lacking accountability systems is our state’s real education problem. Charter schools are a bandaid that create yet another branch of government. Atlanta Public Schools is a $600 million dollar a year oversized organization. Fulton County, DeKalb County and Gwinnett County are all very similar. Try being a parent with a concern about your child, much less a real problem in those systems.
Why in the world would Sandy Springs, Johns Creek, Chattahooche Hills, Brookhaven, etc. want to become their own cities if they can not control their own education system? Even when a City like Decatur creates its own Charter District it is still leaving tax payer money in the hands of a gaint system that doesn’t deliver.
homeschooler
November 2nd, 2012
6:48 am
@Pardon. That is simply not true. I have met numerous kids from a Charter School in Smyrna and they are all lower socioeconomic, African American kids who have one thing in common. Parents who have risen above their circumstances and decided they needed to take additional steps to ensure the best education for their children.
I read fb comment that said the Charter Amendment will separate the “haves” from the “have nots”. I believe it will separate the “cares” from the “care nots”.
Face it. The ‘haves” have always had a choice. This levels the playing field so the “have nots” do not have to be stuck in a failing school. It gives people desperately needed options. And please don’t tell me we already have charters. We need more and the local school boards are not going to approve them.
After a great deal of research, I’m voting “yes” and encouraging all my friends and family members to do the same.
Bill Mackinnon
November 2nd, 2012
6:50 am
Access to money and power corrupt, even in the face of “regulation” and oversight, especially political oversight. Vote NO. I already have. We got a call the other week. “Can we count on you to vote yes on Amendment 1?” she asked me. “You can count on me to vote no on the amendment,” I said. I think she was surprised because she hung up.
BTW, you guys who already commented get up (or got to bed) way too early (late).
HenryH
November 2nd, 2012
6:53 am
TOO BIG TO EDUCATE is the real problem. Over sized and lacking accountability systems is our state’s real education problem. Charter schools are a bandaid that create yet another branch of government. Atlanta Public Schools is a $600 million dollar a year oversized organization. Fulton County, DeKalb County and Gwinnett County are all very similar. Try being a parent with a concern about your child, much less a real problem in those systems.
Why in the world would Sandy Springs, Johns Creek, Chattahooche Hills, Brookhaven, etc. want to become their own cities if they can not control their own education system? Even when a City like Decatur creates its own Charter District it is still leaving tax payer money in the hands of a gaint system that doesn’t deliver.
MAY
November 2nd, 2012
6:53 am
Vote Yes. There are no for-profit charter schools. Not every child fits the school they’re in. Let the families have another option. That’s it. I can’t believe how hard the establishment is fighting this amendment. They fought legalizing home schooling and many fought dual enrollment, preferring to keep the kids in AP classes rather than allow them to start earning college credit. This group, as a whole, doesn’t look at what’s best for each family. They only care about keeping that money on their campuses. I don’t want to home school and the charter school near me doesn’t fit our families needs but I can’t judge the families making those choices. I like knowing I have another choice. Does it keep my traditional school on its toes? I think so. We could leave and go somewhere else.
HenryH
November 2nd, 2012
6:58 am
TOO BIG TO EDUCATE, this is the real problem. Charter schools are a bandaid to try to give control back to the parents. When Atlanta Public Schools, Fulton County, Gwinnett County and DeKalb County are running 1/2 a billion dollar a year budgets they are looking after money not kids. I just wonder why Sandy Springs, Chattahooche Hill Country, and the newest Brookhaven haven’t realized that all their efforts to create these independent cities are still leaving their kids in unaccountable oversized government schools. I say vote for or against it is not going to solve the problem.
KB
November 2nd, 2012
7:05 am
95% of the teachers in 99% of the schools do the most they can with the students who walk in the door. Problems in education are a direct reflection of the problems in American society.
Our students simply don’t work hard enough.
Diverting money is not the solution.
redweather
November 2nd, 2012
7:07 am
Yikes! That piece is badly in need of some editing.
Mama S
November 2nd, 2012
7:08 am
If the public school system met the needs of the students then thousands of parents would not be supporting the charter school amendment. (Just as the US Postal Service failed to meet the needs of the public and UPS took root!) I have worked in the public school system as an employee for over 30 years and yet I borrowed money to send both my children and now my grandchildren to private schools.
Not because of racism or religious idealism – but because I wanted them educated in small classes with children who were also there to learn. If their behavior was a problem, there was not an IEP but an Out-The-Door.
Public schools are filled with tired and overburden teachers, too many students in a class, and those students are a grab bag of children needing speech therapy, emotional therapy, English-language instruction, remedial reading, remedial math, remedial manners, basic health care, etc.
How can public school teachers teach the few who arrive ready and willing to learn. Answer, they can’t.
bubba
November 2nd, 2012
7:18 am
I agree with
Homeschooler
It’s great to see how the parents of the Smyrna Academy have taken steps for their children and created a viable alternative.
Jezel
November 2nd, 2012
7:21 am
This piece is no more baseless than the articles supporting the amendment. In fact…since it is written by a teacher…I place a great deal of value in it.
Many Georgians feel insulted by this charter school amendment. Sorry to say… but it reeks of corruption. A non-elected group in charge of millions of tax payers dollars…come on. New and improved schools and curricula…not readily available to all students? Makes very little sense.
And…if the amendment passes and is challenged in the courts…which it most certainly will be…and after millions in legal fees…how will the U.S. Supreme Court rule on the constitutionality of the amendment?
Eddie Hall
November 2nd, 2012
7:28 am
When you throw out the people that want this because the “party” wants it, and you throw out the “my kids don’t get the right education” group, (a) what qualifies them to determine b) they will NEVER be happy anyway), you are left with the people I really do connect with. People like Mama S. above. The problem is, this will not fix her concerns, and the other two groups are playing on her discontent to achieve their goals! The truth is Mama, you and others like you, have the power now to change those things that concern you most! You have your vote! USE IT! Vote on someone’s resume, not other factors.Should this pass, you will have cast your LAST vote with local control. The system may need change to get out the FEW boards that do not preform, but this is NOT it. Information released yesterday proved changes made by No Child Left Behind are WORKING overall. Our schools work overall. The biggest test should be, Do you really trust Nathan Deal, Chip Rogers, etc. to bring about worthwile change? I don’t. VOTE NO!
Mountain Man
November 2nd, 2012
7:40 am
“Access to money and power corrupt, even in the face of “regulation” and oversight”
Just look what it has done to the local Boards of Education. Corrupt to the core.
Jim Dalton
November 2nd, 2012
7:42 am
Give parents who care about their children’s education, and cannot afford private school, a choice. Vote Yes.
Mountain Man
November 2nd, 2012
7:42 am
Who are the supporters of this amendment? PARENTS and young voters who will become parents. Who opposes this amendment? Teachers and EDUCRATS. ‘nough said.
Ed Johnson
November 2nd, 2012
7:45 am
Gosh, where did my socks go?! I had them on before reading Altman’s piece.
Well done, Ian Altman.
And, yes…
“I decline to accept that there is no longer such a thing as a common good which finds among its highest expressions a public school system.”
Private Citizen
November 2nd, 2012
7:46 am
Whuh, chortle. The old Russian Volga argument. “Our schools work overall.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WD0WVL-HjE
Mountain Man
November 2nd, 2012
7:48 am
“Public Education is not a ‘for profit’ venture.”
Tell that to a UGA professor who requires his students to buy the book he wrote! (Wasn’t that also the case in a traditional school: the school bought copies of the administrators book?) There is ALWAYS profit; the better question is: What are you getting for your money? In the case of APS – VERY LITTLE.
Ed Johnson
November 2nd, 2012
8:11 am
“I read fb comment that said the Charter Amendment will separate the ‘haves’ from the ‘have nots’. I believe it will separate the ‘cares’ from the ‘care nots’.”
In either case, it’s a win-lose proposition. Some of us are so thoroughly steeped in, and accepting of, win-lose thinking – that is, competition – that we now believe it is just human nature, as Chip Rogers recently expressed to me in an e-mail:
“Competition is at the heart of almost every advancement in human existence. To suggest it doesn’t work in education ignores both reality and human nature.”
mikeDW
November 2nd, 2012
8:19 am
Vote “NO”. Vote against choice. Vote against options. New ideas and new ways of thinking scare the establishment to death. The Earth is the center of the universe- don’t use that telescope, Galileo. Fear change. Fear knowledge.
Jaynie
November 2nd, 2012
8:19 am
The charter school amendment should be defeated for the very reason that it takes control away from local parents and borads of education. I cannot understand the comments that say the charter schools don’t have the same problems as local schools. Yes, they do. Any time you have people, you have problems. Private and charter schools have just as many issues as public schools, they just hide them better. Charter schools have a place, but they should not be overseen by an appointed board answerable only to whoever is in governmental power. I do not want my tax dollars spent on a charter school that local parents and school boards oppose. Everyone one always points out APS, DeKalb, and Clatyon Counties as examples of bad scool systems. I agree, there are many significant problems with those school systems. But this amendment is not going to fix those problems. Let’s don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. Vote NO on Amendment 1.
Bob
November 2nd, 2012
8:20 am
For those against charters I ask, since my public school choice is dominated by Hispanics and has classroom instruction grades 1 – 5 in Spanish, why shouldn’t I vote for change ? Its pathetic that American kids have to comply with the native language of immigrants, many illegal. Taking power from people that make decisions such as the above is a good thing. Then you have the new head of APS, Errol Davis that looks parents in the eyes and lie about North Atlanta being taken over by the state. Again, any way to take power from these people is good.
Pardon My Blog
November 2nd, 2012
8:24 am
We all want smaller classrooms, better teachers, etc. but sucking money away from existing schools does not solve the problem. What about the kids who are good students and want a good education (and are have nots) but by virtue of the “lottery or selection process” do not get into the Charter School? Are they expendable? Instead of Charter Schools perhaps Boot Camp for those problem kids would be a better solution.
misty fyed
November 2nd, 2012
8:24 am
I’m glad I read this article. It persuaded me to vote for this initiative. Despite his use of big words the author comes across as a child stomping his feet and calling people names. I mean how dare these rich people not just give him their money and let him teach what he wants to teach (why is it to a liberal, sharing and compromise is always them getting their way). This teacher is why we should have testing…to ensure he is teaching what is supposed to be taught. Imagine his teaching left unchecked. The Occupy Atlanta crowd would multiply with each graduating class.
That said… I really don’t think charter schools will fix the problem. The teachers aren’t the problem. Poverty isn’t the problem. It’s another by-product of the problem. . The problem comes from the home and the choices the parents make. The lack of focus on the child through discipline and support is the problem along with the refusal of the rest of us to call it like it is. The best of teachers cannot make sure the child has someone reading to them at home; someone to help with what they don’t understand; someone to keep them focused on the importance of an education. They simply cannot undo in 7 hours what a parent does in the remaining 17.
Until society as a whole drops the political correctness and addresses the true root of the problem; all this is just a band aid. At least a charter school will give the good parents who are stuck in that particular system an option to separate their children from poor influences caused by poor parenting.
bootney farnsworth
November 2nd, 2012
8:26 am
it’s funny how fast the anti-entitlement/work for what you want types toss their principals right out the door when the special perks might go to them
Engineer71
November 2nd, 2012
8:27 am
Public money, that is our money, keeps enriching the rich at the expense of taxpayers. The solution is to fix the mess in our public education created by politicians, who will do anything to reward their contributors. That is legal corruption. We had enough corruption already.
bootney farnsworth
November 2nd, 2012
8:28 am
that was a horribly written piece. which side is he on?
Goodforkids
November 2nd, 2012
8:29 am
Love his contribution…especially the reminder about the common good, and the below quote about real learning. So sick of the dumbing down of education via fill-in-the-bubble tests.
“Such learning is difficult, emotionally unsafe, politically unstable, necessary for the mold-breaking lives of free-thinking citizens in a democracy, and utterly unrelatable to the choice of A, B, C, or D on a sterile scantron sheet. Whatever it is those tests measure or purport to measure, it just isn’t that important.”
Lynchmtn
November 2nd, 2012
8:30 am
“Galt’s Gulch”, here I come!!!!!!!!!!!!!
jsmith
November 2nd, 2012
8:30 am
i vote yes!!…..its a no brainer… there is no LOGIC in voting no, our public schools are a mess and they will NEVER GET BETTER!! people will be having the same arguements and discussions ten or twenty years from now if change is not made….. i wish education was privitized and i think one day it will be , but until then i vote for anything that take power away from the local school boards and gives people more choices
indigo
November 2nd, 2012
8:41 am
The Koch brothers are members of the far-right Tea Party so, it’s not hard to guess why the’re pouring so much money into the pro Charter schools ammendment. They want school boards filled with fundamentalist parents who will insist on creationism and other anti-science views being taught.
jsmith
November 2nd, 2012
8:49 am
indigo , i dont think this is what this fight is all about?? this is about sending our children ( the most important people in our lives) to a descent school …. and if you have not looked around lately the PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN GEORGIA suck !!! the school boards are made up of incompetent idiots who only care about RACE . the school board members are crooks!! people need a CHOICE AND MOST CAN NOT AFFORD PRIVATE SCHOOL , BECAUSE IF THEY COULD THERE WOULD BE NO ONE LEFT IN THE PULBIC SCHOOL SYSTEM
Fed Up Parent
November 2nd, 2012
8:52 am
Read the amendment folks!!! THESE STATE APPROVED CHARTER SCHOOLS CANNOT BE BE FOR PROFIT!!!!
Maureen Downey
November 2nd, 2012
9:01 am
@Fed up. The charters schools can hire for-profit companies to manage them. That is legal and increasingly the case. There are many for-profit companies running charter schools in Georgia.
For example, the Charter Schools Commission approved Peachtree Hope, which was run by by Sabis International Schools Network, a for-profit education management firm operating world wide.
But the local board and Sabis clashed and the school closed. Ivy Prep took it over. See this blog on what happened.
Maureen
Fed Up Parent
November 2nd, 2012
9:08 am
To Mr. Altman…….the current system, YOUR SYSTEM, is getting TERRIBLE results! Teachers like yourself are simply afraid of true competition. Your afraid that charter schools will actually prove to be a better model for success. A model where teachers get fired if they don’t do their jobs……a model where you are not guaranteed annual pay increases regardless of performance…….a true model of accountability!!! Voters take notice…….it’s teachers like Mr. Altman that are against Amendment One because they are trying to protect their bloated and incompetent little fiefdoms!!
Private Citizen
November 2nd, 2012
9:11 am
Poverty isn’t the problem. It’s another by-product of the problem. . The problem comes from the home and the choices the parents make.
misty fyed If you make a list of 100 of the most modern countries in the world, there is only one country on that list that does not have a system of health care distribution for all of its citizens, and you live there. To compound the situation, for half the citizens, going to the doctor guarantees certain destruction of credit which is determinative in standard of living. Until the USA decides to have a look around and join the civilized world, yes, poverty is a determinative factor in the health, well-being and performance of a country. Some question if this observation belongs in a discussion about education. I suggest go to any education studies department in the first world outside of the United States and you will find that this is the first topic addressed when one is concerned about performance.
d
November 2nd, 2012
9:17 am
Before I say what I am about to say – please understand that I am pro-charter. Personally, I believe EVERY school should be a charter…. that being said – anyone who truly believes that Amendment 1 is really about charters, choice, or improving education needs a true education in Georgia politics. This amendment is about taking local control and giving it to Atlanta. Atlanta is not “local.” @Maureen – any word on the lawsuit filed about the misleading language used on the ballot?
Gerry Lopez
November 2nd, 2012
9:19 am
The baseless and unsupportable comments are coming from those opposed to the charter school amendments.
Here is the unabashed truth (look it up)
- charter schools will receive not 1 dime of local money. Currently and in he future 100% of your local property taxes used for support of local schools will continue to go to local schools.
All funding for Charter Schools will come from the state.
- the State funding for Charter Schools will be only 62% of that provided for current local government schools. Current schools will not receive 1 less dime from the State
Let’s be honest, this is a bold faced attempt by the local school establishments to avoid the competition that local Charter Schools will bring. The opposition is coming from the very people that have failed YOUR CHILDREN in this State.
Charter Schools regularly out perform government schools. And this is the crux of the matter, the establishment will be shown for the failures that they have been to so many if this amendment passes. Like cockroaches heading for the corners when the light comes on, these opponents what to keep all of our children in darkness.
Dr. Monica Henson
November 2nd, 2012
9:31 am
Mountain Man posted, “There is ALWAYS profit; the better question is: What are you getting for your money?”
Well said. Anyone who doesn’t believe that private, for-profit companies don’t do huge business with public school districts needs to visit any conference or convention of school administrators, school teachers, school counselors, school finance officers, and school boards. The vendor exhibit halls are huge and are filled with companies offering products and services, all at a price, and all designed to earn a profit for the vendor company.
Not every charter school that does business with an education service provider allows them to manage the school’s operations and/or hire the staff. The best practice, which my school’s board of directors understands, is to treat the provider as a vendor of services and products, NOT as a management organization.
This arrangement preserves the integrity of the charter school. Our school is governed by the nonprofit board. I and all of my employees are employed by the board, NOT by the education services provider. The provider does not have any employees sitting on our board of directors, nor does anyone in the company have any decision making authority on behalf of the school.
Our school is run by three experienced district public school administrators, our support staff is composed of experienced veterans of the public schools, and all of our teachers are certified public school veterans as well. We are all members of the Teachers Retirement System. The education service provider supports our work and follows the lead of my fellow administrators and me.
Dr. Monica Henson
November 2nd, 2012
9:36 am
(Hit “send” too quickly.) My professional opinion is that when a management company operates the school and hires the staff and “owns” them as employees, the service mission of public education becomes conflated with the business mission of generating profit. There is then the potential for the profit motive to outweigh the service motive.
The protection that is built in is that if the school fails to meet its academic and financial and organization goals, the authorizer can close them or decline to renew their charter.
For any management company to place directors on the board with which they have a contract would be a serious conflict of interest.
Private Citizen
November 2nd, 2012
9:36 am
C’mon now Gerry Lopez Charter Schools regularly out perform government schools.
If you look into it, and it takes time to do so, many charter schools do not keep up with good government schools and one main reason is that good government schools have seasoned faculty, which is the real mechanism of good performance. You may want to do a little browser-search-engine search on your generalization re: performance of charter schools. That said, I support the movement toward charter schools for one reason, as a worker I am compelled to work in a sane work environment. As a man on his deathbed once told me, “Don’t sacrifice,” and I’m not interested in sacrificing my well-being playing 8th tier fiddle to the power column of Georgia bureaucracy and government schools management mono-culture. I just do not care for it. Teachers are told to differentiate instruction for students, but there is zero differentiation to make room for teaching styles of adults. I support the charter amendment for my own selfish reasons. I would like a diverse marketplace to work in. In college I never joined a fraternity, had zero interest in them. As an adult I do not want to join a fraternity and the government schools work environment is way waay waaaay too clubby for my tastes. Any artist or intellectual has a strong need for individuality and in the government schools, there is no room for it. The irony is that it is the artists and intellectuals who are the rightful bearers of knowledge and are caring teachers.
Dr. Monica Henson
November 2nd, 2012
9:40 am
Finally, I want to note that we have on our board of directors two former district-level educators and one attorney experienced in education law. I believe that this is the primary reason why our board negotiated a service provider agreement, rather than a management agreement, with our education partner.
When you have a board composed primarily of parents and folks without education experience themselves, they may not feel qualified to open a school without the services of a management company, leaving them open to persuasion by sales representatives of the company. We do have a parent representative on our board–I’m not knocking parent participation in governance. He also brings substantial expertise in decision theory and risk analysis. But there’s definitely something to be said in ensuring that the board has some public education expertise, particularly at the district level, represented.
Private Citizen
November 2nd, 2012
9:42 am
Is it a dream to be a capable teacher and want to work somewhere and simply have people leave you alone to do your work, and go home at the end of the day with your head still on your shoulders? This seems reasonable to me. You know, kind of like how most professions operate? Doctor / lawyer / architect / licensed professional engineer?
Woody
November 2nd, 2012
9:45 am
No one has expressed – what is the problem the amendment is trying to fix? Are local boards declining charter schools en masse? Did someone want a charter school and couldn’t get it approved? What? Where are the examples of injustice, and lost court cases, that would require an entire amendment to the state constitution? Without these, the amendment is an empty bit of text that is not related to the real world. Honestly, there needs to be some basic criteria established before any question can be put on the ballot.
Private Citizen
November 2nd, 2012
9:51 am
So this Sabis company http://www.sabis.net/ operates schools in 15 countries but when they set-up a school in Dekalb County they got chopped down?
Seen this a lot with principals. For example, a principal is good at lots of things but not accounting and being a principal in a Georgia government school requires a lot of attention to details of money and accounting. So things get a little sideways. Instead of helping out the principal, the main administration people come after their own employee like that person is the enemy and they chop them down and run them off. Seen a lot of this “oppositional management” style of the people who put in the long hours and work in the school building. Slow to mentor, quick to chop down. And the people who are doing the chopping, cutting people down, it is haphazard who they come after. Local person? Slow to react. From another area or state? Oh yes chop them down thorough and quick. And too it sets up a weird rhythm and appetite for destroying people as though the dragon must be fed. Yes, the dragon must be fed some firewood so that it can breathe fire.
Private Citizen
November 2nd, 2012
9:56 am
Woody Short answer, opinionated and quick. Local school boards hate charter schools, hate their guts, hate them with a vengeance. Local school boards are used to being sole fiefdoms and that dictate and command. They get bat-crazy when someone or something encroaches upon them. Current material result of this is that some local school boards find ways to start trying to micromanage a charter school. Government schools already have really poor boundaries to begin with so it is second nature to them to invade anything and everything and dictate, malign, redirect, or do whatever they want for their own self-interest reasons. (plentiful generalizations included)
Private Citizen
November 2nd, 2012
10:08 am
This is a rhetorical question, but on the case of the Sabis managed school in Dekalb County, would it have not made more sense that upon examining the school and finding a few things out of line, to make a list of things for them to fix? In other words, to build instead of to destroy? Seems to be a management style, evidenced by the recent NAHS event, to just do a seek and destroy mission as a way of addressing a situation. Seems like “too much power” syndrome. It also occurs to me that this type of management is also strategic. By being so incredibly arrogant and destructive it has several potential benefits to the parties who practice this method: 1) bully intimidation so that most people are scared of you. 2) creates a smokescreen and re-direct so that the press and public is occupied with the aggressive action, attention redirected away from operations.
Maureen Downey
November 2nd, 2012
10:15 am
@Private, Keep in mind that Sabis had an issue with its own board of parents and founders. Sabis told me that the founders kept interfering. This was not a clash between the school management company and the county or state; the conflict was between the folks who started the school and the company they hired. When Sabis was ousted, the board could not find another management company to come in quickly and take over the contract to run the school.
Maureen
Private Citizen
November 2nd, 2012
10:27 am
Woody In Georgia, there are plenty of government agencies that as far as they are concerned, they own anything that moves within the square footage and boundary lines of their county. Seen this with local police pulling over a car of youth because a tail light or license plate light is out, completely hijacking them, having all four of the youth out of the beat up car, going through the girl’s purse, the whole bit, the whole routine. I saw this because it required five police cars to achieve this manuever, parked hari-kari all over the place and blocking in my vehicle. After waiting a good thirty minutes and after one of the officers had set his convenience store drink on the hood of my vehicle that they had blocked in, I appeared and they sort of snapped out of it and backed up one of their police cars so I could go on my way. Without the soda drink cup on my hood, thank you. Welcome to Georgia. Have a nice day.
G&G
November 2nd, 2012
10:29 am
What we have here are trigger words like “school” and “charter” to cover up the bigger deception: more big business profit.
In addition, money wields power. We don’t need the likes of NCS Pearson or Alice Walton designing curriculum. It’s a slippery slope, folks. Yes, our current education system is not working, but this is not the fix. I predict the same fall-out as NCLB: the rich will prosper and the poor will suffer. Vote NO.
Private Citizen
November 2nd, 2012
10:34 am
@Maureen, Thank you for providing detail/ explanation. Apparently there is a structure method to governance / how these charter schools are put together. You seem to have a clear understanding of this, as well as Dr. Henson. If the charter amendment succeeds, this information with be the more poignant (?). (making effort to keep up with the use of language in the featured essay
)
DeKalb Inside Out
November 2nd, 2012
10:36 am
Woody,
There are 2 issues
1. The Ga Supreme Court said, in a split decision, the state could not create state chartered K-12 schools.
2. The local boards of many counties refuse to approve or even consider charters.
85% of the state chartered schools operate in counties where the local boards won’t approve charters. The Charter Amendment clears up the constitution allowing for the state to create chartered schools again.
d
November 2nd, 2012
10:39 am
@DeKalb Inside Out – since the state can already authorize charters under existing law – as you correctly stated there are state-authorized charters – then the amendment is not needed to clear up anything. As I stated before, Amendment 1 is not about charters, children, or improving education.
Private Citizen
November 2nd, 2012
10:46 am
Actually, G&G, conditions for teachers were better under NCLB than under Obama’s RTTT. Believe me, I am no fan of these acronym-jive control themes, but at least under NCLB the attention was on performance of schools. Under RTTT, they have zeroed in on teachers and this jive-routine to harass individuals. Allow me to call upon the brothers Gibb to commemorate in song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVjITlgqlHo
Guess which song the teachers get to sing in response? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKdVq_vNAAI
bootney farnsworth
November 2nd, 2012
10:48 am
considering there are rules and regulations out the tail which the state universally ignores as they wish
all the rules in the world about charter management mean little
yuzeyurbrane
November 2nd, 2012
10:50 am
My advice to author: too many $10 words to maximize persuasion of your target audience. But I agree with most of what you say.
Dr. Monica Henson
November 2nd, 2012
10:55 am
The Sabis situation clearly illustrates how important good governance is for any school, just as we see it in districts like DeKalb and Clayton. If you have folks on the board who try to micromanage and/or are not competent to govern well, whether it’s an elected board of education or a nonprofit board of directors, it creates problems for the organization.
The sad thing is, short of voter recall en masse, governor removal of a dysfunctional board, or loss of accreditation, there’s really not much families trapped in failing district schools can do. If you campaign to remove board members, you get that opportunity once every four years. That’s three chances during the time your child is in K-12 public education. It’s highly unlikely that substantive change can be engineered with the haste needed to benefit children in the existing system.
Private citizen and parent
November 2nd, 2012
11:01 am
By choice, I have a child in a very socio-economically diverse public school system (with incredibly good teachers) that neighbors a white, affluent suburban county. Everyone touts the success of the neighboring county’s schools. Is it a surprise that kids who have college-educated parents, eat three square meals a day and have involved parents do well?? No.
Is it a surprise when diverse schools have more mixed results? No. Generalizing here, but by and large it is true in my experience. The children coming from difficult circumstances tend to struggle more (but many succeed), and the kids raised in homes with college-educated, involved parents succeed just as they would in the neighboring county. Bravo to the teachers who can teach all kids! That is exactly what is happening at our school! Couldn’t be happier!
It isn’t a broken school system in most cases (it is a difficult home life). But, if it is the system…. fix it. Don’t create yet another public school in the hopes that that will be the magic bullet! It won’t!
Charter schools can be ok, but the results are a mixed bag. Kind of like what we already have. Why create yet another public school system controlled at the state level? Makes no sense.
I’ll be voting NO on Amendment 1.
Ron F.
November 2nd, 2012
11:08 am
“considering there are rules and regulations out the tail which the state universally ignores as they wish
all the rules in the world about charter management mean little”
EXACTLY, and one more reason I gladly voted NO to the amendment. The state seems to make up the rules as they go and confuse the legal language so that if anyone has the guts to sue them, they win either way. But too many, I fear, will trust them on this issue.
friendlyflyer
November 2nd, 2012
11:12 am
I’ve always been a fan of public school…still want to be. My eighth grade daughter was having panic episodes over a period of eighteen months. She was enrolled in public school and was struggling….the school had to call me a couple times a week from the nurse’s office. Finally after two months of agony for us all, we had to take her out of our local school and enroll in state public virtual school (charter school) because our local school said we were non-compliant parents if we didn’t medicate our daughter. She hasn’t been medicated and is thriving in online school. She’s much better and hopes to return to her friends and our local high school next year. But I thank God for this choice we were allowed to make. It’s all about choices, folks. We shouldn’t box ourselves in.
DeKalb Inside Out
November 2nd, 2012
11:14 am
Pardon My Blog
This is another common misconception. If you look at the History of Funding Education in Georgia you’ll see that school districts have received more and more money ever year over the last 26 years. Adjusted for inflation, they are getting more now than they ever have.
Note: All local money stays with the local school district. Therefore, for every child that goes to a charter school the local school district has more money per child in their system.
What about the kids who by virtue of the “lottery or selection process” do not get into the Charter School? Are they expendable? State chartered schools is not a cure all for Georgia Education, but another tool in the belt. I hope you wouldn’t deny the kids that do get in a superior education just because everyone couldn’t get in. That being said, “market theory” says the state chartered school will encourage the traditional school down the street to innovate and become a better school … in theory anyway.
Boot Camp – Heck Yeah!! I think we should have reform schools with dormitories. Count me in big time.
Pardon my blog, Why the “Instead”? Can we please implement as many tools as possible to improve education in Georgia?
Mountain Man
November 2nd, 2012
11:16 am
“But, if it is the system…. fix it.”
That is what I have been saying for years. They have been working on “fixing it” for forty years and have gone backward.
So charters seems like at least a good choice to offer parents instead of trapping them in the schools that “need fixing”.
I love my charter school.
November 2nd, 2012
11:20 am
Out-of-state corporations are profiting every day from our educational tax $$, as is every overpaid, corrupt superintendent and useless BOE. Every day, our tax $$ are being handed to out-of-state, FOR-PROFIT corporations that provide gasoline to buses, food to students, books, school supplies, and computers. More money is being sent to for-profit educational companies for testing materials than is being spent on programs to enrich our children.
If the many useless, overpaid for-profit admins & superintendents (the “NO” crowd) had any interest in fixing our embarrassing educational system, they’d have done so long ago.
Do you realize how much money state tax money is spent on sending children to post-secondary schools per year? Really people?? Go look at the debate that is posted on the GPB.org in reference to the charter school.
Heck, we all have spent years paying for our public schools to educate “our children” while I also paid for private school tuition for my children. According to the test scores that our county and surrounding counties have reported, we all are getting ripped off. We can’t fix our corrupt system here so we did something about it. At least now I feel like the state money is going some where useful.
catlady
November 2nd, 2012
11:28 am
Gary Lopez and others: there is no such thing as “state tax money.” ALL money, state or local, comes from the citizens (and visitors passing through, as well as companies doing business.)
DeKalb Inside Out
November 2nd, 2012
11:39 am
d
state can already authorize charters under existing law
Short Answer
OCGA says the state can, but the GA Supreme Court says they cannot.
The 2011 ruling leaves no room for any state agency to create charter schools, a power the justices held to be the “exclusive” constitutional domain of local boards. The state’s role in commissioning charters cannot be clarified without a constitutional amendment.
Georgia PTA Lobbyist Sally Fitzgerald made it perfectly clear that a lawsuit challenging the State Board’s authority to create schools is forthcoming should this amendment fail.
In his dissent of the 2011 judgement, Judge Nahmias warns us of the inability of the State Board to commission charters under the 2011 ruling should it be contested.
sneak peak into education
November 2nd, 2012
11:43 am
@Gerry Lopez-no,you are wrong; charter schools regularly do NOT perform better than their traditional counterparts and study after study shows this. However, this amendment is not about voting down charter schools but is against changing our constitution to allow an unelected board to decide where to spend OUR tax dollars.
Vote NO in NOvember
I love my charter school.
November 2nd, 2012
11:45 am
The three biggest arguments we’ve heard against Amendment 1 are:
1) There is already an appeal process.
The best that a charter school organizer can hope for is to be approved as a “special” school receiving just a fraction of the funding that conventional public schools receive. So, of course, school like those are doomed to fail. Especially in our area where over 50% receive free or reduced lunches.
2) The approving of this amendment would mean less funding for traditional public schools:
The only way that additional charter schools meaningfully divert funds from other schools is if they attract back to public education children who are not currently attending public schools. In a state where tens of thousands of children- more than 100,000 in Atlanta alone – have abandoned public schools, the idea of convincing a new generation of students and their families to return to public education is a GOOD thing. To argue otherwise is to accept all of the worst trends in public education of the past 50 years.
3) This fives the state “too much power” over public education and takes away the local control of local school boards.
How can anyone argue that the system of local school boards has been a good thing?? Over the last 20 years. Suburban school boards have openly encouraged white flight from the city and resisted reform ferociously. The city school system continues- despite the valiant efforts of some who have tried to turn things around- to post abysmal academic performance and graduation rates, and is today most famous for Atlanta’s ignominious cheating scandal.. What could possibly be the argument for continuing to give that system of governance total control of all public schools???
I copied and pasted from Doug and Michelle Blackmon article but it is all so true.
http://www.slaverybyanothername.com/blog/why-we-will-vote-for-the-georgia-charter-school-amendment-on-nov-6/
I love my charter school.
November 2nd, 2012
11:49 am
At least these non-paid commissioned officers (non-paid mean NOT PAID – Volunteering) are not trying to line their own pockets and their family members that are working for the local public school systems pockets.
DeKalb Inside Out
November 2nd, 2012
12:03 pm
Jaynie
You say [the charter amendment] takes control away from local parents and boards of education
How is that? Local parents don’t have any control (neither do local boards, but that is another thread). Superintendents have all the control. Amendment 1 is about ripping control away from Superintendents and their administrations and giving it back to the local community.
Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. – I don’t see how Amendment 1 throws the baby or the bathwater out. All local money stays with the local school district. For every child that goes to a state chartered school, the local school district has more money per child to spend on education in their district.
Amendment 1 isn’t going to be the end of traditional schools and it isn’t going to cure all that ails education in Georgia. It’s just another tool.
chartered schools should not be overseen by an appointed board – Chartered schools are not overseen by an appointed board. Traditional and chartered schools are both overseen by their respective local boards. Traditional and chartered schools are then overseen by the state.
DeKalb Inside Out
November 2nd, 2012
12:14 pm
Sneak Peak
Note: When you say charter schools, I’m going to assume in this context you mean state chartered schools. Otherwise, dependent charters take on a whole new meaning.
Charter schools regularly do NOT perform better than their traditional counterparts
So What? Parents know what is best for their children. If a state chartered school isn’t better, then parents will not choose to go there. If a state chartered school doesn’t have enough students, it will fail and close.
Private Citizen
November 2nd, 2012
12:21 pm
friendlyflyer our local school said we were non-compliant parents if we didn’t medicate our daughter.
I was there. I’ve been to several of those meetings and seen the authority change to where the school admin. wants to play doctor and basically require medicating kids who are acting out. At the time I thought to myself “are we exceeding authority here?” I’ve also had a student who was so zonked out on high-tech pharmaceuticals that for half a year this student came to school every day and said “MY HEAD HURTS” and I could tell, looking at the student, the they had pharmaco ping pong balls bouncing around in their head. For me, this is getting into really serious violation of ethics, but basically I am here to affirm your report and say that I have seen in person the “so much authority” syndrome progress to the point of non-medically trained building administration putting over pressure on parent / student during meeting that the student’s behavior should be subdued or otherwise taken responsibility for using pharmacological drugs. i should note that this approach occurred after the state put pressure on the school to not suspend or otherwise discipline students who were chronic attention-seeking misbehavior artists. If kids sense there is no real authority over them, some will exploit this and just keep acting out. That’s a whole other matter, that from the state level, many schools have been stripped of the ability to govern student behavior. Disciplinary actions are recorded and data sent to the state. Schools that have a lot of discipline issues are formally told to lessen the number of disciplinary actions used to govern student behavior. It is a complex thing, but I have seen over pressure to use drugs to control behavior as a back up plan from administrators trying to rightly govern student behavior. It now seems impossible to just throw a kid out of school on their head if they insist on disrupting class each and every day. The truth of the matter is that there is likely a complete lack of alternative programs for repeat disruptors and the terrible truth is that without this stop-gap, there are kids who will continue disrupting. Back when you had alternative schools and such, there were kids who would take to the very edge with their bravado and then suddenly break down and cry buckets of tears when they figured out they were not going to be with their friends for a while, but now that stop gap is gone. Seen this many times, bravado kids taking misbehavior as far as they can possible take it – seeking a meaningful response from authority. Now, that meaningful response is “here’s a bottle of pills and you will take them. It’ll be uncomfortable at first until your body adjusts, but this is what you must do.”
Anotther comment
November 2nd, 2012
12:30 pm
The real amendment we need is to get rid of is the cap on the number of school district. Those of Us recruited to the south for employment, shake our heads. We know the real problem is these mega school district. We all went to high performing small school districts that were one high school and it’s feeders large. The wealthy and poor of the community went to the same school. Everyone worked to make it a great school. It wasn’t a race for the most free lunch applications and more title one money. On the contrary, everyone got to see what life was like on the other side of the tracks. Everyone wanted to perform at a higher standard. The local community put their children in the school. We were mortified moving to Georgia and seeing the racist attitudes that still exist. The reverse racism in some school district is the worst. Many of us would love to live in-town, but our Midwestern or Northern values don’t justify or give us the connections to send our kids to Westminster, Lovett, or Marist even if we wanted to plunk down $22k per kid. We grew up in Parts of the country where everyone goes to their local public High School.
Private Citizen
November 2nd, 2012
12:32 pm
Being stripped of resources, some schools are in the position of telling parents, “medicate student or face expulsion / here’s your file, get out of here, expelled, no longer in this school system.” In a time of few resources, this is what school discipline has become.
Michael
November 2nd, 2012
12:45 pm
The government bureaucrats and public school administrators who misuse millions of taxpayers dollars are scared to death to have to run accountable institutions. The math doesn’t lie, both my children go to private schools and it hurts so much to have to pay that money. But sending them to public schools is absolutely out of the question. Charter schools will follow the same strategy as our private schools – hold administrators, teachers, parents and children accountable for their education. The fact that we spend more on each student than any industrialized country – and the results we get from that investment – PROVE that a change is needed. It will come soon. The charter amendment will pass next week.
Maureen Downey
November 2nd, 2012
1:32 pm
@To all, The AJC has a page of charter school related stories and info. If you want to read a lot about the issue, go here.
Beverly Fraud
November 2nd, 2012
1:32 pm
Vote NO for snake oil salesmen; leave education to the true professionals like Beverly Hall and Crawford Lewis.
Ron F.
November 2nd, 2012
1:41 pm
Beverly: Bev Hall is LONG gone and good riddance to her. There are plenty of current supers for you to research and criticize. Please use your obvious energy better and get after the fools currently in office.
bootney farnsworth
November 2nd, 2012
2:38 pm
@ catlady
stop stating the obvious.
but it is a pity you have to.
NotYou
November 2nd, 2012
3:34 pm
Those that are claiming “public school has issues”, “they’ve had forty years to fix their problems”, clearly did not read the article. Yes they have issues but this amendment will not address those issues! Do you even know what this is about?
We
November 2nd, 2012
3:38 pm
If you are republican and voting for this, I am confused. This is the complete opposite of accountability and fiscal conservatism. Vote NO
Warrior Woman
November 2nd, 2012
3:42 pm
Ian Altman apparently opposes Amendment 1 because it might cause him to be accountable for his performance or see a diminishment of his turf. Further, based on his comments about Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand, he wouldn’t know economic truth if it bit him on the nose.
DeKalb Inside Out
November 2nd, 2012
3:55 pm
NotYou
What’s the plan for fixing traditional schools given that the people in place to make changes at traditional schools are the people who profit the most from the status quo.
What is this amendment about you ask? According to the amendment it is about amending the Constitution of Georgia so as to clarify the authority of the state to establish state-wide education policy;
If not that, what is ‘this’ all about?
Mountain Man
November 2nd, 2012
4:01 pm
“Those that are claiming “public school has issues”, “they’ve had forty years to fix their problems”, clearly did not read the article. Yes they have issues but this amendment will not address those issues! ”
This amendment will give the parents who CARE an OPTION, a CHOICE, to address those issues! Choice they do not have under the current system.
parentoftwo
November 2nd, 2012
4:57 pm
My young son was doing poorly in public school with his over crowded classroom and “educator” who cared nothing about actually teaching. I am fortunate enough to have found, and been able to afford, a local private school that my children now attend.
Instead of being treated like the enemy by a public school system too worried about politics and teaching to the lowest common denominator, my family are now treated like paying customers, which we are. The APS cheating scandal is a prime example of what public schools have become. The children cant pass on their own so the teachers cheat to keep those tax dollars coming to the trough.
I am of the opinion that the money should follow the child to school, not the other way around. Now if I could only get my tax dollars the state diverts to the public school system (that my kids don’t attend) redirected to their private school all would be well.
I voted early, and even though my kids go to private school I voted for the charter schools amendment hoping it will help some other family that needs it.
Both of my kids are making A’s and are learning Spanish and Mandarin Chinese for their language classes at ages 4 and 8.
Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Pride and Joy
November 2nd, 2012
5:26 pm
VERY WELL SAID Dr. Monica and Mountain man!
Pride and Joy
November 2nd, 2012
5:27 pm
Vote next week the blog says?
Heck no. I voted YES TODAY!
Charter schools amendment: Say ?no? to ed biz ?shamans? and … | Channel 7 Local News
November 3rd, 2012
4:02 am
[...] Source: http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2012/11/02/charter-schools-amendment-say-no-to-ed-biz-shamans... [...]
anthonydavis
November 3rd, 2012
8:22 am
We are crazy for considering business school because we’re isolated, but what a great crazy it is! Business school AND our careers will be better off, of that I’m convinced.
Pardon My Blog
November 3rd, 2012
8:27 am
Perhaps the only answer is to privatize all the schools and run them like a business. The tax dollars would “follow the child”as parentoftwo suggested and competition for the best students and best teachers would raise the bar. However, this would only work for those kids who want to be there and the parents or guardians who actually are interested in their child receiving an education.
Pardon My Blog
November 3rd, 2012
8:35 am
@DeKalb Inside Out – I would never deny a child a good education which is why it should not be only for those selected for the Charter School. If the Charter School model is so successful, then utilize it system wide. There are many students (and we all pay taxes for the schools, some more than others) that would benefit from a stringent curriculum that are not in the Charter Schools.
Pardon My Blog
November 3rd, 2012
8:37 am
I do know one thing, I will vote YES for the State to run the Charter Schools because until real changes are made in DeKalb (starting with the BoE and Superintendent on down) I don’t think I can trust them to do the right thing.
Angela Dean
November 3rd, 2012
9:44 am
Voting no on this doesn’t mean you are voting against charters. Charter schools existed prior to this vote and voting no won’t prohibit them from existing after the vote. Those that believe voting no is a vote against charters haven’t done the research on what this vote is really about. The difference this vote will make is how charters are created in the state, how they will be funded (when you say the state pays for them, where exactly does that money come from?), and who really controls them.
DeKalb Inside Out
November 3rd, 2012
11:20 am
Angela,
Voting no doesn’t mean you’re against charters – Don’t forget …
1. Before the state started creating charters, the local boards were very reluctant to grant charters.
2. 85% of the state chartered schools operate in counties where the local boards refuse to grant local charters.
So … effectively you will be killing many charters. All those counties that only have state charters will disappear and local boards will go back to reluctantly granting charters.
It’s all about control – I agree it’s all about control. This amendment for state chartered schools rips control out of the hands of the superintendents and gives it back to the local communities.
The state neither runs nor controls charter schools.
DeKalb Inside Out
November 3rd, 2012
11:24 am
Bill Mackinnon,
If all the local money stays with the local school district there is more money per student for the county to spend on education. The math is the math … I don’t know what to tell you. Nancy Jester does has an in depth explanation of that math and the students …
http://whatsupwiththat.nancyjester.com/2012/10/11/its-called-a-balance-sheet/
By the way, you have to vote out a majority of the board to make changes happen. And voting out a majority of a board is next to impossible.
Dr. Monica Henson
November 3rd, 2012
5:17 pm
Pardon My Blog posted, “If the Charter School model is so successful, then utilize it system wide.”
That’s the problem–districts are so institutionalized and entrenched, I would argue that it’s impossible to innovate meaningfully from the inside of the system. Trying to change the course of a public school district from within is like trying to steer the Titanic away from the iceberg–except that all the crew of the ship is fighting you to keep heading straight for the crash.
Susan
November 4th, 2012
10:46 am
“The business of learning is to be transmogrified by high-rent holy writ into the learning of business. In 2007, as now, I’d rather have had impoverished kindergarteners, who at least remember our lessons about sharing, handle my money.”
Yikes! This guy is inflexible – not a great quality in a teacher. Is he inferring that private colleges are to be put out of business as well? Seems he doesn’t think anyone else could possibly do his job as well as he. Wrong! For those who can’t afford private school, yet know for certain that their assigned local public school will literally destroy their child, charters can often be a godsend.
Why YES?
November 5th, 2012
10:59 am
Current GA Board of Education can not decide for the Charter Schools it would be unconstitutional…that is why we need the Amendment ! should be adapted!
A Georgia Charter Schools Amendment will appear on the November 6, 2012 ballot in Georgia as a legislatively-referred constitutional amendment. The measure gives the state legislature the right to create special schools.[1][2]
The measure developed following a May 2011 ruling by the Georgia Supreme Court. The court ruled that the state’s involvement in the establishment of public charter schools – the Georgia Charter School Commission – was unconstitutional. Specifically, the court ruled that the commission was illegal because it approved and funded charter schools despite objection by local school boards. The ruling does not apply to charter schools that were not opposed by local boards. In total, the ruling is reported to have affected 16 schools.[3]
According to reports, in June 2011 the state Board of Education proceeded to approve applications for 11 charter schools following the ruling.[4]
The Georgia Charter School Commission was created in 2008 in reaction to local school boards rejecting charter petitions. According officials, petitions were rejected because “they didn’t like the competition.”
Andria Duncan
November 5th, 2012
11:25 pm
To me this whole charter-school thing smacks of elitism — I mean, “separate but equal” was overturned, and so now they’re proposing “separate but not equal”? How is that better? After reading this article and finding the proponents of charter schools to be of the Koch-Bros ilk, all I have to say to charter schools is NOT ONLY NO, BUT HELL NO!!!
D. Rogers
November 6th, 2012
12:00 am
This article is absolutely useless info, 99.7% of it. I think the author of this piece is practicing writing a book and using the charter schools as a subject and practicing puttin words on a page to fill up the page space.I asked my self, according to the title, why does the author not approve of charter schools? And the article is talking about students taking a test and spitting answers back at a computer. HUH?
Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely.
That is what the Governor and his cronies will do with charter schools in GA. The biggest single donor for the Amendment 1 on the GA voting ballot for tomorrow is a private company in VA, that will have say so over these charter schools in GA. Is that OK with you?
I saw someone comment that the problem is not with teachers and not with poverty, but with poor parenting and the decisions the parents make. I agree 110%. After all, you can’t control what the parents nowadays DON’T DO with the after school hours with their kids. No way to “fix” that dis-connect from poor parenting.
And some folks say that charter schools are not getting any money from the public schools. Not true at all. What they mean is that the charter schools are not getting any money from local taxes, but they are definitely getting money from STATE TAXES and private donors, like the company in Arlington VA.
And even if the Amendment 1 passes, there will be very similar problems in charter schools, but just more difficult to fix since there won’t be much local accountability (Governor Deal and private company in VA). Good luck getting any responses from either of them.