Georgia: Putting all our eggs and hopes in charter school basket
The battle in Georgia to win passage of a controversial charter school amendment turned out to be costly, divisive and polarizing.
Many might also argue it was unnecessary, given that charter schools were never in jeopardy and more continue to open every year in Georgia.
The state Board of Education already had the ability to approve them, and local school boards, despite the characterization that most were hostile toward charters, authorized nine out of 10 of the existing 108 charter schools now operating in Georgia.
It’s a futile exercise now to question the rationale for the amendment, which, in its most practical application, accords the state Legislature the power to appoint a commission that can approve and fund charter schools over the objections of local boards of education.
The benign question put before voters — “Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended to allow state or local approval of public charter schools upon the request of local communities?”— earned a “Yes” from an impressive 58.5 percent of Georgians.
So, now is the time to consider the impact of the passage of the amendment on education as a whole in Georgia.
And that impact is likely to be consequential to the 1.6 million Georgia children who attend public schools in Georgia.
Because now the Legislature will be convinced that it’s done its part for education by giving students more choice.
Lawmakers can relax and let choice work its magic. If students don’t do well, it will be blamed on their parents failing to make the right choice.
In elevating choice to their top legislative priority, lawmaker shirked what ought to be their main concern: Ensuring that existing public schools in Georgia remain viable and have sufficient resources to educate students to increasingly higher standards.
Instead, they have consistently disinvested in public schools while touting marketplace solutions.
Choice is not a substitute for adequate funding, talented teachers and strong leaders.
And more choices don’t necessarily mean better choices.
In the last 10 years, a period when school enrollment rose, austerity cuts and other reductions decimated state education funding by $5.7 billion. Two-thirds of Georgia’s 180 school districts have been forced to cut back on school days.
In four districts around the state, students now attend classes less than 150 days, even though the standard is 180 days. Class sizes have soared, with parents lamenting 37 kids in middle and high school classes.
A Georgia Budget and Policy Institute study noted that while enrollment jumped, teacher contracts in Georgia fell by 8,500 since 2008-2009.
The first education act by the 2013 General Assembly will be reconstituting the Charter School Commission that was in place before the state Supreme Court deemed it unconstitutional and an infringement on local control last year. And that will ensure a few more charter schools approved every year.
Charter schools are publicly funded schools that are privately operated and earn freedom from some state regulations in exchange for contractual pledges to not only meet standards set by the state, but eventually exceed them.
If charter schools fail to meet their contractual goals, they’re supposed to shut down. An examination of national data shows that doesn’t always happen, as parents often argue in favor of the school remaining open despite disappointing academics — a scenario that unfolds in many school closings. (Hundreds of DeKalb County parents fought closings there, even when the targeted schools had years of low achievement.)
As with every school model, charter schools show varying degrees of success and failure. An evaluation earlier this year by the state Department of Education found that charter schools in Georgia were less successful than traditional schools in meeting federally mandated, adequate yearly progress measures and had graduation rates in line with the state average.
No one who looks at the performance of charter schools in those states where there are many more of them could argue that they have been a transformative agent.
Without question, charter schools should be part of a mix of innovations and reforms. Unfortunately, in Georgia, charter schools have become the only reform. As one rural legislator commented to me about his House colleagues, “We’ve put all our eggs in the charter school basket.”
And all their hopes and energies.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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246 comments Add your comment
williebkind
November 21st, 2012
9:31 am
“Choice is not a substitute for adequate funding, talented teachers and strong leaders.”
There lies one answer to the rise of charter schools.
adequate funding? According to the educators the costs should be unlimited.
talented teachers? Yes there are talented teachers but then put government instructions for the classroom and it nulls it out.
strong leaders? What is the percentage of strong leaders does Ga have? The federal dollar makes their decisions.
Lexi
November 21st, 2012
9:32 am
Some canards never die. Pouring more money into unaccountable public schools (sieves)will not make them better places to transmit learning. If that were the case Washington D.C. would have some of the highest achieving students on the planet. News flash: it doesn’t. It does have some administrators, including one principal (”your pal”) who are good at kicking and stomping fellow employees: http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/DC-High-School-Principal-Surrenders-in-Homecoming-Fight-179551331.html
The surest way to accountability is giving parents choices in where their children attend school, and imposing meaningful consequences on miscreant students (and parents).
Mom of 3
November 21st, 2012
9:32 am
Let’s put this in layman’s terms- the people are not happy!!! Public education is not at its best right now. PARENTS (not educrats or legislators) are frustrated. This was one of the few times they had a voice. You may think they voted on the wrong side- but they used their tiny voice to speak. This is only the symptom of a much bigger problem.
Don't Tread
November 21st, 2012
9:34 am
“If students don’t do well, it will be blamed on their parents failing to make the right choice.”
And that blame will be laid correctly. Education begins long before school begins, but some parents don’t get that and expect someone else to magically raise their kids for them.
The passage of this amendment was at least a step in the right direction, but it doesn’t fix the problem by itself.
williebkind
November 21st, 2012
9:35 am
A statistic I read for one county is:
A county with 1000 students who usually graduates 65-75 students has 11.4million dollar budget who tax base is about 22K a year.
Now Maureen justify this!
Mountain Man
November 21st, 2012
9:35 am
How much “extra funding” does it take to enforce attendance policies? How much extra funding does it take for administrators to back teachers up and remove discipling problems from the classroom? How much extra funding does it take for an administrator NOT to force a teacher th change a grade and promot a child to the next grade level when the teacher says that child is not ready?
The basic issues that don’t get addressed are not about money, they are about ADMINISTRATOR backbone.
williebkind
November 21st, 2012
9:38 am
The 1000 students are from K1 -K12.
Centrist
November 21st, 2012
9:40 am
Ms. Downey posted what she and other sour grape landslide losing liberals feel: “The battle in Georgia to win passage of a controversial charter school amendment turned out to be costly, divisive and polarizing.”
It was only controversial, divisive, and polarizing for the small minority who continually fight the larger majority. Rather than work to improve it, they attempt to throw up obstructionist roadblocks and whine.
Won’t work.
Concerned taxpayer
November 21st, 2012
9:41 am
I agree with Dunwoody Mom that a better solution would be an amendment to allow the creation of new school districts. But that wasn’t on my ballot. And I would have voted for anything that would have wrested any amount of control from the incompetent and/or corrupt Dekalb County School Board members (Nancy Jester excepted). At least in Dekalb, funding is NOT the problem. $730 million should be enough to provide a gold-plated education for 100,000 students IF it is managed well. That is the problem. And more funding won’t fix it.
Mountain Man
November 21st, 2012
9:41 am
Crankee-yankee – I wish you could get a breakdown for education spending for teachers and for central office staff. I think you might find it to be something like this:
From 2000 – present:
Central Office Funding +20%
Teacher funding -40%
If you want to know where the funds are going – look no further. Dekalb is getting Ph.D.s for their ADMINISTRATORS (I am sure that will help them deal with attendance).
Private Citizen
November 21st, 2012
9:48 am
1. Aggregate data of graduation rates for charter schools may be affected due to charter school concept being used as alternative environment for struggling students who do not fit regular school environment. In other words, online charter schools with some regional presence with buildings, may be applied as remediation on otherwise education means for students who have gotten of course of regular education track. In this way, this type charter school functions not unlike the many online for-profit universities. The term “charter school” may mean many different things. It might help to have some idea of what different forms this means. Currently, I see two very different concepts: 1) charter schools set to perform similar to neighborhood schools, 2) charter format used for remediation and distance learning.
2. It is exactly correct that one of the most pertinent issues is that print textbooks are obsolete and digital means is the way of the future. This could be a good thing to remedy the lack of standardization in distribution of curriculum resources, however it is likely currently done using software that is charged on a per-student or per school basis. Some of the best softwares can be very expensive, impractical due to cost for large scale use. This is one of the most relevant areas for examination: digital methods and resources. How to do it? Existent working models from here or elsewhere, what works? etc. What is scalable or applicable across the state? This by itself is a great and large topic and highly relevant.
crankee-yankee
November 21st, 2012
9:53 am
Mountain Man
November 21st, 2012
9:41 am
It would be interesting to see real numbers on that, I agree.
I can speak to a small comparison between the county I teach in and Dekalb.
In my dept., we have ONE County Director with a small office staff to deal with multiple divisions.
In Dekalb, they have a County Director for each of the myriad divisions one director handles in my county, so you have a valid point. Just be careful with finger pointing, there are good stewards of public dollars out there, probably more than people care to acknowledge. It is disheartening there are high profile failures that bring the rest of us down.
Private Citizen
November 21st, 2012
9:54 am
If I was King, half of the mission of managing education would be looking at internet connectivity across the state.
Currently I am not King, so I am going to go do some painting and get ready for Thanksgiving. Hey everybody, have a great Thanksgiving.
Private Citizen
November 21st, 2012
9:57 am
Mountain Man, your observation inspires the concept that there should be a document bank of relevant information.
Mountain Man
November 21st, 2012
10:00 am
“Mountain Man, your observation inspires the concept that there should be a document bank of relevant information.”
It would be nice. Try breaking the Federal Budget down into subgoups of expenditures. They seem to try to make it as difficult as possible so that you can’t find out the true numbers.
A good example would be: per-student spending on SPED students in Georgia since 1960. I bet that one would be a real eye-opener.
Mountain Man
November 21st, 2012
10:02 am
And I quote one movie politician:
“Oooh, I like to dance a little side-step…now you see, me now you don’t”
Mountain Man
November 21st, 2012
10:05 am
You look at Federal Budget number and it show that there was a surplus in years 1997 and 1998. Then you look at total debt for those years and the debt increases. Even students that graduated in Georgia should know that means there was deficit spending. (those other expenses must have been “off-budget”, like the two latest wars).
Dunwoody Mom
November 21st, 2012
10:08 am
@Concerned taxpayer…yes, there is plenty of money to properly educate the children of DCSD. Enough money for smaller class sizes. Enough money for more teachers. Enough money to forego those obnoxious furlugh days. The money has been squandered due to the over-blow bureaucracy that is the DeKalb County School District. As large as the district is, I really have no voice in this. If my local city was “in charge” of our schools, you can be sure parental and community voices would be heard.
Dunwoody Mom
November 21st, 2012
10:12 am
Oh, I hate when my brain types faster than my fingers….that should be “furlough” days and “over-blown” bureaucracy.
DeKalb Inside Out
November 21st, 2012
10:20 am
Maureen … MAUREEN … Really … I mean REALLY ?!?!
Is everybody clear what Amendment 1 was:
Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of Georgia so as to clarify the authority of the state to establish state-wide education policy; to restate the authority of the General Assembly to establish special schools; to provide that special schools include state charter schools;
charter schools were never in jeopardy … The state Board of Education already had the ability to approve them.
REALLY? Do we have to rehash that? The 2011 Ga Supreme Court 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 could not be clarified without a constitutional amendment.
the amendment, which, in its most practical application, accords the state Legislature the power to appoint a commission
REALLY? Where? Amendment 1, House Resolution 1162, doesn’t say anything about a commission. House Bill 797 does, but it passed a long time ago. Please do not conflate House Resolution 1162 and House Bill 797.
the Legislature will be convinced that it’s done its part for education by giving students more choice.
REALLY? Didn’t you, Maureen, and the AJC just report a few weeks ago “Atlanta lawmaker to push parent trigger bill in January“. Edward Lindsey is already pushing for the next tool in the toolbelt to improve education in Georgia.
austerity cuts and other reductions decimated state education funding by $5.7 billion.
REALLY? Quite misleading. State funding may have gone down, but local funding has gone up. Local school districts are getting more money than they have ever received.
Maureen, Questions for you.
1. Why is it incumbent upon the state legislature to fix public education when we have highly paid executive administrations running local school districts?
2. What fix is the state legislature not implementing?
** What’s the plan for fixing traditional public schools ?? **
Let’s do it??
Thanks,
DIO
larry
November 21st, 2012
10:32 am
austerity cuts and other reductions decimated state education funding by $5.7 billion.
REALLY? Quite misleading. State funding may have gone down, but local funding has gone up. Local school districts are getting more money than they have ever received.
Really ? It maybe that way in DeKalb but here in Stephens we LOST 3.4 million in state funding as well as 1.9 million in tax revenue from lower property values . So we LOST 5.3 million dollars last year ALONE.
And yes, Stephens was one of the counties that voted against it because it failed to see the need for another State beaucracy telling the local school boards ( whom are elected officials) what they should or shouldn’t have. And no doubt about it , it will take funding from traditional schools, especially schools that can not raise property taxes because of a low tax base.
Mountain Man
November 21st, 2012
10:32 am
“2. What fix is the state legislature not implementing?”
I will say that one fix that the state legislature needs to implement is to repeal that stupid law that says a student may only be held back one year. That needs to GO!
Dunwoody Mom
November 21st, 2012
10:35 am
Okay, also remember that DeKalb schools also send over $100 million to other school districts within the state. Yes, I feel my blood pressure rising as I type this. Those districts may have issues with “smaller” school districts in that their funds from other school districts will decrease.
South Georgia
November 21st, 2012
10:56 am
“Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended to allow state or local approval of public charter schools upon the request of local communities?”— earned a “Yes” from an impressive 58.5 percent of Georgians.
When did 58.5% of anything become an impressive percentage number? 8.6% decided this multi-million/billion dollar question? That’s impressive?, that’s pathetic. Why don’t we drop the required GPA down for our senior students to 58.5% to graduate and then we would have an impressive graduation rate too. An 85% or 90% vote would have been an impressive percentage and indicate a greater understanding and by-in by the public.
A Teacher, 2
November 21st, 2012
11:02 am
Just fix the system! What are you doing to fix education? To all of you that consistently say such things on this blog, there are two major problems that impact the ability of teachers to fix anything. Number one is the force of law. Many of the things you want fixed are spelled out in one law or another. Until the laws are changed, we cannot change. People also do not understand the differences and influences of federal and state law, and local BOE policy. Local BOE policy cannot over rule federal or state law. Many of the things that bloggers rail about would require the local BOE policy to trump federal or state law. Can’t happen, even if you tell us “if you had guts, you would do it anyway.”
Secondly, and most importantly, every time that my system, my school, or myself has tried to be innovative, dozens of people have lined up to protest the change from the textbook and workbook instruction that many of you advocate. Many parents think that the textbook rules. They want the book so they can work ahead and drill their kids so they appear “smart” in class to other students. Other parents and community leaders think that the textbook and workbooks are the curriculum, and their kids will not be exposed to “what they need to know” without those materials. Like it or not, those people are in the majority.
Contrary to the absolute opinions given by many, there is no clear direction for anything in education. We teachers are caught in the middle of every fight that comes up. All sides expect us to do what they say without question or ammendment. All sides expect us to do 100% of what they say because they are right, and all other sides are wrong. All sides tell us that we should have the courage to do things only their way. Oh, and most of the viewpoints are opposing in every way.
After 34 years, I still love and cherish my time spent teaching my kids. Since I refuse to participate in the power plays of any group, I teach the kids what, in my judgement, they need for the next level. I am very gratified by the large number of kids who have come home from college this week and looked me up to tell me that their college math class was easy, and they did well while many others struggled. Many of my ex-students led study groups or tutored other kids in the class. None of this appears on my evaluation, of course, but isn’t this better information than my test scores??
Michele
November 21st, 2012
11:04 am
Charter schools are one useful option for improving schools in Georgia. However, it totally ignores the true problem with education in the state. The real problem is our overall culture of entitlements. Students live in an era of entitlement. They have little interest in receiving an education. For many, school is a social site to allow them to have a great time and harass the teachers. Parents, often through no fault of their own, don’t have the time nor interest in spending time with their children, providing essential education in values and personal interaction. Students simply do not receive this learning at home. As a result, they are not interested in bettering themselves through formal education. Our entire culture in America is in danger of collapse. Parents must become more interested and involved in their children’s education and lives. Children without family guidance and education are doomed to mediocrity and a life of toil.
crankee-yankee
November 21st, 2012
11:07 am
DeKalb Inside Out
November 21st, 2012
10:20 am
“REALLY? Quite misleading. State funding may have gone down, but local funding has gone up. Local school districts are getting more money than they have ever received.”
See my post from earlier today of local & state state-wide numbers combined
crankee-yankee
November 21st, 2012
9:27 am
You are cherry-picking one county’s numbers (whom we all have already agreed is a poor steward of taxpayer funds) to make a statement about state-wide funding levels that is not true. Your post is the one that is misleading.
Dennis
November 21st, 2012
11:08 am
@LarryMajor
November 21st, 2012
7:18 am
I’ve never seen local BOE denial statistics, but there were about 110 denials appealed to the state, which suggests a local approval rate of about 50 percent. The state also denied most of these petitions approving only 19, four of which subsequently closed.”
I don’t think you meant to, but this is a mischaracteriation of sorts.
Some of these schools were turned down for having inadequate financing, inadequate curriculums, teachers who are not qualified and so forth.
For these reasons, the SBOE is very careful just who gets to open a charter school and who doesn’t.
It’s not as though the SBOE totally opposes charter schools.
Michele
November 21st, 2012
11:10 am
@A Teacher, 2; I sincerely appreciate your attitude, and I salute you for standing up to the idiocy teachers endure on a daily basis. You decision to persevere is admirable, and I know it is not easy. For myself, I retired this year because I had reached the point where the pressures to become a “cookie cutter” teacher were overwhelming and depressing. I could no longer work in such a controlled environment. Teachers like you are rare, and I salute you and your dedication to children and their right to a proper education. THANK YOU!
Fled
November 21st, 2012
11:13 am
I’m fine with the charter school ammendment, and, honestly, I feel that Georgians will pretty soon get the schools they so richly deserve.
The best decision I ever made was to get my children out of schools in Georgia. The second best was to get myself out.
Had enough yet, teachers? Give up. Throw in the towel. Flee.
DeKalb Inside Out
November 21st, 2012
11:16 am
Larry
My data is not state specific and only goes through 2011. Please reference your numbers. I also stand corrected. Referencing Local, State and Federal spending on education in Georgia since 1996 you’ll see QBE funding has gone up and down. It is currently higher than it has ever been.
From 2010 to 2011 in Georgia, on average local spending went down 2%, but state spending went up 5% per student. I don’t have 2011 – 2012 numbers.
State Chartered School Funding
Actually, Stephens will receive more money with state chartered schools.
1. Local money does not follow the student. For every child that goes to a state chartered school, the traditional school district will have more money per child for education. Districts
that can reduce costs by more than the loss of revenue will actually gain financially when a child
transfers to a charter.
2. Traditional schools are funded with Local + State QBE money. Stephens County in addition to local and QBE will also have flowing into it state supplement money for every child that goes to a state chartered school.
DeKalb Inside Out
November 21st, 2012
11:22 am
Crankee Yankee
I apologize for not being more clear. Dr Jester’s website has state averages for local, state and federal spending as reported to the US Department Of Education.
http://www.nancyjester.com/georgiaspendingperstudent.aspx
John Konop
November 21st, 2012
11:23 am
DIO,
………….** What’s the plan for fixing traditional public schools ?? **
Let’s do it??………….
1) Combine resources with public schools and colleges, trade schools, JC…………..ie administration, facilities and faculties
2) Create a home school/public school option
3) Use the above options to leverage internships/co-op for students, leverage college students for support in the classroom and tutoring, leverage community for volunteer support at schools and leverage chamber to help facilitate co-ops, internships and job training centered classes for public schools
4) Use public school facilities at night for colleges, JC, job training……….first before building more facilities
5) Break the walls done between the public school system and higher education
6) Grant 4 year college prep waivers for vo-tech students
Beverly Fraud
November 21st, 2012
11:25 am
Many might also argue it was unnecessary, given that
Georgia’s public schools are the envy of the nation, and in fact are considered an unparallelled achievement in the annals of western civilizationthat Georgia already has a public school system.Or something like that…
Jarod Apperson
November 21st, 2012
11:26 am
@Mountain Man. I agree. The failure to retain students who aren’t ready to move on in the elementary and middle school grades hurts everyone, including those students. What ends up happening is students are moved to the next grade each year until 9th grade when tons are retained and then they drop out.
If you look at APS’s worst performing middle schools, you will see that several retain *0* students in any of their grades! However, more than 1,000 high-schoolers get retained. Ridiculously, high schools (like NAHS) get blamed for this. The problem starts way before 9th grade. Students are coming into high school below grade level because no one is willing to retain them early and make sure they are on track.
crankee-yankee
November 21st, 2012
11:29 am
Michele
November 21st, 2012
11:04 am
“Parents, often through no fault of their own, don’t have the time nor interest in spending time with their children…”
Really? Parents have no interest in their kids but it is someone else’s fault?
Beverly Fraud
November 21st, 2012
11:32 am
………….** What’s the plan for fixing traditional public schools ?? **
Let’s do it??………….
Simple: Gather a fully funded consortium of physicists, engineers, and ethicists and convince an asteroid, in a moment of Christ like consciousness to sacrifice itself and descend upon the educational monolith in Georgia.
That, and quite possibly only that, should do the trick.
Beverly Fraud
November 21st, 2012
11:38 am
@Jarod Apperson that’s yet another consequence of NCLB and RTTT. If you an administrator who is judged on test scores, and you have students in 5th grade (on the cusp of going to middle school) or 8th grade (on the cusp of high school) you’re going to get them
the h3ll out of your school by any means necessary you will remediate them before sending them on to the next school.Private Citizen
November 21st, 2012
11:39 am
Unrelated to topic: just received an email news of additional consolidation of major media. You should be concerned. This sort of thing was illegal before Reagan disassembled the anti-trust laws. Used to be that one entity could not own tv, newspaper, and radio in one market.
“Rupert Murdoch is one turkey who surely doesn’t deserve a reprieve this Thanksgiving. Yet Obama’s FCC is about to let him gobble up more media outlets… the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune — the major papers in the nation’s second- and third-largest cities (where, incidentally, he already owns several TV stations). And get this: The Federal Communications Commission — the Obama FCC, no less — is trying to change the rules so Murdoch can get exactly what he wants. Worse, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is hoping the agency can pass these changes without you noticing. Murdoch’s media grab would be illegal under the current rules… If the FCC changes the rules, one company could own the major daily newspaper, two TV stations and up to eight radio stations in your town. And that one company could be your Internet provider, too.”
Pardon the interruption and back to your regularly scheduled programming.
Mountain Man
November 21st, 2012
11:42 am
“Parents, often through no fault of their own, don’t have the time nor interest in spending time with their children…”
That is the most LUDICROUS (not Ludacris) statement I have EVER heard!!!
DeKalb Inside Out
November 21st, 2012
11:43 am
John Konop,
I’m putting you in charge of fixing traditional public schools. Let’s do it. What’s the plan? We can’t sit here and blog about our ideas forever and not actually do anything about it.
Make it happen John!!
Beverly Fraud
November 21st, 2012
11:43 am
Excuse the typos:
@Jarod Apperson that’s yet another consequence of NCLB and RTTT. If you’re an administrator who is judged on test scores, and you have students in 5th grade (on the cusp of going to middle school) or 8th grade (on the cusp of high school)
you’re going to get them the h3ll out of your school by any means necessaryyou will remediate them before sending them on to the next school.After you remediate, you
thank God each and every day they are f–king up somebody else’s test scorestake it on a case by case basis.Rafe Hollister
November 21st, 2012
11:44 am
Speaking of all our eggs in one basket, isn’t that what we have done for the last 50 years. For 50 years, we have all thought the answer was to put more money into education. What has that accomplished? Schools continue to go downhill.
Finally, we try something different, maybe it works, maybe not, but what we were doing wasn’t working. We need more new approaches and less of the failures of the past.
Lexi
November 21st, 2012
12:14 pm
Crankie:
That quote about parents, through no fault of their own not having time nor interest to teach their kids proper ….values jumped out at me too. Let’s be blunt: anyone not having that time ” nor [sic] interest ” should not be a parent. That task is among the most important tasks parents face. We need to acknowledge that fact, and quit foisting those tasks onto the village/government. Never has worked and never will.
Maude
November 21st, 2012
12:20 pm
Regular public schools will be the loser in all of this mess. A student enrolls in a charter school, leaves that school after October and enters a regular public school, the money to educate that child for a year stays with the charter school. Regular public schools will be forced to educate these students for nothing. No money to support the needs of these transfers will take millions of dollars from regular public schools. Make a law that a student must stay in the charter school for the full year or pay the regular public school out to the parents pockets. If you want a world class education fully fund the regular public school.
dc
November 21st, 2012
12:25 pm
cranky-…..not sure at all how your “increase over the last 10 years” data applies to my statement of the massive increase in funding for public education per pupil, over past 30 years. I’m hoping you just didn’t think about it…but if, as a teacher, you simply chose to try to confuse others with your data in order to disprove something that is a clear, easily provable fact…it might go a long way towards explaining why we are seeing so little value for our dollars from our schools.
Anon
November 21st, 2012
12:26 pm
No mention here of Fulton Science Academy? I had nothing to do with that school (or it’s closing) – but I believe the whole amendment issue which just past was initiated in response to the closing of that school. FSA performed at a level far superior to any other middle school in Fulton County – yet the county school board closed the school. Same thing happened with another school (years ago) that I was involved in – the Fulton County High School for Math and Science…..had best test scores in county (by far) in 2005 – yet was closed by the school board.
Not all charter schools work – but when we see ones that clearly are working get closed – that I believe is what initiated the movement for this amendment in the first place.
crankee-yankee
November 21st, 2012
12:31 pm
Mountain Man
November 21st, 2012
11:42 am
Lexi
November 21st, 2012
12:14 pm
That little nugget underscores what we face every day in the classroom.
“My little Johnny wouldn’t do that…, wouldn’t lie to me, wouldn’t forge that progress report, wouldn’t plagiarize that report, wouldn’t cheat on that test, etc.”
Well maybe if you spent some time with your kid and got to know them, you would see what they are capable of and nip it in the bud. But what do I know, I’m just a lowly teacher who cannot say that in a conference (assuming the parent actually shows up for a scheduled conference) for fear of losing my job because of PC’ness.
Jefferson
November 21st, 2012
12:37 pm
Say it or you should lose your job.
Rick L in ATL
November 21st, 2012
12:58 pm
“…lawmaker (sic) shirked what ought to be their main concern: Ensuring that existing public schools in Georgia remain viable…”
That assumption–that our traditional public schools (in metro Atlanta) currently are viable and/or that they can remain viable, is highly questionable if not flat-out wrong. And since it’s the premise for your whole argument….
Lawmakers’ main concern should be that parents have options other than to be trapped in a system that does not work now, has not worked well for decades, and cannot be made to work well unless and until the social compact between schools and parents is rewritten from scratch.
We’re not fooling ourselves: such a revolution would take more courage than our present crop of politicians could ever muster, so in the meantime, CHOICE is what parents want, and we said so resoundingly on Nov.6, as much as you clearly didn’t want to hear it, and still don’t want to hear it.
Well, you can keep arguing that you were right and a vast majority of Georgia parents were wrong, and I hope it’s cathartic for you, but that’s all it is.