Georgia: Putting all our eggs and hopes in charter school basket

As I’ve said many times, we still have the same pool of children from which we draw our school populations. While charter schools offer options for innovation for specific groups, they too must deal with the same children with the same needs and problems. Improvement in schools starts with commitment from all stakeholders, and we’ve seen what dysfunctional boards, poor administration, and community strife can do to schools systems. How charter schools will ultimately avoid some of these problems remains to be seen. I’ve seen and heard of some that are trying, just as many public schools are trying. As many have said on various threads here, improving schools is going to take more than just changing the type of school. The entire view of education in our society needs adjusting regardless of the type of school children attend. Charters can be an important part of that, but I see them being used as a political tool by legislators whose motives are questionable at best.

Eventually, the legislature is going to have to come up with a reasonable solution to funding both existing schools and new ones, and nothing I’m hearing from the Gold Dome even mentions that critical issue. My fear is that in coming years, neither existing public schools or charters created by the state will be adequately funded. There has to be a baseline of school funding somewhere, and all we’ve seen in the last decade is cutting funding and demanding more accountability. Regardless of typer of school, unless some reasonable funding legislation is passed and adhered to, we’re not going to be able to sustain any positive growth.

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Now is the time to move towards making education better for all of Georgia’s students. Providing the best for every student may well be the answer to Georgia school reform. Elevating student learning should be the goal in order tp prepare them for their lives after academics, arts, and athletics.

Those of us that are involved with public education must step up and show that we can offer the same results that the charter proponents say that they can offer. Innovation will have to be the answer to the disparities in funding and mind-set. Doing more with less has been what schools have gotten accustomed to doing. We must now do much more with less.

There is a rationale out there that public schools are bad. Elected school boards are bad. Admistration is bad. Teachers are bad. All of us are bad. That rationale is tailored to move public schools to the condition where only the highest performing and highest socially acceptable institutions survive and these will combine with the private options that are to be funded, substantially, with vouchers (or whatever the correct terminology will be to identify refunds from the state for parents to utilize for the education of their children). The third organization will be poorly funded, less effective, “seperate but equal” schools that will house the students whose families are not able to supplement the voucher schools, do not see the importance of good education (or cannot discern the difference), or cannot or will not relocate to the areas that have the higher performing/socially acceptable schools. Charter schools are only a waypoint along the route as a voucher arrangement is the destination.

This scenario is the master plan. This scenario is deemed necessary for several reasons.
1. The need to find ways to recoup taxes to offset tuition in private schools.
2. The racial mindsets of many of those that send their students to underperforming “Christian” academies across the state that are primarily for racial and social reasons.
3. The condition of some schools within large school districts that do not perform, have no hope of performing, and are already in the condition above, “seperate but equal”. (There are those legislators with a conscience that justify their positions by expressing concern for these schools where there is no choice for students and parents that providing them that “choice is the Christan thing to do”. -Those words came out of the mouth of my senator.)
4. The participation of our elected officials in the principles as set forth by ALEC.

All said, we must do the best with what we have and the conditions that exist. Solid performance and offering opportunities for student academic and social growth that are equal to or better than the other choices are the only ways that public schools are going to be a viable option and continue to exist.

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In favor of the amendment was a little over 58%. Frankly, I’m surprised it was even that close. If you look at the AJC election results model. You would find groups of rural counties in both north and south Georgia that were in lockstep opposition to amendment #1. In viewing some of the county paper debates on the issue online, there was clear opposition from local school board supporters. When I posted a question: “Why do you oppose amendment 1? The answer always was: “OUR schools are fine”. That’s the crux of the issue, SOME district schools do a good job, some (Dekalb and APS, as well as a few others) fail to meet the needs of their customers. Passage of the amendment gives students in failing district schools another option for a public education.

The point is, district schools that meet the needs of students and families have little to fear from Charter schools. Funding, now that’s the $64,000 question.

It appears that the next legislative issue will be vouchers.

Ron @ 3:14, you’re correct.

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Excellent article.

Amendment 1 did not pass in my district. We are one of those districts that performs well, however, furlough days, reduced staff, and increased class sizes have negatively impacted our district. Our main concern with Amendment 1 was funding.

No one under the Gold Dome could provide a sufficient answer regarding funding. Instead, we were told by our Representative and Senator to “trust” them. They would not support further budget cuts to public schools.

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Three people killed in Atlanta last night.

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“Putting all our eggs and hopes in charter school basket”

We haven’t put ALL of our eggs in the charter school basket; we haven’t even put 1% of our eggs in that basket. 99% of our eggs will stay in the traditional school basket, so we had better decide how to improve those schools (with a bow to Mary Elizabeth).

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Can’t argue with your statement above, Maureen – “Choice is not a substitute for adequate funding, talented teachers and strong leaders.” But could it be that the tons of money thrown at the public educational industry since the publication of “A Nation at Risk” over twenty years ago has simply proven not to be the answer? And could it be that the public’s frustration at the educational establishment’s failure to respond with something other than “more of the same” is the cause of the 58% support (not what I would call a rousing mandate but if 52% is considered just that in the presidential election, I guess this is even more so) of the recent Charter School amendment? The answer is not more “great teachers” or better administrators. Sure there are some that need weeded out. But there are plenty of real pros in our public schools out there. The problem is in the educational establishment that doesn’t recognize these are different times than when they experienced their education and professional prep. And until they adjust to the technological demands of today’s society, there will be no improvement seen in the preparation of our young people for a productive life in today’s tech-oriented world. Mark my word – you will see such changes in a great number of the charter schools that will result from this amendment. And by the way – if I hear one more time “stats don’t prove those with more tech experiences in schools provide better standardized testing results, I’ll scream. Technology these days is a way of life. Current classroom tech experiences do not treat it as such. In fact the “establishment” has no idea of how to respond. That’s the first place we need to put our money. Experimentation with tech in the classroom dictated by the students would prove enlightening and maybe open the eyes of some of our pedagogy gods …. the progress of our students won’t be harmed if the word experimentation frightens some. And the results would be a real win-win for our schools.

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Local boards are required to evaluate charter petitions using criteria provided by the Charter Schools Division of the Georgia Department of Education. Also, petitioners must prove that such a charter is needed. If a petition does not meet the criteria and/or does not prove such a need, then it should be denied. Kudos to local boards for thoroughly evaluating each petition.

Petitions/Contracts of each Georgia charter school can be found on the GaDOE website. Read the petition for the charter school in your area, and ask yourself if the school is really living up to its petition? I cannot speak for each charter school, but I can assure you that the one in my county is not. I am not against charter schools, but I am for accountability for all schools.

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BTW…the three people killed last night were killed in Decatur…close to my friendly neighborhood school, Columbia HS. I thank the voters of Georgia for ensuring Ivy Prep DeKalb remains open for my children and others.

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Thanks, Maureen, for the facts about Georgia and its charter school issue. In my opinion and as you point out, the law already provided for the approval of these schools; however, the existing law was not enough for many who wanted to override local school boards, so the legislature agreed to put the question on the ballot. I told a number of legislators during the campaign that the real issue was not charter schools but the adequate funding of public schools, as you also explain. The burden now is on the Governor, legislature, and charter school supporters to show how the new law will enhance public education. In fact, it cannot and will not improve something that has already been almost destroyed by funding cuts of almost $6 billion over 10 years. Political power, mistakes in judgement, and greed drove this issue down the throats of more than 58% of Georgia voters.

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More money has never shown to provide better results.

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dcb
November 21st, 2012
7:54 am

“…the word experimentation frightens some.”

That was exactly the argument used by parents when an award-winning school I taught in switched to a “school-within-a-school” model back in the ’90’s. “NO one is gonna experiment with my kid!”

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I think this article is a lot of whining from someone who didn’t get her way. It could have been reflective, thoughtful, about the future. Instead it comes across as written by a sore loser.

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“we have consistently underinvested….”? Are you serious? Spending per pupil has doubled in the last 30 years, even after adjusting for inflation, with zero improvement in results. But we have “under invested”?

What a complete crock. The only certaintity is that the way we have done education in the past isnt working. And blaming the customers isnt working. So maybe its time to change the product.

Too many schools are offering vinyl records to the ipod generation. Clearly the only way to change that is through competition from outside forces.

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One has to be very worried when megabucks were poured into our state by the ALEC-affiliated folks who are trumpeting and planning for making profits off education (taxpayer) dollars. I’m speaking specifically of for-profit charters. That concept is in fundamental opposition to the goals of education. Thus far, for-profit charters have been abysmal failures…except in lining the pockets of a very few.

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Ahh alec is now the villan. Not the ludicrous pouring of money into our schools with no results. Nothing to see there…….move along…..nothing here!!!

Nice try at deflection, but the issue is squarely on the schools for not figuring out how to modify the product to work with the customer. Please Quit blaming others, and do something to fix the product

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Dc
November 21st, 2012
8:22 am

“Spending per pupil has doubled in the last 30 years, even after adjusting for inflation…”

Source for your numbers please.

Additionally, the top 10% of GA kids compare quite well with the top 10% of kids in other states. Same with the top 25% vs. top 25%. But when you compare 80% or more of GA students to the top 10% of the students out of state, of course the results look dismal.

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Crankee….ive posted the dept of ed info on that many times. Just search for it on the internet.

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From a different article on AJC.com

“Deep budget cuts over the last several years have helped to undermine the well-being of average Georgians, and they continue to compromise the state’s path to economic recovery.”

According to a local think tank, the charter school choice is worthless, as long as it remains underfunded,. I guess all the hoop-la was over nothing.

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“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.”

I think this is an unfair statement. Because charter schools’ growth is such a recent phenomenon, we aren’t currently able to analyze any long-term impacts on things like college completion, incarceration, or teenage pregnancy. All that is available now is test scores.

In places where charter schools are more prevalent, the impact on test scores has indeed been transformative. NYC has 32 districts. District 5 covers central Harlem. In 2006, the district ranked 28th in Math and 26th in English. Now 25% of District 5 students are enrolled in charter schools, and the district as a whole (i.e. including all the students in traditional schools) ranks 16th in Math and 18th in English. The charters in the district rank even higher, 5th in both Math and English. This transformation has occurred at a time when NYC as a whole has steadily risen relative to the rest of the state.

I think it is fair to say that we don’t know whether charter schools success on tests will lead to transformative life outcomes for their students, but the evidence available so far seems to point to “they might” more than “they certainly won’t.”

In Georgia, we certainly shouldn’t put all of our eggs in one basket, but charter schools seem like a good place to put several eggs.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444358804578018410937727422.html

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I will be curious to see, after all this drama and expense, how many charter schools will actually come to fruition?

I would think a better answer would be to allow the ability to create smaller school districts. That is really “local control”. I am placing my support 100% behind the effort of the City of Dunwoody legislative team in their efforts to have the constitution changed to allow the creation of school districts.

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“authorized nine out of 10 of the existing 108 charter schools now operating in Georgia.”

Deceptive statistic. What percentage of TOTAL APPLICATIONS did local boards approve?

Charter schools were never meant to be the “magic bullet” to save education. They were meant to give at least one more option for parents to get their kids out of schools they are unhappy with.

And in a lot of cases, people voted FOR the charter school amendment in hopes that the competition would force traditional schools to address their own problems so that parents would have no reason to want to send their kids to charter schools. I fall into that category.

If all those who put forth their energies to defeating Amendment #1 would put the same energy into addressing the REAL issues with current schools, you would see less charters. The REAL issues don’t require money, they only require a backbone. Sadly, that is what is lacking (I am talking about ADMINISTRATORS, not teachers).

Can we have a LIKE button for this?

I voted yes for it because of the same reason. Competition will hopefully make the schools better. I homeschooled my own and 30 others in MS (with a co-teacher) in our living rooms and kitchens. We did it on very little money. The kids got a good education, and it was proven to several that throwing money at a situation is not the answer.

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“The kids got a good education, and it was proven to several that throwing money at a situation is not the answer.”

no name: congratulations on the willingness to be the teacher and the commitment to your children. One reason you could do it so cheaply was the lack of politics in your decision. You did solely what was best for your kids. Options need to be available, but this amendment is the result of political will and polarization of political thought in this state. If it were just about the kids, it might not be so controversial. It’s not, and that’s what makes it suspect to me.

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Dc
November 21st, 2012
8:39 am

Your claim holds little water.
Verifiable numbers I found for the past decade…

2001 = $6,405, 2011 = $6,280 – Local & State inflation adjusted funding combined. Note the decrease.

QBE State Infl. Adj. Funding 2001 = $3,600, 2011 = $3.100 (approx). Note the decrease.

State Share of Ed Funding 2001 = 60%, 2011 = 50%.

My source, Georgia Budget & Policy Institute

“The new normal for school systems entails a decade-long trend of cuts in state funding for public education.
Consequently, a decade after the passage of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, per pupil spending for FY
2011, adjusted for inflation, was lower than its FY 2001 level.”

http://gbpi.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/fy2013-budget-analysis-pk-12-education-05162012-FINAL.pdf

I am sure funding was lower in 1982 but I have found no numbers for that. However, GA education at that time was dreadfully underfunded as it was not until Zell Miller began pushing for increased Ed. funding in the 90’s that improving results began. Improvement began to be stifled with NCLB in the early 00’s. Look it up.

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Oh – and one more hole in the argument against charter schools.

From the Center on Reinventing Public Education (11/20/12):

New study suggests charter schools may not systematically under-enroll students with special needs

Seattle, WA, November 20, 2012 – A fresh examination of special education enrollment patterns in New York State suggests that charter schools may be doing better at enrolling students with special needs than many believe.

The issue arises in part from a federal General Accounting Office (GAO) report that said, at the national level, charter schools enroll fewer students with special needs than schools run by districts.

In the aggregate that may be true; but new research comparing New York State’s district-run schools with charter schools finds important variations in the enrollment patterns of students with special needs. The study, conducted by the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) and commissioned by the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA), looked at special education enrollment in individual schools, grade levels, neighborhoods, and in the portfolios of schools under different authorizers to present a more accurate picture.

“Although certainly some charter schools are not meeting their responsibilities in special education, our data indicate that the simplest explanation—that charters don’t want to serve these kids and are sending them away—is not really a good characterization of the story,” said Robin Lake, Director at CRPE.

CRPE’s study, New York State Special Education Enrollment Analysis, uncovered four key findings on the question of whether charter schools under-enroll students with special needs:
• At the middle and high school levels, the average enrollment figures are actually higher in charter schools than in district-run schools and the distribution and range are almost indistinguishable.
• A marked difference in special education student enrollments, however, does appear when charter elementary schools are compared with their district-run counterparts.
• While some authorizers oversee schools with special needs enrollments that “closely track those of nearby district-run schools, other authorizers oversee groups of schools that don’t mirror” the special education enrollments of their district-run neighbors.
The report demonstrates a need for more research and a better understanding of enrollment data for students with special needs in order to explain the differences uncovered by the analysis. Part of the difference in elementary schools may be that some district-run schools offer programs that attract more students with special needs.

Charter schools at the elementary level might also be less inclined to label students as needing special education services. This raises a troubling question: are charter schools under-enrolling or under-identifying students with special needs, or are district-run schools over-identifying them?

The authors point out that there likely are access and quality issues that need to be addressed in charter schools, but policy solutions need to recognize the complexity of the issues. For example, the research indicates that setting statewide special education enrollment targets may be less effective than school or regional targets that pay careful attention to those very specific factors that influence such enrollment choices as locations, grade-spans, and neighborhoods. Moreover, explicit efforts to develop charter school programs that better address the needs of special education students might more effectively increase enrollment and improve the quality of service for these students than simply setting a target.

“This report underscores the need to understand these issues more deeply,“ said Alex Medler, Vice President of Policy at NACSA. “To ensure all students have equal access to charter schools and are well served by them, we need to understand all the possible obstacles, and what the schools, their authorizers, and the surrounding districts can do to make that a reality.”

New York State Special Education Enrollment Analysis, by Robin Lake, Betheny Gross, and Patrick Denice, is available at http://www.crpe.org.

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“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.

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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.

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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!

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The 1000 students are from K1 -K12.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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“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.

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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).

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Oh, I hate when my brain types faster than my fingers….that should be “furlough” days and “over-blown” bureaucracy.

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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.

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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.

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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??

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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.

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@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!

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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.

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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

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@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.

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………….** 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.

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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.

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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!!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Say it or you should lose your job.

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My guess is 10 years from now, we’ll still be having “what’s wrong with the schools” discussions.

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Maude
So you’re saying that a state chartered school student leaves the chartered school after 3 months and then goes to a traditional school. This is what you are concerned about?

OK. Children come and go all the time for various reasons. I suppose your hypothetical example is one of them. That is why there are 2 FTE Count Days. One in October and another one in the Spring.

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DIO,

…….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!!…………

Do you agree with the plan or not? And if not why?

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@Moutain Man: “How will you deal with students who have not mastered the material, yet are socially promoted, so the next year they are hopelessly behind and either get nothing out of the class, or else the teacher has to ignore the other students’ needs and “catch up” the one?

How many years would you hold a student back?

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“How many years would you hold a student back?”

How many years would that student be a distraction to the other students?

(my answer to your question: as many as necessary – may require special classrooms with bigger desks for those first-graders whao are 16)

I have written previously about the need for intensive summer school with low student-teacher ratios to try to “catch up ” a student. Of course, it isn’t going to help if they don’t show up. And no school system is going to fund this because it costs more money. It also costs them more to retain a student, so it is easier and less costly (in money) to just promote them and then give them an unearned diploma that makes everyone else’s diploma meaningless. They CHEAT, in other words (if you give a diploma to a student who doesn’t deserve it, that is CHEATING, even if you call it a VARIANCE).

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See this is the difference between today’s schools and the schools I attended in the sixties.

In the sixties:

Your teacher gave you the grade you deserved by your work – if homework was required and you did not turn it in on time, you got a ZERO. Administrators would not DARE to ask a teacher to CHEAT and change your grade.

If you missed a certain number of school days, the Truancy officer showed up at your parents’ doorstep (back then parents was plural).

If your grades were and F, you had the option of attending Summer School, if you failed that, you were RETAINED, no ifs, ands, or buts.

If you misbehaved in class, you were subject to corporal punishment, or you were sent to the office, or you were kept after school. When your parents (plural again) found out about your misbehaving (when they had to come pick you up late after school, you got a SECOND punishment (usually corporal) at HOME.

Teachers would call parents and parents would APOLOGIZE for little Tommy’s misbehavior or lack of studying. Parents almost always backed up the teacher when it came down to teacher vs. student.

Now, in this millenium, practically all of these are reversed.

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Things worked so much better in the 60’s, back when we were so clueless and uninformed, that we believed it was possible for students to behave in class. Now that we have all the physiological and psychological answers, why these students are misbehaving, we seem to be impotent to correct the problems. Could it be that too much knowledge is counter productive? Maybe a gazillion dollar study, done by some academic geniuses, would be beneficial.

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this might upset some people but fact is that if the schools were still segregated it was easier to isolate the problems and try and fix them. public schools in atlanta were thriving , and there was no need for charter schools and the private schools were for white kids with behavior problems. but now that the schools are integrated we have turned good schools into bad schools and the all black schools that were once bad are STILL horrible schools. and now that all the schools have been infested with low income kids and illegals it is much harder to fix the problem with our public schools. schools were created to educate not for SOCIAL ENGINEERING… but it seems that all so called people in the know were concerned about was ” equality and social engineering and what has that done for america and education in the last 40 years??? we have the dumbest most unqualified workforce in history!! we have taken our brightest and dumbed them down with policies of ” all that matters is make everything equal” so instead of educating the kids that are not performning and struggle in school , lets just bring DOWN the kids that are smart and overachievers to the level of the weaker kids all in the name of q

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“(Nor is corporal punishment effective).”

It was effective on me when my mom applied it. I usually did not ever do thing behavior again.

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(Nor is corporal punishment effective).

It was pretty effective in my day. Fear is a powerful motivator.

Things worked so much better in the 60’s, back when we were so clueless and uninformed, that we believed it was possible for students to behave in class.

It’s typical that every generation thinks they’re the smartest thing to ever come down the pike. It’s human nature I guess to think whatever time a person is living in is “on the cutting edge”. Humans have been raising kids and educating them for thousands of years, so they must have known something. All the attempts to re-invent the wheel and things seem to be worse than they were just a generation or two ago.

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“We could solve that, if we just would. But the public has been brainwashed by conservative politicians and conservative media into not wanting to pay for that.”

Again, I say, we are spend about three times what we spent in the 60’s per student, adjusted for inflation. I agree that we could accomplish more with the CORRECT application of more money (see my idea about summer school). But MONEY is not the answer. The BASIC issues I listed above do not require hoards of cash to implement. Just a little backbone from administrators (and support from parents, although that is probably asking too much).

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“Maybe a gazillion dollar study, done by some academic geniuses, would be beneficial.”

Sort of like that other multi-million dollar government statistical study that concluded that 100% of all people who LIVED, ultimately DIED. So now the FDA is thinking about outlawing LIVING as hazardous to your health.

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Dennis – Deal has sold out his own state’s public educational system

What exactly did he sell?
Who did he sell it to?

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@Mountain Man

Your 1957 and 2007 comparison site was interesting. Check out this site: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9WDtQ4Ujn8

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DIO

….John
I like your ideas … and not just the ideas you stated today. I want to know what the plan is to implement them. We can’t just sit here and blog about them and hope that somebody does something about it…..

I have been working on the ideas with our school board members. Parts of the ideas are being proposed from what I hear soon.

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“And if we filled the 3 million job openings in vocational jobs alone it would be a windfall of tax revenue and massive savings on social services.”

I am not sure I understand what 3 million job openings there are – where are those? In Cherokee County? What skills do they require that are not being met? I know there are plenty of unemployed people right now to fill those jobs (the kicker is they have to pass a drug screen and a background chek – uh-oh).

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Would almost swear we already have charter schools in Georgia. All this ammendment accomplished was removing the power to grant charter schools from local school boards and give it to a politically appointed panel .

The solution to our educational problems in the state lie in the person staring at you from the mirror. Charter schools will not make parents care any more about their child’s education than they do today. The children of parents who are not involved, and who do not care, will still fail regardless of whether they are in a charter school or any other school.

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We pray and HOPE that this charter school amendment works !!!

I believe that in the future citizens will have regret and remorse over passing this amendment.

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Mountain Man
November 21st, 2012
4:00 pm

We still do the ITBS in Gwinnett. It gives us a yearly benchmark as opposed to the ever changing CRCT. Another politically fueled decision by the state thinking it could do a better testing job in-house.

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Mountain Man,

Our son was an “a” student at Woodstock High school and got into GT. His 11th grade year, he had a very serious sports injury that required surgery that put him out for awhile ie home traction machine. My wife and I were required to go through a special process to get him a waiver via attendance. In Cherokee, they would contact the home ASAP with any issues trust me!

My daughter is at Freedom Middle school the same………and both also went to Sixes elementary same…….

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I just do not comprehend why all this effort on the part of parents and stakeholders has not been placed in your neighborhood schools. What have you done to improve schools? Have you voulnteered, joined the PTA, became part of the School Council or did you take the easy road and just complained? It is synonymous of individuals fleeing from one community to another instead of volunteering and helping to improve the neighborhood with which you reside. Absurd!!!

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I have seen charter schools, for example Atlanta Heights Charter school. They have almost a 40% teacher turn over, and this year have already had 5 staff members quit. The administration is the worst i have ever seen. I pulled my child and am so glad. The principal melissa jones clark hides from parents, and often does not come in on time and leaves early. She is often not even there, but with no other schools in the state who is keeping her accountable? It is sad, but at this school NO behavior is address and parents can make wild comments about staff and not have any problems. I have seen parents swear at teachers and be such ghetto trash, yet with the administration as weak as it is, no one cares. Strong teachers leave. This school needs closed

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“Benign question put before voters”?!? Here’s what the ballot looked like:

*Provides for improving student achievement and parental involvement through more public charter school options.*
House Resolution No. 1162 Ga. L. 2012, p. 1364

Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended to allow state or local approval of public charter schools upon the request of local communities?

( ) YES
( ) NO

I’d say that is about as malignant as they come. A “no” vote appeared to be a vote against student achievement and parental involvement.
I am using this ballot question in my classroom (among other resources) as a clear example of bias.

I don’t understand how this was legal.

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A “no” vote appeared to be a vote against student achievement and parental involvement.

WHY? If those conditions existed in the public schools, no implication would be necessary.

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Mountain Man,

Forgive me if someone else has commented about your post around 10:00AM, but special ed was essentially unknown in 1960. They didn’t attend “school” period. When I was crazy enough to think that a former highly successful business man would be welcomed into the ranks of administrators, I took the required courses in Administration. One of which was budgeting. The cost per pupil (in 2000) was measured in the multiple tens of thousands. Some of the ones that were in a high school environment could run the cost over (as well as I remember – it was 12 years ago,) in the thirty thousand per student range. Ten to twelve special ed students can really screw over the per pupil “costs.” The doors were opened wide when the “free and appropriate education” laws were put in place. Elections really matter re: The Supreme Court’s decisions have far reaching consequences.

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Maureen, while you’re probably younger than I am, you really need to be “put out to pasture”. Your ideas are old and stale. You’re so “status quo”. I guess you figure we should put all our eggs in the failed basket called traditional public schools. You and your left wing, big government, socialist, “stick it to the average man” mentality needs to go bye bye.

Georgia’s percentage of charter schools is low compared to most other states. The changes to the constitution will change this a bit. But, charter schools aren’t the silver bullet. The traditional school systems need to change. They need to rid themselves of the educrats who suck all the money out of the systems for personal gain and then gripe that there’s no money (it all was magically put in their personal bank accounts.) We’ll need vouchers too. Another competitive tool to encourage greatness in education. We’ll need to also start shutting down failed schools and even systems, replacing them with new teams and new goals.

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Alpharetta, Why the “chop?” Did you recently take up karate and are doing some practice? As far as the visionary ideas, please add to it removing that burgundy brick behemoth depression era thing and putting the old stadium back with the nice optimistic 1960’s architecture. PS You need a comma after “vouchers,” and I agree with you. Like so many good ideas for education in Georgia, the sea has fish, too. Wishing you a swell Thanksgiving.

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Lee, It’s more than not just giving a crap. It’s exploiting, exploitation. It’s using other people for personal wealth and using the government to do it, to make one’s own self prosperous. If you can see through the smoke and mirrors. You’re quite right to “give a crap.” Some bullies are brash and recognizable, but some bullies are smooth. smooth, smooth, and I’m talking about the edu-bureaucracy – whatever you want to call it. Saw that Arne Duncan on time only and I saw through him. If you don’t go along with me, you don’t love the children. My way or the highway. Meanwhile, they use public money to do seedy buying off of people. When did this type of “governing” become acceptable with the “I’ll pay you to agree with me” method of “policy.” Any you are oh so true to recognize the edu-bureaucracy for what it is. Don’t forget the character behind the actions. It would make a good academic paper, evidence of shallow character, and there are a few examples of this, Put together, the bully is going to win every time if you get suckered into their game and play along.

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Maureen, you know that I have tremendous respect for your work and very much enjoy following your take on education issues. However, I have to take respectful issue with some of your assertions about charter schools in Georgia.

“charter schools were never in jeopardy”: Not true. The Supreme Court ruling left open the distinct possibility that districts and boards of education could make the legal argument that the state has no ability to create any school other than one serving the deaf, the blind, or other substantially impaired student populations, and win it under the Court’s interpretation of then-current state law. The intense focus by opponents of the first Charter School Commission made it quite clear that their objection to the very existence of an alternate authorizer stemmed from the redirection of local funds to the charters it authorized. Even with the assurance that no local funds would be so redirected, the education establishment continued to press the financial argument against alternate authorization. It is all about the dollars—not the students—for anti-charter school districts. I would argue that most districts that do authorize independent charter schools locally do so not because they actually favor charters and choice, but in order to keep control over the funding in the hands of the local board of education.

“a commission that can approve and fund charter schools over the objections of local boards of education”: Anti-charter BOEs have repeatedly proved that they will blockade any independent charter schools, regardless of the quality of the proposed school. Ivy Prep in Gwinnett is the most prominent example, and it continues to outperform the district dramatically, becoming one of the best schools in the state at educating low-income and minority girls. It has been demonstrated, by examination of the rubrics used by some local BOEs for charter application review, that there was no review at all of some charter school applications submitted to them, with rubrics left blank. In some cases, charter applications have been denied one day after they were submitted, proving that there was no substantive review at all because it is impossible for such to occur in a single business day. Charter school applications are lengthy and complex contract proposals that require thoughtful reading and thorough analysis.

“If students don’t do well, it will be blamed on their parents failing to make the right choice”: The comments on this blog, day after day, show that if students don’t do well in DISTRICT schools, parents and students are blamed, most loudly by those working in the schools charged with educating those students yet failing to do so decently. Poor performance in district schools leads to massive appropriations of federal school improvement dollars. The schools that fail are permitted to choose one of four “turnaround” models. More than 90% of them choose the path of least resistance—“transformation,” which involves firing the principal but keeping the rest of the staff in place. Poor performance in charter schools, on the other hand, can lead to the charter being revoked or nonrenewed, placing the responsibility for ensuring student performance squarely where it belongs: on the shoulders of the charter school board, its administrators, and its teachers. When was the last time we saw a failing district school closed due to lack of academic achievement? District school closures occur solely as a result of declining enrollments and are instituted as cost-saving measures—never as academic improvement efforts.

Only last week, the head of school of the Georgia Cyber Academy was publicly called on the carpet by the State Board of Education on the issue of educating special needs students, with the threat of closure invoked if the school doesn’t make state-directed improvements. I cannot ever recall a school district superintendent being brought before the SBOE and chastised in public for any failure, much less being threatened with district shutdown.

“lawmaker[s]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.” Those who argue the loudest that the state does not fund public schools sufficiently are those who guard ferociously the stultified, failing model of schools, which are nothing more than methods of herding children into age-based cohorts in order to make it as simple as possible to calculate the number of adults deemed necessary to monitor them in the factory model that American public schools have followed since the early 1900s. It is a myth that adding more state dollars to the mix results in increased student achievement. This argument—give us more money and we’ll do a better job—has been disproved for decades. Erik Hanushek pointed out in the 1980s and 1990s that spending on public schools in the United States tripled from the 1960s to the 1990s, while student achievement remained flat. Recent reports by the U. S. Department of Education likewise show that most recipients of federal school improvement grants, which are multimillion-dollar awards, continue to fail.
“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.”: The decision to cut back on school days is purely the purview of local BOEs and is based on an insistence on adhering to the longevity pay system for teachers. Salaries and benefits are the single largest line-item in any school budget, and the longer a teacher stays in the traditional system, the more expensive that teacher becomes (regardless of how well that teachers’ students perform academically). Likewise, many districts continue to operate more square footage of physical plant space than is actually needed for the education of its students because to close extraneous space would lead to school closure, which is politically unpopular. It also would reduce the number of jobs available, which is another political issue. Finally, an extensive body of research demonstrates that an excellent teacher will continue to produce excellent outcomes even if class size is increased. Class-size reduction has only been proved to contribute to increased student achievement (a) in the primary grades; (b) in sheltered classrooms for highly at-risk populations, such as special education students and English language learners; and (3) when it is accompanied by strong, research-based professional development, in which case it can be argued that it is the professional development that improved the teacher’s skills that led to the increase in student achievement, not the reduction of the class size—this argument is supported by the research showing that outstanding teachers continue to produce high student achievement even when their class sizes are increased. It is therefore fallacious to insist on adding more teachers to the payroll, at the significant expense of increased salary and benefit expenditures, without regard to the quality of those employees or the age and academic need of the students, for the goal of bringing down class size.
“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.” This report was based on comparison of charter schools in the aggregate to district schools in the aggregate and found only a 3% discrepancy between all grade levels of charter school performance (70% AYP) compared to that of district schools statewide (73% AYP). Six of the eight Commission charters made AYP, which is 75%, higher than the state average. The report found that the percentage of charter middle and high schools making AYP was higher than the state percentage of district middle and high schools. Some charter high schools served 100% disadvantaged populations—I would argue that for them to meet the state graduation rate is actually overperforming, given their demographics.

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Where is my cut of the action?

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We’ve put our two daughters through charters, and now the oldest is in a regular APS high school. If you think charters, by their contract with parents, require parental time and involvement, check out APS ( and I would assume other failing systems- and I don’t use the term “failing” lightly). I may be required to put in 10 hours a year at the charter, but I do that almost weekly at the APS school- it needs that much. And less than an hour of that time is needed to keep up with my daughter’s needs. APS and other systems long ago became jobs programs (despite some posters’ claims, I suspect it was just as bad when whites ran it- GA never has been known for educational excellence, after all), and the good people in the system- and there are good people there- are marginalized by the careerism, paternalism, nepotism and self-serving politics that it currently takes to rise in the organization. I hate that the amendment was added to the state constitution because I see it as a means to a bad end for those who don’t like paying for public education. But I do have to give credit to those venal supporters of the amendment, because after looking at public systems in this state, they have a point.

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And since the charters won’t pull funding from the traditional schools, where will the money come from in Georgia’s constitutionally mandated balanced budget? Prisons and “Go Fish”? No, it’ll come from reduced QBE to traditional schools and if you don’t believe that, lose the rose-colored glasses.

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Every day we put all of our eggs in the rotten basket of government run schools. They fail and they fail and yet we continue to imprison 95+% of kids in them every day. Parents put their hopes in the Charter amendment because they actually believed that something better would come of it, but fundamentally the socialist/immoral funding mechanism doesn’t change, the government is still setting the rules, parents still have no REAL choice, the free and competitive market is still artificially depressed by the government monopoly, and bureaucrats still rule the day.

Only by realizing that government must be taken completely out of the education equation will we ever hope to address the real needs of both children and parents.

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Jefferson
November 21st, 2012
12:37 pm

Did say it…did lose my job.

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The GOP will not rest until they have destroyed public education in this state.

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The same word STANDARDS keeps popping up when we talk about EDUCATION ..

We just haven’t got it yet in one of this most educationally bankrupt of racist red states!!

http://www.alfiekohn.org/standards/rationale.htm

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Thank you, Dr. Henson, for your candid observations … and for your persistence in challenging the union group-think which usually predominates on Maureen’s blog.

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@Mountain Man. Your comments are so conflicting, I really don’t understand where you are on this issue. You blasted my comment about many parents not having the time nor interest in spending time with their children. From this comment, I cannot believe that you have recently been in a school. This problem is becoming rampant in Georgia. I do agree with you on your comment that some students just don’t want to learn because that would make them too “white.” I have often heard this comment in the school I just retired from. There are majestic social problems in Georgia, many related directly to race. I had a brilliant young lady as my student at one time who faced daily ridicule and bullying by her black co-students. She could not understand why they wanted her to be more “dumb.” As a white person, I cannot fix that problem. This problem can only be fixed by black parents and mentors. Until it is fixed, racism in schools will flourish. Charter schools will just make this problem more prevalent in government schools.

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DIO – an increased number of state-funded charters will have to be funded from somewhere – and I can’t honestly believe you think it will come anywhere else from that education budget. Teachers throughout this state have not worked full contracts in years, and as a DeKalb teacher myself, it has been since 2008-2009 since I have.

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Maude posted at 12:20 PM 11/21: “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.”

Actually, the district EARNED money when that student left for a charter school. The local property tax-funded per-pupil allocation stayed with the district and did not follow the student to the charter school. The district’s fixed costs did not increase when the student left, so the local tax funds that remained for that student generated a net GAIN for the district in the year the student departed.

I’m willing to bet $1,000 per student, however , that there’s not a district in the state that takes a single step to reduce fixed costs whether enrollment grows or when they see students depart for charter schools, private schools, or home school. They simply whine to the Legislature that they need more money. This is the problem–the district education machine does nothing to increase its efficiencies, regardless of what happens to its enrollment.

Clinging to the model based on regulations created decades ago to govern longevity salary, class size, bus schedules, food services, and specified square footage per student has led to 181 separate public school bureaucracies, all of which have their own administrative structures, that are inefficient government monopolies. When state funding shrinks, something has to give when local BOEs refuse to incorporate fundamental changes in the way they do business.

What you describe in your post is what happens to CHARTER schools–district schools hold onto students until the October 2 FTE count date, then strongly encourage problem students to transfer to charter schools, while the district keeps the state QBE money that the students generated, along with the local property tax-funded school allocation.

My school has open enrollment year-round and does not cap our enrollment. This means that any students who come to us after Oct. 2 do not generate dollars to support their education in our school until we submit our March FTE count, then we don’t actually realize the additional funds until the following October.

This is one of the prime reasons (but not the only one) why charter school boards enter into contracts with charter management organizations–to gain access to operating capital so that they can afford to grow the school’s enrollment in the beginning of operation.

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Dr. Monica Henson

November 22nd, 2012
5:53 pm

Maude posted at 12:20 PM 11/21: “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.”

Actually, the district EARNED money when that student left for a charter school. The local property tax-funded per-pupil allocation stayed with the district and did not follow the student to the charter school. The district’s fixed costs did not increase when the student left, so the local tax funds that remained for that student generated a net GAIN for the district in the year the student departed

OKAY, DR. HENSON, DID THE MONEY MAGICALLY DROP OUT OF THE SKY? NO, IT CAME FROM THE STATE’S TAXPAYERS. THIS IS THE KIND OF POLITICAL DOUBLE-TALK GEORGIA’S VOTERS SWALLOW ALL TOO OFTEN.

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Dennis posted at 2:37 PM, 11/21: “When we have a student who can’t cut “it”, we need to have an alternative education for that student…
That student then becomes an even bigger societial problem for all of us…We could solve that, if we just would. But the public has been brainwashed by conservative politicians and conservative media into not wanting to pay for that…How many of these students do you suppose charter schools will take?”

To date, my charter high school has taken 881 of them. We have continue to take about 40 of them each week. We have district high schools that have set up mini-enrollment centers in their guidance counselors’ office just to process transfers of their problem students to our school. We provide them with enrollment documents and customized fax cover sheets, and their applications come right to our registrar’s office.

District schools are starting to see us as a lifeline for kids that they have been unsuccessful in educating, rather than as a drain on “their” public school tax dollars. Families see us as a lifeline for their children who, for many varied reasons, are square pegs that don’t fit into the traditional district school round holes.

We are working very hard to establish a model that can eventually be replicated by districts, rather than functioning as an external reform catalyst. This is the mission of charter schooling.

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Dr. Henson, thank you for bringing common sense and sanity to a blog in desperate need of such elements!

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bootney, I think you localise it too much. the charter thing is bigger than the Titanic, bigger than an iceberg. Mayby New Orleans got the first “treatment” or beta test, but it is certainly an idea who’’s time has come. too bad the edu-establishment starved the schools to bring it in, sort of like the same mind of denying aid to Katrina victims (boy that was charming) but I sort of admire the seriousness of it, they’re definitely not messing around with their funny worded vote amendment. anyway, this thing is bigger than scapegoating the Georgia politicians and I reckon the people behind actually believe in the “concept” and probably want to do something about the spongey side of the edu-bureaucracy – there is a lot of it – some much of it – federal mayhem, state mayhem, school board mayhem, and everyone of them in Georgia expects the teacher to be their flattery artist / shoe shine boy / bathroom scrubbing girl. They treat teachers like dirt. I, for one, welcome our new charter overlords. Anything as a buffer to the fed / state / local. IB provided this buffer. So they savaged IB. Where there has been strong IB, just like strong specialty high performance programs, some of the schools disrespect the programs once they’re in place and running. I’ve seen it twice. So if they want to grind everybody up, maybe they’ll have less grist for their mill. From my perspective, teachers need a choice in where to work without being held hostage by the edu-bureaucrats. And another thing…. And another thing…. Truth be told, I don’t like them a bit, the fed, the state, the local. Maybe turn-about is fair play because they treat educated professionals like yo-yo’s, like their personal property or something.

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I think there are some local school boards in Georgia who really want to keep the kids as peasants. The school board / superintendent talk all this fluff and make their dramatic announcements, but the main they do is force the status quo. They like to work people thin. It seems to give some type of satisfaction to over-work people and put them in unreasonable conditions. They seem to get some satisfaction from it, like “we have done something.” It is also possible that school boards simply can not deal with any one who is more educated than them. They don’t relate and they sure do not have any vision for their charges – the students – to be educated to the level of wide-spread university attendance. Edu-bureaucrats do not like people with real education or real knowledge. Most of them are power stricken and not real sophisticated.

So I bought the book about the Emory eye clinic fiasco. It is a fantastic read. After the “star” eye doctor messes up, and then changes the patient chart, and then lies to the patient and instructs his staff to lie to the patient, when the chips start to fall and it all comes out, guess what? The head of the Harvard opthamology school sends out a letter to fifty people and university heads saying the lying doctor is getting a bad treatment and is being treated wrong (despite that he blinded someone and then lied to cover his tracks and instructed his staff to lie.) Conclusion: Harvard has really gone down hill to a condition where ethics is just a side show not of concern.

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And as for me, my property tax for schools is about $300 per year, and will go down greatly soon due to the amendment lowering property taxes for the elderly. At the same time, my income tax will drop exponentially as well when I retire. Can hardly wait.

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D,
First of all, thank you … Thank You … THANK YOU … for hanging in there as a teacher.

You said: Teachers throughout this state have not worked full contracts in years, and as a DeKalb teacher myself, it has been since 2008-2009 since I have.

http://www.nancyjester.com/georgiaspendingperstudent.aspx

Check out the history of spending on education in Georgia. School districts have received more and more money per student every year for the last 16 years. School districts have records amounts of money to work with.

The Superintendent and the BOE encourage citizens to speak at board meetings. Sign up to be a speaker at the next meeting (How To Sign Up as a Speaker at the Board Meetings). Get up there and look Dr Atkinson in the eye and ask her why teachers are getting furloughed and RIFed while DCSD is getting records amounts of funding.

Here’s a hint

State Chartered Schools – Funding
A few million dollars sounds like a lot to fund state chartered schools, but it’s really a drop in the bucket. 67% of the state appropriates already go to education. If the number of state chartered schools doubled today, that portion of the funds would go from 0.35% to 0.7% of the state appropriations. That’s a drop in the bucket for education expenses in Georgia.

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“You blasted my comment about many parents not having the time nor interest in spending time with their children. ”

No, Michele, I didn’t blast the above comment – I agree with it – what I an another blogger attacked was your addiotion of the phrase DUE TO NO FAULT OF THEIR OWN. I’m sorry, when the parent (notice singular) has “no interest in spending time with their children”, that is a SERIOUS personal fault! Don’t excuse these parents that are keeping their kids from succeeding. Their worst offense is not requiring their kids to attend school every day, on time. And if their excuse is that they can’t get their lazy butt up out of bed in time to get their kid on the bus, that is SORRY.

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Looking through the many comments on this blog give true meaning to the beloved phrase “low information voter”.

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The top 1 percent of Americans now have greater collective net worth than the entire bottom 90 percent. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/22/opinion/kristof-a-failed-experiment.html

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Seems like a super-caste is dictating to the rest of us. Question, why is the fed/state/ and local “board of education” in the classroom but teachers have zero input into policy?

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The only choice most of my students, and their parents, need to make is to start putting forth effort in the current system. I conservatively estimate that 75% of students put forth less than two hours of genuine effort a week. Charter schools will change nothing for the majority of students in Georgia.

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Walmart Black Friday Fighting Over Phones http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=8O6IMYSSs7c

I’ve got to hand it Walmart for one thing, they have a wall of motor oil half as long as a football field and they carry the oil I use. http://www.shell.com/home/content/rotella/products/t6/ I go in the back door at the auto shop and that is the extent of my business with Walmart. Point is, it really is all about digital apps now. -Much interesting in Android based education apps. If you consider “the possibilities” anything that one child can do while being the chosen one to stand at the “smart board” can be done by an entire class using Android devices with free/ open source software. Flash cards? Math problems with models and explanations? Interaction / interactive? Yes and yes. Writing on tablet computers, assignments turned in by wi-fi? I’m waiting for the future and what is beyond the future. I had this sticker on my car. Does not relate to many in the “edu-crat” field. http://developer.mygoldeni.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/wfs_logo.jpg I’m going to go buy some latex gloves and boil/jar some habeneros.

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The Walmart mob is really fighting over education app delivery devices.

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More Money does equal better results. Money spent poorly is the problem. Gwinnett has cut the number of teachers per school by 1/3, but doubled the number of people earning 200K at the county office. More money spent on Children and less on bureaucrats would be the key.

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“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.”

Was this before or after the state supreme court struck down the law giving the state the option? I call this statement BS. The local boards authorized charter schools in an attempt to control them – they did not want to be presented with a school they werent involved in at all. I would bet in the future you would have seen little or NO charters issued. The school boards and their minions showed their belief system in the fight over whether the state can issue charters.

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Uniforms including casual pants (no jeans)and knit shirts you can find at Wal-Mart and not backing down to discipline is needed.
Some parents want to be catered to(real life does not cater to many-different desires).
Look at some excellent schools in Chicago and New York City. The leaders demand decent behavior.

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can anyone tell me of a failed state agency the state itself pulled the plug on?

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Why are the local school boards complaining about charter schools? If a community sets up a charter school the local district will inevitably lose some State financial support. But they will also lose students, so why the complaining about the money?

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Jim Chaput, when school systems “lose students” they lose money. There is a rationale to “freak out” like a business losing customers.

Interesting macro-analysis of the U.S. situation from outside of the U. S. information bubble, as well as outing the true mode of Obama’s education policy. http://www.globalresearch.ca/americas-labor-movement-in-terminal-crisis/5312769

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Please remember, there are often very good reasons to deny a charter application. Witness the Nashville fiasco:
http://www.newschannel5.com/story/19528802/great-hearts-academy-withdraws-from-nashville
http://dianeravitch.net/2012/09/20/the-inside-story-of-great-hearts-charter-in-nashville/
http://dianeravitch.net/2012/09/24/whats-at-stake-in-nashville-charter-fight/
http://dianeravitch.net/2012/11/16/will-tennessee-create-an-alec-style-charter-board-to-trump-local-boards/
http://dianeravitch.net/2012/11/20/expose-of-charter-corruption-in-the-new-republic/

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Maureen agrees with Charlotte Iserbyt’s stand on charter schools:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYl9iZlArjM&feature=related
Start at 8:56. Iserbyt talks about the true agenda for charter schools…..

Listen to the entire video! Learn about the Council for National Policy.

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Iserbyt is no dummy, that’s for sure! Cued up for you:
@ 8:56 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYl9iZlArjM#t=8m56s
@ 13:30 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYl9iZlArjM#t=13m30s

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Georgia DOE does 100x surveilling and enforcement of their mandates, and meanwhile provides zero direction or support for instructional materials to achieve content delivery.

It’s a real wise guy routine, all of these testing mandates combined with no support materials. Official doctrine on supply materials: Go steal stuff from the internet and make lessons out of it.

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And then you get these little tiny programs in the government system who manage to make some structure, who manage to get a concept and assemble their crumbs together, such as IB or “academy” programs and the state, or local, or somebody? goes around and destroys them, driving those who escape the chaos, driving them back into the chaos.

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Dr. Henson: Thanks for your reply. I am assuming we are not including students with an EBD diagnosis, as they seem to be exempt from any behavioral expectations. In fact, in my experience, even kids with a MH diagnosis can claim that the misbehavior is a manifestation of the disability. (In fact, even students whose parents have resisted evaluation for placement for EBD can, retroactively, claim IDEA protection) And, of course, if the local system has no alternative school available for elementary school children, they would have to be kept in place, I guess.

Exactly what requirements are there by the state that all students be included in the pool for the charter? For example, is a charter school required to accept and provide services blind or deaf children, or medically fragile students? (I am aware that charter schools do not have to provide transportation, and thus can summarily exclude students whose parents cannot provide transportation.)

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As someone who admits openly to feeling duped by the amendment’s wording, thank you for your consistent reporting on education. Shame on me for not paying enough attention to your analysis and the “back story” on this piece of legislation before I cast my vote: Let us only hope that its passage serves to re-energize interest and investment in public school education.

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Good explanation of “Outcomes Based Education” where “the student will demonstrate…” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErL9zPHdH4A Might help teachers in voicing their lesson plans and objectives in an acceptable manner. This concept is not well explained by the current managers, however teachers are expected to voice their objectives in these terms. Useful information.

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Race to the Top is the State of Georgia being sold down the river for thirty pieces of silver.

Let me tell you a story about the results of “Outcomes Based Education.” I visited with a neighbor for Thanksgiving leftovers. There was a kid in the household, bright and alert, kid approaching high school age. I awarded a big word to the kid as a descriptor and said “Now what do you think of that? You decide. Do you agree?” So we looked up the word, that had nine letters but I thought it was pretty basic as it is the title of a pop music song (a 1980’s hit). First, the dictionary they had in the household was abridged and did not have the word in it. I was shocked. Same thing with the thesaurus. So we looked it up online. Now mind you, I thought this was a pretty basic word. Not only did the kid not know the word (an adjective), the kid did not know any of the words used in the definition to define the word. This is a lively bright kid from a technically oriented family and the mom even knows what literature is, for example the title “Jane Ayre” was brought up during conversation, leading one to think this was a literate household. Obviously no one is reading to or reading with the kid, that is for sure. But there is very little going on upstairs from the school house, either. As the lady in the video says about Outcomes Based Education, kids from poor backgrounds lose twice: 1) they are not educated, and 2) the state is no substitute for family, even if the kid has no family. So that’s my Thanksgiving story. How quickly the shift has occurred between generations from a basic lexicon of vocabulary to having none. It’s weird, that’s for sure, and it challenges the senses when one sees the reality for “the lost generations.” My conclusion is that as long managers are going to come into schools and force teachers to do initiatives that work against children, don’t send your kids there or work there if you are a teacher.

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Thanks Private Citizen for your link to Peg Luksik’s video exposing Outcome Based Education. I saw it when it first came out in 1992. She became involved as a result of Anita Hogue’s research exposing the hidden agenda for the Pennsylvania assessments, which were measuring AFFECTIVE DOMAIN HIGHER ORDER THINKING SKILLS (per Bloom’s Taxonomy) AKA “locus of control”. If you want to fully understand the issue, read her story in EDUCATING FOR THE NEW WORLD ORDER, by Beverly Eakman. It also includes an Appendix with photocopies of the government documents which explicitly spell out what they were doing. I read the book, actually met Anita and shared with her my own research documentation. By using the book as a guide, I was able to duplicate her research in Georgia. Parents were alerted and at least one School Superintendent resigned because he failed to successfully push the OBE reforms in his county BECAUSE THE ELECTORATE WAS WELL INFORMED.
Here’s an article from a 1992 Pennsylvania newspaper documenting Peg’s and Anita’s connection:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2002&dat=19921025&id=HLgiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=JLUFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1166,5379320

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Halftrack, Interesting point that turnabout is fair play and maybe that is what is coming.

Truth in Moderation, The thing about Outcomes Based Education is that it is supplanting content and basically creating / allowing dereliction of duty regarding delivery of content knowledge. The Luksik video goes a long way towards explaining how managers are seemingly constantly promoting vague concepts combined with a complete ignoring of structured content formation. It seems that the math and sciences are breaking through some, thus the “STEM” programs, however this still leaves a complete vacuum in the humanites (i.e. English / writing / literate and language skills). Yes, it makes a lot more sense now. The bosses are not sort of being forced to go back and do 1/2 the job (of educating) by being more serious with math and science, but now math and science has turned into a fetish and from what I have seen, there is generally a caustic or flippant / negative, even disrespectful (arrogant?) attitude coming from the managers toward humanities study (i.e. language, literature, etc.). It is a very strange cocktail, but this is what I see happening. Maybe the dislike of language study is because it there “outs” their silly doctrine that use language to deliver this boatload of propaganda and pressure demands. Bottom line is that this OBE stuff is a really convenient way to fill the bandwidth and justify dereliction of duty for delivering content. The emphasis from the state is on propagandist pressure directives, saturation testing (the gall!), and periodic press releases to tell you that the corn grew out of the ground somewhere, examples 1, 2, 3. Nowhere from the state will you find defined source material to be used for teaching sequential structured content. And the local follows the example of the state, two holding hands together as one. One interesting thing about the Luksik video from Pennsylvania is that it sounds awfully familiar as if from right next door, the sort of vacant local / regional politic pushing this barely comprehendable abstract agenda and using great authority to do it.

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(that’s about 400 miles from Kolari to Lieksa)

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catlady asked, “Exactly what requirements are there by the state that all students be included in the pool for the charter? For example, is a charter school required to accept and provide services blind or deaf children, or medically fragile students? (I am aware that charter schools do not have to provide transportation, and thus can summarily exclude students whose parents cannot provide transportation.)”

Charter schools are required to accept any student in their attendance zone who applies for enrollment until all seats are filled, and then a public lottery must be held and a waitlist generated. As public schools, charter schools are required to accept blind, deaf, medically fragile, and any other special needs students who seek enrollment, as long as the enrollment cap (if there is one) hasn’t been reached. My school has enrolled several medically fragile students, although we have not had any applications from blind or deaf kids. I’d have to check with my Board attorney, but I’m reasonably sure that a student who requires transportation to the charter school as a related service in an IEP would be entitled to it, regardless of whether the charter school provides transportation to non-special needs students.

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