Award for Ivy Prep shows just how wrong Lowery and others crying ‘resegregation’ are

Congrats to Ivy Prep. You should be held as an example to Wilbanks and the Gwinnett school board. Maybe that is why they are fighting so hard against the charter amendment. You are proving you can do more with less!

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[...] Kyle Wingfield says the Ivy Prep award shows just how wrong Rev. Lowery, Sen. Emanuel Jones and others are when they [...]

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So you are for re-segregation? I know what you mean, but, you may want to reword your argument a little.

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Kyle,
Any other examples of charter schools with a higher percentage of black students? I’d hate to think you’ve chosen a needle in the haystack to base your article.

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Mom – It’s funny you should mention Gwinnett’s own charter school. A few things to note…

1. It’s not a start up governed by an independent board – it’s governed by the district’s school board.
2. They serve 55% gifted, .002% (yes, that’s 2 THOUSANDS of a percent) SPED, and 0% remedial education students. Interesting considering charters are public schools that MAY NOT have entry requirements.
3. They have been cited by the state for screening kids out – Gwinnett County has violated the law. Do an open records request and you’ll see this is a fact.

This IS an excellent school, but don’t try to compare it with Ivy Prep who DOES have an independent board, who exercises open enrollments, and serves a diverse population of students….and is also achieving and outperforming the district hands down!

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Those of us that believe in charter schools are not surprised at the results of Ivy Prep. Black students, white students it does not matter. The charter school provides the student with an environment that encourages learning.

Please explain to me why so many of our wonderful, overworked, underpaid teachers are against charter schools? So many of the hassles that prevent them from “teaching” would be eliminated and they could do the job they were trained, hired and love to do. It should be about the students, and charter schools are proving every day that students are succeeding.

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Black parents are no different than any other color of parent, they too can see lazy regardless of color……..the under-performing schools are doing so due to lazy parents, not their color……..

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A number of Atlanta area schools are virtually all black or all white now. Why hasn’t Lowery said anything about them?

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SBinF:

Let’s actually LOOK at the data for our state schools. Wouldn’t want you to think it’s an isolated instance…

* AYP:

State charters: 75%
Districts served by state charrs: 66.7%
State: 72.7%

* CRCT

State charters out performed districts they served in 4/5 core subject areas

* Students with disabilities in state charters (54.8%) out performed the districts they served (48.8%)

Graduation Rates:

* State charter high school graduation rate (95.8%) significantly outperformed the district (69.03%)

THIS is what our state charters who have autonomous boards and good state oversight can do….

VOTE YES!

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@ JDW – it is the STATE that got the “A” (not the districts).

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And the difference between the parents of charter school kids and some of the others? Taking the initiative to put ones child in a better school vs just sticking the child on the big yellow magic transformation machine that stops at the end of the driveway…………

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“so someone should be able to identify what made Ivy Prep successful and implement it elsewhere”

Parents………..

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Sure, there is some self-selection going on–parents who care put their kids in charters.

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@ Randy Ayn –

You cannot be more correct! We have a lot of “Charters,” (including start ups, conversions, system charters, career academies, etc.) All told, about 215 of them. HOWEVER, only about 70 of them (that are start ups and the ones this amendment is about) that meet the federal definition of a charter school.

These schools almost always outperform the districts they serve. And these schools that are state authorized and fully autonomous from any district perform even higher.

The secret sauce is autonomy and flexibility in exchange for accountability. The districts are fighting hard against autonomy (”local control” argument), refuse to give full flexibility to their own charter schools, and certainly have little accountability because charters authorized by districts can’t be shut down like start ups…they just revert back to status quo.

Start ups provide the MOST local control (governing board by parents, educators, and community members), have full autonomy, and are accountable to stakeholders. THAT is what the amendment is about.

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Are these well performing charters run by for profit companies?

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md – I suspect you’re right. I think people will spend a lot of money on bogus “systems” and so forth to make charter schools seem different, but, in the end, if the parents support and push the kids to do well, they will. So, this basically becomes “schools for people who care” and “the rest” – which is sad, but probably reality.

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According to polls 73 percent of WHITE evangelicals will be voting for Mitt Romney. If the polls are correct here’s the question I’d like to ask evangelicals using their own style of language/concerns/theological thinking as applied to their choice:

What’s the explanation for the fact that white American Evangelicals made the allegedly philandering lying ignorant braggart lapsed Roman Catholic Dinesh D’Souza their anti-Obama hero, embrace a pro-choice Mormon bishop who promoted abortion and Planned Parenthood in MA, are working to elect a job-destroying tax-avoiding lying flip-flopping-tell-anyone-anything-they-want-to-hear Swiss bank account collecting draft dodger running with a disciple of the God-hating, Jesus-mocking hater-of-the-poor Ayn Rand, for their presidential candidate and look the other way as a crazed ultra-Zionist many Israeli Jews fear billionaire casino owner who is being investigated for allegedly making billions off the dirtiest Chinese gambling Communist Party-controlled outfit in the world funds the enterprise, at the very same time as Franklin Graham sold his ailing father Billy’s soul and denied core evangelical theology by taking Mormonism off the Billy Graham organization’s list of cults in order to help the Mormon pagan-ritual-performing, Trinity-denying, casino-money-grubbing billionaire-coddling, earth-destroying global-warming denying Mormon bishop win respectability for his dead-Jews-baptizing-polygamy-rooted-reality-denying-interplanetary Masonic lodge-embracing faith in an election against an exemplary modest faithful husband good father compassionate smart black evangelical Christian President whose major accomplishments include saving the economy, ending a war, killing our greatest enemy, giving health care to children and the poor and the “least of these” and who has tried to reduce the number of abortions by helping women escape poverty in a reenactment of the lesson of the parable of the Good Samaritan?

alternet.org

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When you don’t have a good argument, call the race card.

Now, let’s get back to Benghazi.

j/k

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“so someone should be able to identify what made Ivy Prep successful and implement it elsewhere”

Or motivated students wishing to not be dragged down by unmotivated students.

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You gotta wonder how many more times the anti-amendment folks are going to keep banging their heads against the wall on this thing when Kyle can so easily debunk their nonsensical arguments.

It’s kinda like watching crazed monkeys throwing themselves against cage walls; in some ways very scary, with just a little entertainment value thrown in.

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And for the record, there are many good public schools out there, so public vs charter isn’t exactly the problem. In my case, it came down to being an active parent starting with where I lived……that was the first CHOICE. And we did extensive research on school systems prior to moving…….and once we got there, we made the choice to stay until the kids either got through school or the school started to perform not up to our standards………we choose everything we do……….

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@CharterStarter, Too…no it was the methodology that we currently use to manage charters that got the A.

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Darwin, please.

They’ve been wording amendments at the state and local level this way for years.

Lawyers. That’s all you need to know.

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“I’ll call your data and raise you Dow up over 60% under Obama after falling over 25% under GWBush.”

That’s such a bad argument for Obama………the first inconsistency deals with the silly notion that all these companies became bad overnight, hence the initial over-correction…….then one must factor in the 23 million people and their benefits that were removed from the expense side of the income statement (income less expenses = profit)……taking the 2 together knowing the economy for the most part still sucks indicates Obama had no real bearing on the market………..

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@ Darwin,

And if the opposition’s argument has merit, they would not need to lie.

Think about this…

The opposition, as one of it’s “best” claims is that the state can “already approve” charters on appeal. So, IF that is true, then this isn’t a change to the Constitution at all. BOTH the state AND the locals can approve charters. This simply EXPLICITLY states what the opposition claims is true. The public voting on this would very simply affirm this so that it can’t be legally challenged.

The preamble actually mirrors the language in the Charter Schools Act about the legislative intent of charter schools (to raise achievement) and the state and local petitioning requirement to demonstrate substantial parent involvement in governance. Can anybody GUARANTEE all charters will hit these goals? Of course not. But what we CAN guarantee is that charters who fail can be closed AND that traditional schools the fail will not and will continue to fail kids…

You need to ask yourself what the REAL basis for the opposition’s argument is, because the ones they give you are weak and nonsensical. (Love the monkey analogy, Tiberius – so true.)

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Quoting: Ivy Prep, to which the Gwinnett County school board refused to grant a charter, and which as a result had to resort to the state’s chartering process,

So, how in the world did they become a charter school? Did they need a state-run committee to overrule Gwinnett?

No?

Oh. . . .

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@Kyle…”You seriously have to ask this? How many traditional schools do you know where the parents get to call the shots about how kids are educated??”

Yep very seriously…I am in a cluster where the High School and Middle School were converted to charter BY THE PARENTS and they are doing quite well thank you very much. The Elementary school is not and yes via the PTA the parents have enormous influence over how things are done. Point is if all the energy that has created this progress were diverted to building an unneeded charter in the area it would be a dilution of the effort.

As for this whole unpaid board nonsense…this is nothing more than a rubber stamp that will start a stampede of for profit companies pounding down the borders to set up shop. I would be willing to wager that, if this is passed we will not see this board reject a charter application in our lifetime…no matter how looney.

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@ Carlos – seems a bit silly to be on a blog on one topic discussing another topic, no? Feel free to carry on, but don’t expect a lot of conversation.

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“I am in a cluster where the High School and Middle School were converted to charter BY THE PARENTS and they are doing quite well thank you very much.”

Yeah, nothing beats proclaiming you’re the tallest of the midgets . . .

Unfortunately, “doing quite well” in Georgia equates to below average in most of the rest of this country.

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“Point is that it was parents that created the progress and if a charter is created it should be parents that create it.”

Who cares, as long as education improves?

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@CharterStarter, Too…the point is that the procedure in question is a audit procedure applied equally to state and local charters. It success is predicated on the system operating as it should which it apparently is…why should it be changed to create a rubber stamp board that enables an explosion of unneeded charter schools…that energy along with available dollars should be channeled into the existing system.

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@ JDW -

I’m not sure where or how you could back up your claim about this “mass exodus,” but let’s just go with what you believe for a minute.

Why would you care if a for-profit management company works with a governing board to provide services – if they achieve at HIGHER LEVELS, and can (must) do it for cheaper?

What do you have to say about districts contracting with Ombudsman (nearly $15 million). They are a for-profit doing the same things for profit charter management companies do.

What do you say about some of these same management companies hired in other states BY SCHOOL DISTRICTS to do school turn around? Charter Schools USA, for example, got a federal grant to do so just recently. There is a management company in Michigan that recently took over a whole district because the district was going bankrupt and couldn’t manage themselves.

Do you believe that our traditional public school systems should not contract with for-profit companies, because nearly every dollar spent by districts (outside of salaries) goes to for-profits for text books, computers, buildings, legal services, etc., etc. (and funny, these are the same vendors that support THEIR campaign.) Moreover, are the central office staff willing to work for free? The answer to that is a resounding hell no – Mr. Gwinnett County himself, Alvin, makes more than the president of the US…and a big ole chunk of a percentage as one individual of what a whole management company makes for providing back office support, instruction, HR services, etc.

I’m just very curious what your thoughts are. I’m pushing you hard because I think you want things to make sense but just aren’t contemplating the full picture.

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@ JDW. Sigh. This “A” rating did not even look at the local districts or their processes. It was specifically provided to the Charter Schools Office for THEIR work in oversight of a federal grant that ONLY they award.

And by the way, the financial audit processes are NOT consistent across districts, particularly with charter schools. And many of them are out of alignment with the state processes.

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@Kyle…”The previous commission granted only 17 of 62 charter applications. ”

I don’t know the details on the rejects, ie if they were resubmitted, but I don’t believe that approval rate will hold given the board would now have explicit authority and could not be sued.

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@Kyle…and another thing…there is already an appeal process for charters rejected at the local level…and unlike the new commission idea if the BOE overrules the local system does not lose property tax revenue.

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Charter Starter, the libs on here are all about making profit for themselves.

Just not for anyone else.

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“You, like the opposition, only want to limit the majority of people’s choice to 1 option – the traditional public school monopoly, which for some, is no choice at all.”

Now where do you come up with that assumption??

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@Kyle…”You keep suggesting the audit procedures will change simply due to this amendment’s passage.”

No I am not…I simply said they were apparently working fine the way they are. What I do think will change and drastically is the number of new charter applications approved by the state.

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JDW’s post at 1:15 finally zeroes in on why this is opposed by the education cabal.

Money. And the power to control it.

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Believe me Charter schools are not about Republicans giving a crap about the poor little black kid being left behind. Heck they would cut that kids free lunch in a second ( and have tried before )

That is a red herring if there ever was one.

Its about two things.

1. Getting tax payers to fund private school educations. They dont want to pay for it themselves so they are going to fool the taxpayer into paying for it for them.

2. Getting control of the curriculum so they can get Christianity back in schools.

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@ JDW – and why is that more applications will be approve by the state? Consider this?

* Why would districts be LESS likely to approve charters? We believe with an alternative route, districts will see the benefit of being fair in their processes and keeping the charters local. That’s what we hope happens.

* The SBOE will still have oversight over the Commission – what would cause them to recommend an approval of more charter applications?

Just trying to understand your logic.

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@ I demand… show me ANYTHING, any little piece of actual data that substantiates the paranoid, ridiculous claims you continue to make under various names on these blogs.

FEDERAL law prohibits public schools from being affiliated with religious institutions. STATE law does as well, and state CHARTER LAW does as well.

Give it a rest, buddy, it’s a tired argument with zero merit.

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Randy, the Dow was over 14,000 before the Dodd-Frank recession. Your guy isn’t even keeping up with inflation.

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I know Cheesy is out of ammo when his fingers hit the keyboard.

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@CharterStarter, Too…I don’t think local boards will be less likely to approve charters…as for BOE oversight thats not what I see….

“The commission would have seven members appointed by the state Board of Education. Three recommendations for appointment would come from the governor, two from the president of the state Senate, and two from the House speaker.”

Thats not oversight…that is the governor,president of the state Senate, and House speaker handing out cookies.

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The GOP already holds all the levers of power in this state, including over education policy. If that’s the goal, why aren’t Georgia Republicans already doing it?

Because Charter schools give them the cover to do it.

they are already doing it in Louisiana.

But that sort of thing won happen in Georgia right ???? LOL

Talk about diverging from Reality.

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@Kyle…”I would argue we could just as easily expect fewer state charters to be approved annually as time goes on, because in the early years there is more pent-up demand being satisfied.”

You could be right, but given that we have a process, including an appeal process in place already to manage this I see no need for the risk involved in another commission. Now if it should come to pass that the BOE’s appeal power were taken away it would be time to revisit the issue.

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@ JDW – so… if we truly do already have an appeals process in place…. and the locals AND the state share this authority….

THEN WHY ARE YOU OPPOSED TO AFFIRMING THIS EXPLICITLY ON THE BALLOT?

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Crazed monkeys, I tell ya!

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One data point is not a trend. Still very happy to see that Ivy Prep and its students are doing so well. Study after study agrees that charter schools are as a rule more segregated than their public counterparts. And I’m not just talking black versus white. Students are being grouped together by race, national background, religion, gender and a variety of other factors. And while I’m not entirely certain that this is a good idea it’s important to note that no one is forced to attend a charter school — as long as we still have a strong and viable public school option.

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@Mom…you quoted a Maureen Downey article about a bad incident involving a charter school as a point in your argument that charter schools should only be controlled by the existing public school local school boards.

The article you quoted, without giving a URL, was misleading and not to the point, as it was about an incident that did not have similar facts to the debate at issue, and was an incident in Florida. If you can quote an unsourced article about a single, individual criminally-related incident to ban a broad, proven charter school issue that has worked well in many jurisdictions…then you can prove anything!

If you are going to make comparisons, compare “apples with apples”….not “apples with cantalopes”.

As a retired public school teacher, married to another, and the child of two retired public school teachers…I can assure you that if Charter schools are placed under the control of public school boards…who are the deadly enemy of “anything” that threatens their jobs monopoly control and power…then that is the same as putting the fox in charge of the hen house. Public school board will ensure that no charter school is ever allowed to be better than your existing neighborhood schools. These “government schools” will not allow any honest competition.

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@Charterstarter Too…”THEN WHY ARE YOU OPPOSED TO AFFIRMING THIS EXPLICITLY ON THE BALLOT?”

Because it is a duplication of effort that Barge believes will cost us $430 million and it is rife with possiblities for abuse.

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Lowery can’t enrage black voters by using accurate information.

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Cheesy Grits –
Check out who CAN’T start a charter school.
http://www.doe.k12.ga.us/External-Affairs-and-Policy/Charter-Schools/Pages/Frequently-Asked-Questions-for-New-Petitioners.aspx

If the material you cited is still taught in Louisiana, then it’s a good bet that Louisiana doesn’t have the same requirements of charter schools as Georgia does. Can you cite something in GEORGIA law or policy, rather than that of Louisiana, to back up your claims of Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark, ad nauseum, being taught in the charter schools?

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“Blacks make up 40 percent of the county _ which is about 75 miles east of Atlanta _ but the majority of them live north of the highway in Greensboro and Union Point. The 2,100-student public school system, however, is 70 percent black, and more than three-quarters of students are eligible for free or reduced lunches.

The charter school would serve students primarily from the tony Lake Oconee developments _ including Reynolds Plantation and Reynolds Landing, resort-style communities with a Ritz-Carlton Lodge. Ten percent of the school’s planned 400 seats would be reserved for students outside the primary attendance zone.”

Charter Starter, Too.

If 70% of the children living around Reynolds plantation and the Ritz Carlton are eligible for the FRL we have found where the moochers are.

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All us white folk are going to hell if we don’t vote for Obama according to Lowery. This old fool is so dumb and out of touch with reality, why would anyone want an opinion from him!!!

Remember Revrund, dumb is forever and not fleeting.

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@Kyle…see what I mean…

“But if the charter schools are siphoning off students from the “public” schools, shouldn’t the cost to educate kids in those schools go down? And if not, why not? In every business, less volume means less expense.”

We haven’t even voted yet and the funding vultures are out.

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I’m not stating that it will go down, JDW, just asking the question that if funding is taken from “public” schools, it’s not really going to be a loss for them as they will have less students to educate, therefore, their costs should go down.

Of course, we’re talking government here . . .

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CharterStarter – 12:58

Someone else brought this topic up. I’m just responding.

The tone of your comments suggest someone who is a legend in their own mind.

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“The tone of your comments suggest someone who is a legend in their own mind.”

Actually, carlos, the tone of Charters’s comments suggest someone who seriously knows what they are talking about.

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Close all public schools.

Privatize education w/ exclusively charter schools.

At least we’ll be getting more results from our investment.

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@ Curious – a privatized public charter school is actually an oxymoron.

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I thought all these new charter schools would be publicly funded.

Charter schools must be doing something better than in the public school systems we have now, so why do that something better in all schools.

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Kyle’s analysis assumes that the kids that go to Ivy Prep were not already testing higher than the students at nearby public schools, and, perhaps more importantly, were not from families of higher socio-economic status, on average, than the public schools that they draw from. Chances are that the Ivy Prep kids were already higher achieving students from higher SES families.

That’s the problem with the argument and discussion surrounding many charter schools, and especially those that draw from struggling traditional public schools (which are pretty much always located in lower SES areas). The charter school draws off many of the students in the upper half achievement-wise and test score-wise from the public school, so it’s no surprise when the resulting charter school then tests a little higher. Is that because the charter school is better? Not really — you just shifted more of the stronger kids to the charter school. But it does cause the traditional public school left behind to have an even tougher time because now it serves mostly lower half students. So are we really better off overall with charter schools, or are we just fixing the problem for some, and making it worse for others?

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Kyle ~ I wish there was a way to “like” a comment similar to Facebook’s “like”. Some people’s comments are so well written, and really address what others are thinking
.

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@Kyle…”By that logic, local schools get short-changed any time we build a road, too.”

Conceivable but not apples to apples. Road money is a different line item and is not going to be a big driver of school funding. But as, Tiberius points out the prevailing thought process will be if you have fewer students you get fewer dollars. While that should be true from a variable cost perspective it is not altogether a dollar for dollar trade. Fact is education spending will be lumped into one big bucket and funding will suffer.

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Kyle 2:11.

The amendment deprives the local school board the right to deny a charter school that it doesn’t think would be in the best interests of the district. It gives the power to a state commission to override that decision and force the school onto the community, local voters be damned.

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Excuse me, “Thats not oversight…that is the governor,president of the state Senate, and House speaker handing out cookies.” in my prior post should have had quotation marks as it was a quote by JDW.

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@ Curious -

The poor kids and families have lived in that area of Greene County for generations – they didn’t just happen to flock there to mooch. Reynolds Plantation is a very large tract of land owned by one family that just happened to put the development there. This has, by the way, helped the local economy a lot. And the charter has helped the public school system and the kids/families it serves, a lot.

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CharterStarter, Too 2:44

If the state has the power to approve (ie. force a charter school on us when the local BOE has turned it down) then the power of control is mute. Control what exactly? Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic?

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Kyle 2:51

If the local board can be overridden every time it says no, then the only “right” it has is to say yes. And, as far as local vs. state power is concerned, please read your columns of the past three years on Obama and try to apply the same logic that used there on this issue.

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Kyle @2:36: Yeah, I figured you’d say that. But I can say the same right back to you: you have no idea that what I say is not true. And I think, chances are, I’m probably right, because it’s well documented that higher SES students test higher.

I must confess I’m not that familiar withn Ivy Prep and nearby Peachtree Elem., which Ivy evidently draws from. But I am very familiar with Drew Charter School in Atlanta, and East Lake Elem. and Coan Middle School that Drew draws from, and there is no doubt that Drew pulled many of the upper half students out of East Lake and out of Coan. So Drew tests higher than EL and Coan — big news flash. The result was that East Lake was so devastated that it had to be closed — and now those mostly lower half EL kids go to Toomer Elem. (they didn’t just disappear) and are no doubt presenting serious challenges at Toomer, a school which previously had things going in the right direction — good luck now. And Coan almost got closed, and with the recent further expansion of Drew middle, Coan is now virtually radioactive — good luck turning that school around. But Drew is full (of mostly better half students), so the Coan kids are pretty much SOL. Has Drew benefitted the overall community? I don’t know — those that go there would probably say it has, but I’d say it’s made the traditional public schools left behind much worse, for an overall net negative for the community. And what is the plan now to help the lower half EL kids at Toomer, and the Coan kids? APS is left to gut it out on its own, as I doubt any new charter school will come in to save the day for bottom half students. But it will be fun for some to throw stones at APS if they don’t work true miracles with these East Lake and Coan kids.

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Kyle @ 3:14: Yeah, Drew is locally approved (which is another, separate, point of mine — local school boards are approving these charter schools, and lots of them in APS and DeKalb, so why do we need this amendment?). But what difference does it make? The point is that charter schools in these areas — whether locally approved or state approved — often may make things better for some, but things even worse for others, often for an overall net negative. At least the local school board would have some idea about this local impact — I doubt Nathan Deal’s state political appointees would actually figure out the local landscape.

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@Charterstarter Too…ok you are beginning to mix issues…lets take this one…

” Would you not agree that there is excessive duplication of efforts amongst these districts”

Yep, and the county/city governments as well. The whole county/city governance methodology in Georgia is terrible. We should have at most 12-15 counties in this state and as such 12-15 school boards. However that is no reason to add another “school board” that will spend money that doesn’t have to be spent. If this commission is not approved those school boards will not have to spend one extra dollar on administration. The commission is 100% duplicative.

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@CharterStarter Too…”How much should it cost to educate the average Joe/Josephine pupil in Georgia? Any district – shouldn’t matter, right? Because the average kid is the average kid no matter where you live.”

Not really true, there are big differences in things like land costs and economies of scale. For example in Clay County they spend $12,497 per pupil to educate 358 students. That requires an awful lot of fixed costs that are allocated over very few students leading to a false impression of schools that are “overfunded”. As for Pataula…they educate 440 students and seems like they were plopped down right in the middle of Clay and 4 other counties. Looks like a perfect example of diluting the strength of the region, in this case by siphoning the white students. My guess is they would have been better served if all that effort had gone into the existing structure rather than creating another.

As for their budget…it does not seem to be readily available, unlike more traditional publicly funded schools.

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Kyle 3:03

You’ve been pretty consistent with your criticisms of Obama on government expansion although impartial observers might consider some of his actions to be the proper function of government oversight of mandated duties. But, leaving that aside, the State of Georgia has contributed a smaller portion of school funding every single year since the Perdue years and counted on more and more of the funding to come from the school districts (mainly through property tax). Since my public school education tells me that Article 8 states that it is a primary mission for the state to provide for an adequate education for its citizens, then it doesn’t seem to me that a portion of this ever shrinking pie should be allocated to a schools that the local citizens have deemed unnecessary.

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@Kyle…”So why do you insist the state should have no role in creating public education alternatives?”

I got to pick on this one…the state should and under the current law DOES have a role in creating alternatives. What they should not have is duplicate roles. They should also spend more time improving with we have in place rather than trying to make end runs to tear it down.

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@ JWD -

Before we disagree, because I like to give the benefit of the doubt when somebody brings up a reasonable point, please clarify this….

What do you think are “fixed costs” in the instance of, say Clay versus that of, say, a Cobb County?

As for Pataula …

Look at the census data for each of the counties they serve – they are nearly 50/50 or 60/40 minority:white. Now look at the school systems – they are nearly 100% minority. Patuala did open enrollment and are ALREADY, even with the deep, deep racial divide down there, more integrated than the traditional school districts (who, by the way, are failing abysmally these minority families) and continue to grow. And, by the way, their minority students are flourishing!

Keep in mind that Pataula, as a state school, has not taken a dime from the counties they serve. These districts have kept 100% of their local funding to be spread over less kids. AND, if we take your assumption (which I am not sure is exactly true, but let’s go with it)… if Pataula has more white students, the majority of these came NOT from the public school system, so they didn’t even lose those kid’s QBE funds. The districts in this area got a bit of a windfall, but they won’t acknowledge that.

Let me encourage you to do an open records request of Early County – everybody in the area seems to rather attend Early County schools rather than their district schools. Go ask them how may students they get from what district and what race those students represent…and how much is paid in tuition by the parents.

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And… let me assure you many districts in this state don’t post their budgets. Several don’t even post their board agendas or meetings minutes.

Law says it has to be accessible, but doesn’t say it has to be convenient. I’d support a stricter requirement for both charters and traditionals for greater transparency.

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@CharterStarter Too…”if Pataula has more white students”

From a prior column by Jay Bookman…

As it turns out, the state Department of Education maintains a demographic database of every public school in the state, including state-sanctioned charter schools. (The most recent year in which such data is available is the 2010-11 school year). And the data tell us a lot.

Let’s look at Pataula Charter Academy, which serves students in kindergarten through grade six in a five-county area in southwest Georgia. That’s a poor region — in Early County, 76 percent of students are eligible for a free or reduced lunch. In Randolph County, it’s 90 percent; in Calhoun, 92 percent; in Baker, 83 percent and in Clay County, it’s 92 percent.

The public school systems in those counties are also overwhelmingly black. In Calhoun County, where Pataula Charter is located, just 2 percent of the student body in the local school system is white. In Clay County, it’s a mere 1 percent.

Yet in Pataula Charter, 75 percent of the student body is white. Moreover, the percentage of the Pataula student body eligible for free or reduced lunches (54 percent) is well below the regional average.

http://blogs.ajc.com/jay-bookman-blog/2012/10/01/state-created-charters-sidestep-public-schools/

This one is a poster child for what should not happen.

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Ummm….JDW…. look at the poverty rates of FAMILIES in those areas (census data). The poverty rate of the area is not nearly as high.

The school system has long been segregated by black, minorities and they are failing these children and perpetuating the poverty cycle. What have they done to integrate?

Pataula still serves about 60% FRL and their minority students are outperforming their district minority peers, which means they serve a lot of poor white and poor black kids. And as I state, they are closer to representing these communities than any of these school districts.

You are basically saying that the white parents who paid taxes into the public education system should not be able to access quality education…and you are saying that the local school districts down there, who have been on a deseg order for 30 years, should have no responsibility for integrating their systems AND no accountability for failing the population they serve. Let’s continue to throw millions and millions to failing systems who churn our uneducated kids (those that graduate) that continue to delete the state’s economy due to dependence on social programs.

And BTW, we have several urban charters with nearly 100% minority and 80-90% FRL waaaaaayyyy out performing these southwest districts.

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@ Hillybilly D –

How come? Maybe I can share some facts that might help you see how weak their other arguments are, too. Some are even worse than the de-segregation one. ;D

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I voted YES! My children go to Ivy Prep Kirkwood and I am seeing great results in their second year. Posters can spout all the rhetoric they want, but this is from a single parent that is underwater in her mortgage and can’t move. I need options! What I now have is working well, and with less funding than my “neighborhood school” that is failing. I will do WHATEVER it takes to get my children to Ivy Prep. Our Administration actively engages parents and has an extended school day and Saturday Academy. My children are engaged and have a positive attitude now. I have access by telephone and email to school administrators that actually respond to my questions. I no longer feel guilty about dropping my children off at a school that “doesn’t care”. If you are unhappy with your children’s’ educational options, Vote YES…there are options for you too!

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Kyle-
Did you ever do the article to follow the money to see wh is paying for all these ads?

Or isn’t that news? Are you on their payroll too?

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[...] a sense, the Rev. Joseph Lowery was right when he recently warned against modern-day school segregation. What he missed is that we’ve already segregated our [...]

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