Should VA have more charter schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it interesting when people say, "if more people like you sent your kids to under-performing public schools, those schools would improve." Would they? Why? What do they mean by "improve"? We all know that kids from higher SES in general score better ok testing, but bringing up average test scores is not improving the quality of teaching at a school. And is not about money. DC spends an exorbitant amount of money per student with very poor outcomes.

I also think people tend to focus on "the school" vs the students in these conversations.

It means that your money, time, advocacy, could benefit children other than your own, children who often don't have parents with the time/resources/ability to organize, advocate, volunteer, etc. That's what they mean. It means if schools were less economically segregated, all students would benefit from increased resources, increased opportunity.

And if you do not to want to be part of the system, or give back as much as you are willing to take, go pay for private school all by yourself, where your children can be surrounded by a homogeneous peer group and you can cut a check and not think about any of this anymore. Bye.

I'm the pp you quoted. My child attends a public school that is ethnically & socio-economically diverse. I volunteer at the school. But what I'm getting at is, what makes a school a good school? Is it involved, educated parents? Is it a difference in teachers? I think people throw around "good" and "bad" with regard to schools without a clear definition. If it were easy and clear-cut to "improve" schools, everyone would do it. I'm just not sure that the presence of well-educated, UMC families in schools actually improves the performance of kids who weren't doing well in the first place, rather than just bringing up average test scores.

[Anonymous]

I also don't think people even realize whether a school is good or not. They go on reputation and word of mouth often which may or may not be correct. Private schools don't have the same testing as public schools nor the same curriculum. It's kind of hard to compare them. So then what most people are really comparing is SES of a school. I know many private school parents though who could care less how good the school is and are more concerned who the peer group is and how well their child does at sports or extra-curriculars.

[Anonymous]

I'm coming in late here and haven't read through, but I do feel charter schools are very valuable to kids and students. I also dislike how our legislatures and governors have been against them as they are very valuable in communities where the public education is not good enough. I also don't buy the argument that charters deprive monies from the local public schools: our poor public schools get 38% or more of local revenue and fail in core education of students year after year.

So yes I think VA should have more charter schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm coming in late here and haven't read through, but I do feel charter schools are very valuable to kids and students. I also dislike how our legislatures and governors have been against them as they are very valuable in communities where the public education is not good enough. I also don't buy the argument that charters deprive monies from the local public schools: our poor public schools get 38% or more of local revenue and fail in core education of students year after year.

So yes I think VA should have more charter schools.

So this way they'll get even less. Just say what you mean: you don't like YOUR money being spent on THOSE kids. Charters won't do anything except deny entry or force out kids who drag down their scores so it looks like they're actually improving education. They're not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm coming in late here and haven't read through, but I do feel charter schools are very valuable to kids and students. I also dislike how our legislatures and governors have been against them as they are very valuable in communities where the public education is not good enough. I also don't buy the argument that charters deprive monies from the local public schools: our poor public schools get 38% or more of local revenue and fail in core education of students year after year.

So yes I think VA should have more charter schools.

You've given no reason why to support them. Kids already are able to move to a different school if there school is not performing within the public school system. That's why SOL tests are so important. The charters at the state level are regional charters. Think governor schools. Poor kids would not be able to attend. They would live too far away. Charters of course take money away from public education. How could they not? The state only allocates so much money towards education. They are not increasing the amount just for charters. Our local schools btw are all doing fine. They are not failing. If you want more fairness push for better mixed school boundaries and apartments in more affluent areas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it interesting when people say, "if more people like you sent your kids to under-performing public schools, those schools would improve." Would they? Why? What do they mean by "improve"? We all know that kids from higher SES in general score better ok testing, but bringing up average test scores is not improving the quality of teaching at a school. And is not about money. DC spends an exorbitant amount of money per student with very poor outcomes.

I also think people tend to focus on "the school" vs the students in these conversations.

It means that your money, time, advocacy, could benefit children other than your own, children who often don't have parents with the time/resources/ability to organize, advocate, volunteer, etc. That's what they mean. It means if schools were less economically segregated, all students would benefit from increased resources, increased opportunity.

And if you do not to want to be part of the system, or give back as much as you are willing to take, go pay for private school all by yourself, where your children can be surrounded by a homogeneous peer group and you can cut a check and not think about any of this anymore. Bye.

I'm the pp you quoted. My child attends a public school that is ethnically & socio-economically diverse. I volunteer at the school. But what I'm getting at is, what makes a school a good school? Is it involved, educated parents? Is it a difference in teachers? I think people throw around "good" and "bad" with regard to schools without a clear definition. If it were easy and clear-cut to "improve" schools, everyone would do it. I'm just not sure that the presence of well-educated, UMC families in schools actually improves the performance of kids who weren't doing well in the first place, rather than just bringing up average test scores.

Well, at the very least the presence of UMC students won't hurt their less advantaged peers' performance. And at best, their parents bring resources, financial and otherwise, that get spread around. Involved, educated parents can make a school "better," if they devote their time and resources toward supporting the school, all of its students, and its staff. If you look at studies that have been done, the only thing that has made a dent in the achievement gap (meaning the "gap group" students' scores improved and the non-"gap group" students' scores stayed the same) was integration. That's it. AFAIK, the studies have not demonstrated WHY, but I'm not sure that we need to find out why. It's better for society that we reintegrate our schools, so if it has the added bonus of improving student achievement, that's just another reason to be in favor of this approach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm coming in late here and haven't read through, but I do feel charter schools are very valuable to kids and students. I also dislike how our legislatures and governors have been against them as they are very valuable in communities where the public education is not good enough. I also don't buy the argument that charters deprive monies from the local public schools: our poor public schools get 38% or more of local revenue and fail in core education of students year after year.

So yes I think VA should have more charter schools.

So this way they'll get even less. Just say what you mean: you don't like YOUR money being spent on THOSE kids. Charters won't do anything except deny entry or force out kids who drag down their scores so it looks like they're actually improving education. They're not.

What is wrong with you PP? You don't know me from Adam. I'm saying that my kid was ill-served in a NoVA public school system and had I been able to use a Charter school, I would have.

Project your own uncomfortable bias onto strangers much?

[Anonymous]

No they are evil

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm coming in late here and haven't read through, but I do feel charter schools are very valuable to kids and students. I also dislike how our legislatures and governors have been against them as they are very valuable in communities where the public education is not good enough. I also don't buy the argument that charters deprive monies from the local public schools: our poor public schools get 38% or more of local revenue and fail in core education of students year after year.

So yes I think VA should have more charter schools.

So this way they'll get even less. Just say what you mean: you don't like YOUR money being spent on THOSE kids. Charters won't do anything except deny entry or force out kids who drag down their scores so it looks like they're actually improving education. They're not.

What is wrong with you PP? You don't know me from Adam. I'm saying that my kid was ill-served in a NoVA public school system and had I been able to use a Charter school, I would have.

Project your own uncomfortable bias onto strangers much?

What exactly was not working for your kids? That could help us to understand.

I am more in favor of more public magnet programs. I wish my child could have attended the language immersion or arts magnet programs in fairfax. It would be nice to have more options of models like that within the public system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No - charters suck money and resources out of public schools. Finland, a country with some of the best schools in the world, has no charters and all kids go to neighborhood schools. School Choice is not a good thing for overall educational outcomes.

I don't like charter schools, but I dislike comparisons to Finland even more. So misleading.

[Anonymous]

Even Finland is dealing with flight out of highly impoverished areas. Boundaries should be drawn so that impoverished areas are evenly distributed among schools. I have seen how a boundary change can remove one school from Title 1 only to place another in Title 1 within a couple of years. Our school is now majority poor with neighboring schools with low poverty. I've written to the school board about it. And to the commented that says people can move their children, we can't due to a waiver the county pursued. So now we are sitting in a nice neighborhood with a school now rated a 2 dealing with issues we hadn't had before. The only choices are to put up or move since we can't afford private.