Time for Charter Schools?

[Anonymous]

As soon as charters are involved, there is no central authority on the school district's budget and no elected official that oversees all of the schools budget and program wise.

[Anonymous]

Charter schools are a non-starter in APS. If you want to destroy the entire system because your child isn't liking math as much as she MAYBE would under different circumstances, you should go private, on your own dime. I can't even believe we're having this conversation. Perspective: you lack it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Charter schools may attract students who do not benefit from spending on particular groups e.g. GT, SpecEd and ESL. School resources are increasingly allocated to small subsets and the "regular kid" gets less attention and resources. This is one population that may feel shortchanged by declining spending in public schools.

Many parents don't know what they have until they have it. No one plans for their child to have special needs. It's the luck of the draw in a lot of ways. Public schools make it so we all know that if our children have special needs, they'll get the help they need. Charters put that in jeopardy.

This is such BS. By law special needs will be met. Charters simply offer new ideas to the system. Parents then elect if those new ideas make any sense to them.

It's true that in public schools the union is strong. That's why experienced teachers refuse to teach 3rd grade, leaving this to newer teachers without tenure. As a parent, that unionized environment is not helping my child. It's shamelessly helping the teacher. I understand unionized teachers in the public school have an entrenched interest in bashing charter schools. But I'm not a teacher. I'm a parent. APS is failing my child. She is 12, at that age when girls often think they are bad at math. She has 32 kids in her math class. She hates the class already. You think she is going to get any attention in this class? She has no special needs. She's just a tween who is beginning to feel "bad" at math. I'd welcome a school with a smaller environment, more dynamic teaching,new ideas about teaching math and keeping her interested.

You're in Virginia, correct?

If unions were stronger I bet your child wouldn't have 32 kids in her math class.

[Anonymous]

Unions are voluntary in Virginia and have little control.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous]Charter schools are a non-starter in APS. If you want to destroy the entire system because your child isn't liking math as much as she MAYBE would under different circumstances, you should go private, on your own dime. I can't even believe we're having this conversation. Perspective: you lack it. [/quote]

People are unhappy with the segregation in APS. They are unhappy with the lack of foresight and political will to adequately address overcrowding. The system is seeming dysfunctional to many.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Charter schools are a non-starter in APS. If you want to destroy the entire system because your child isn't liking math as much as she MAYBE would under different circumstances, you should go private, on your own dime. I can't even believe we're having this conversation. Perspective: you lack it. [/quote]

People are unhappy with the segregation in APS. They are unhappy with the lack of foresight and political will to adequately address overcrowding. The system is seeming dysfunctional to many. [/quote]

You don't want charters. You want some changes to your schools and your school system.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Charter schools are a non-starter in APS. If you want to destroy the entire system because your child isn't liking math as much as she MAYBE would under different circumstances, you should go private, on your own dime. I can't even believe we're having this conversation. Perspective: you lack it. [/quote]

People are unhappy with the segregation in APS. They are unhappy with the lack of foresight and political will to adequately address overcrowding. The system is seeming dysfunctional to many. [/quote]

You don't want charters. You want some changes to your schools and your school system. [/quote]

No. I wanted changes. They aren't going to happen within the system, so I'm looking for a different system.

[Anonymous]

Elected representatives are what got us into the current situation. The current situation doesn't work for everyone. Competition is particularly good at encouraging new approaches and wringing out efficiencies and providing good benchmarks of best practices. Why not allow charter schools? If they fail - fine. If they succeed, great. The public schools can learn and become better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Elected representatives are what got us into the current situation. The current situation doesn't work for everyone. Competition is particularly good at encouraging new approaches and wringing out efficiencies and providing good benchmarks of best practices. Why not allow charter schools? If they fail - fine. If they succeed, great. The public schools can learn and become better.

+1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As soon as charters are involved, there is no central authority on the school district's budget and no elected official that oversees all of the schools budget and program wise.

And right now we have central authority (APS School Board) and how's that going?

We have transparency and how's that helping anyone whose child is going to end up without a permanent seat, doing shift scheduling?

And we have elected officials "overseeing" the budget and programs but without any responsibility to the realities of over capacity (shrinking outdoor space for our kids to run around outside, more and more kids in trailers, more and more kids lost in the system, larger classrooms with more electronics instead of education)?

So honestly I don't have a problem TRYING to inject some new ideas into a system that is paralyzed, possibly because of the demands of transparency and centralized authority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Elected representatives are what got us into the current situation. The current situation doesn't work for everyone. Competition is particularly good at encouraging new approaches and wringing out efficiencies and providing good benchmarks of best practices. Why not allow charter schools? If they fail - fine. If they succeed, great. The public schools can learn and become better.

You act like there's someone who can just end a charter if it doesn't work well. How does one go about ending a charter and getting public dollars back? Who reviews the charter? These decisions affect children. APS has so many "choice" schools that it seems impossible to believe that parents are actually looking for more choice in educational models. If they are looking for less class segregation, that is a discussion with your supervisors regarding zoning. Any charter or choice school will take away bussing which does not end up helping the poor who need the bussing. Plus as it is, the poor in APS already has a choice of many schools to get in a lottery for. They aren't constrained to one school boundary. One of the reasons APS is hurting a bit is because of all the choice schools they have. If they were to add charters, it would just dilute resources further. APS is the strongest school system in Virginia. Outside of class segregation, what else do you want them to do? Their schools are doing well, so it can't be a complaint about the teaching. They cannot fix the segregation issue more than they already have with lotteries or through more boundary shifts. The only way Arlington can integrate better class wise is to put more apartments up north and less down south and provide more opportunities for the poor in the county to attend choice magnet schools. Nothing that needs to involve charter schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Elected representatives are what got us into the current situation. The current situation doesn't work for everyone. Competition is particularly good at encouraging new approaches and wringing out efficiencies and providing good benchmarks of best practices. Why not allow charter schools? If they fail - fine. If they succeed, great. The public schools can learn and become better.

You act like there's someone who can just end a charter if it doesn't work well. How does one go about ending a charter and getting public dollars back? Who reviews the charter? These decisions affect children. APS has so many "choice" schools that it seems impossible to believe that parents are actually looking for more choice in educational models. If they are looking for less class segregation, that is a discussion with your supervisors regarding zoning. Any charter or choice school will take away bussing which does not end up helping the poor who need the bussing. Plus as it is, the poor in APS already has a choice of many schools to get in a lottery for. They aren't constrained to one school boundary. One of the reasons APS is hurting a bit is because of all the choice schools they have. If they were to add charters, it would just dilute resources further. APS is the strongest school system in Virginia. Outside of class segregation, what else do you want them to do? Their schools are doing well, so it can't be a complaint about the teaching. They cannot fix the segregation issue more than they already have with lotteries or through more boundary shifts. The only way Arlington can integrate better class wise is to put more apartments up north and less down south and provide more opportunities for the poor in the county to attend choice magnet schools. Nothing that needs to involve charter schools.

Sweetie- I was involved with the AHMP. I've been involved in everything in the last few years. There is no will to fix these problems at the county level. My family doesn't have 30 years to wait. I'll take a charter please.

[Anonymous]

You alone probably doesn't do much, but you won't with a charter either. What about all your followers who want the same thing? Why not mobilize? I wouldn't start getting followers by calling them sweetie though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Elected representatives are what got us into the current situation. The current situation doesn't work for everyone. Competition is particularly good at encouraging new approaches and wringing out efficiencies and providing good benchmarks of best practices. Why not allow charter schools? If they fail - fine. If they succeed, great. The public schools can learn and become better.

Competition sounds nice, but it doesn't really work well for schools. Ranking success of schools by test scores can lead to adverse effects like schools that try to attract more higher scoring students and weed out lower scoring students. The school then looks like it's succeeding, but really it's just shuffling the deck and not really improving the system.

Also, it's different than, for example, a restaurant. Private entities open a restaurant and profit if they succeed or lose money if they fail. If a school fails, you've lost years of education for a whole group of kids. The only people that really benefit from "competition" and "free market" with schools are the big money groups that make a bunch of profit off these charters, whether they succeed or fail.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Elected representatives are what got us into the current situation. The current situation doesn't work for everyone. Competition is particularly good at encouraging new approaches and wringing out efficiencies and providing good benchmarks of best practices. Why not allow charter schools? If they fail - fine. If they succeed, great. The public schools can learn and become better.

You act like there's someone who can just end a charter if it doesn't work well. How does one go about ending a charter and getting public dollars back? Who reviews the charter? These decisions affect children. APS has so many "choice" schools that it seems impossible to believe that parents are actually looking for more choice in educational models. If they are looking for less class segregation, that is a discussion with your supervisors regarding zoning. Any charter or choice school will take away bussing which does not end up helping the poor who need the bussing. Plus as it is, the poor in APS already has a choice of many schools to get in a lottery for. They aren't constrained to one school boundary. One of the reasons APS is hurting a bit is because of all the choice schools they have. If they were to add charters, it would just dilute resources further. APS is the strongest school system in Virginia. Outside of class segregation, what else do you want them to do? Their schools are doing well, so it can't be a complaint about the teaching. They cannot fix the segregation issue more than they already have with lotteries or through more boundary shifts. The only way Arlington can integrate better class wise is to put more apartments up north and less down south and provide more opportunities for the poor in the county to attend choice magnet schools. Nothing that needs to involve charter schools.

Sweetie- I was involved with the AHMP. I've been involved in everything in the last few years. There is no will to fix these problems at the county level. My family doesn't have 30 years to wait. I'll take a charter please.

And you think charters will fix this? How exactly? You know they won't, but you don't really care so long as you get an "out." Dig in and make things better wherever you land, just like the rest of us who have been involved in "everything" the last few years. And if that doesn't suit, pay for your precious to attend private school yourself.