Reply to How will new Sec of Edu effect FCPS?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If the out-of-stater doesn’t want to be called out as a shill then perhaps she should share a pro-charter comment that sounds like it came right out of a campaign email.

Youngkin is going to push to defund our public schools with charters and vouchers. Our schools need to be supported, not to be gutted. [/quote]

Okay.  Fine.  Both my bright gen ed kid and my AAP kid were completely underserved and ignored in their FCPS schools.  The teachers were overwhelmed with working with lower performing kids (even in AAP!), and my kids got almost no time with the teacher plus way too much time on Dreambox, ST Math, Raz kids, etc.  Plus, the not-really-curricula that FCPS uses are terrible.  Basically, the FCPS model was to take money for educating my kids, ignore them, and then spend the money to educate higher needs kids instead.  At least at their charter, they're being given a rigorous education, and they're finally not bored out of their minds.  Both kids would have been way behind standard from their FCPS educations (even in AAP!).  Thankfully, we supplemented with AoPS math + language arts classes, so they were still on track for their grade levels.

I suppose if you view losing cash cow students (i.e the bright, supposedly easy to educate kids that constantly get ignored and aren't actually being educated by their teachers) as "gutting public schools," then charters will do exactly that.  If you feel that bright, motivated kids deserve to be educated at an appropriate level, and they deserve to have their funding be spent on them and not diverted to other kids, then charters are great.  [/quote]

As a teacher, I find it difficult to resist the pressure to help the needy over the bright and motivated.  I try to do so because

1. The bright and motivated kids are the ones who make my work meaningful
2.  I didn’t obtain a Ph.D. to spend all my energy on those who are lackluster or need remedial work.
3.  I was bored to death at the public middle school and high school I attended.  I know what it’s like to sit there and watch the math teacher review the same problem for the umpteenth time.

That said, the needy ones tend to overshadow the bright ones just through bad behavior, obvious inertia, or constant complaints.

Personally, I think we need more tiers/ levels for classes.  You can’t put 30 kids in a classroom of widely different skill levels and abilities, make “equity” the goal for the classroom, and not expect many of those kids to be short-shrifted.

Still, I am opposed to charter schools.  Anecdotally, they have had successes, but they have also left many communities high and dry, and exploited resources - both financial and human.[/quote]

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