Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not understanding why the above would be an argument not to TRY charter schools. No one can guarantee a new charter school would be a success--or a failure-- but that doesn't mean the county should not experiment and try it?

The main problem with charters is that the public has no oversight. No one to elect to help run them. On that basis alone, many are skeptical about charters the same way they are about giving money to private schools. Charters are private schools receiving taxpayer dollars. Many people would prefer to work with public figures rather than handing their tax dollars over to a private entity they have no say to in the future.

I think this is a fair point that parents need to pay attention to any activity or school they select for their child. In this report, the charter schools had different levels if transparency:http://projects.publicsource.org/chartereffect/stories/charter-schools-are-public-agencies-funded-by-tax-dollars-but-how-transparent-are-they.html

But I still don't believe that means we should not consider seeing what solutions a nonprofit or even a corporate educational group might put forward. Of course some charter schools are good, some are bad, none are ideal for all children. But tarring all charter schools because of some failures is not a reason to refuse to see what would be made available if APS supported such an experiment.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not understanding why the above would be an argument not to TRY charter schools. No one can guarantee a new charter school would be a success--or a failure-- but that doesn't mean the county should not experiment and try it?

The main problem with charters is that the public has no oversight. No one to elect to help run them. On that basis alone, many are skeptical about charters the same way they are about giving money to private schools. Charters are private schools receiving taxpayer dollars. Many people would prefer to work with public figures rather than handing their tax dollars over to a private entity they have no say to in the future.

Anonymous wrote:I'm not understanding why the above would be an argument not to TRY charter schools. No one can guarantee a new charter school would be a success--or a failure-- but that doesn't mean the county should not experiment and try it?

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.

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.

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.

Anonymous wrote:Charter schools sound good until you look at some of the details. First, they do not have to be open enrollment.

Guess what? No Special Ed, and your school will perform better.

You can limit it to only higher performing kids (not unlike magnet schools).

Meanwhile, it is taking resources away from the public schools that are not allowed to put on those limitations.

How? Say the cost per student is 14K on average. But, in reality, the cost per student without special needs is lower: 20 kids in a class...with a teacher is about 100K for labor (teacher and admin), plus a bit for the other resources. But, in the charter, at 14K/student, in that class, they would get 280K in revenue.

So, they either can profit (if it is a company like Basis), or use the money other ways.

Meanwhile, the public schools, well, they are left with a higher percentage of special needs students...which are more expensive. But, they can not support them, so they do even worse.

Anonymous wrote:I worked in DC for a charter and teach at a Title I school in FCPS after working at a Title I school in DCPS (I left DCPS because the commute was killing me).

I went to a charter as a last minute hire (licensed teacher from a different state who relocated to DC with spouse). The charter paid more than the DC scale for my experience, but it also provided less. Less resources for the classroom. Less support from the admins for students with disabilities and emotional disturbance issues. Less collaboration (I don't think I ever meaningfully collaborated with any other teacher during the two years I was there.). Finally, the teachers were young, eager and completely clueless when it comes to classroom management and executing lessons. Admin did not meaningfully address safety and discipline issues and we were encouraged to "write down" discipline unofficially so the school's data looked better.

The school played fast and loose in assigning teachers. I saw an English teacher suddenly become a calculus teacher without any real training or a math degree or even a STEM degree. Teachers were also fired if there wasn't enough students (we were pressured to sit at Metro stations "recruiting" students to keep our jobs. I didn't, but others did hustle. Unpaid, btw). You were pressured and punished for taking sick days because they couldn't get subs.

The hours were way worse. We had the expectation of working extended days. On a per hour pay scale, I actually make more working for DCPS. There wasn't administrative support for compliance if that makes sense. They skirted the disability and ESL rules regarding service and the students got a lot less than they would in a public setting (where I teach now). Sometimes, they would flat out deny services when it was obvious a student needed it. They would go out of their way to avoid identifying students. The parents were often low information parents and did not know what they were entitled to for their children. I'd try to advocate, but basically was told if I told the parents to push, I'd be fired (did you know that there's no law against retaliation for advocating for disability services? There isn't).

I don't see how that would fly in FCPS unless the charter went out of its way to only work in a poorer pyramid. Where I live for instance (McLean), parents would be at the school with torches if the school tried to pull the nonsense the charter did.

There was a massive amount of money spent on branding. School name crap was everywhere. But we didn't have money for books or learning resources. I spent nearly 2K that year on learning resources.

I left and went to DCPS and now work in FCPS. I'm happier because I think we are providing better services to students and supported/treated like professionals.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Not this pp, but I'd also like charters for Arlington (and I live in a great area for schools in NA). Charters would be a great way to push the capacity issues off to someone else and eliminate a lot of the squabbles people have about building and zoning for new schools.

I'm right there with you. They might bring creative ideas, new funding sources, smaller schools, and relieve the large classrooms and general administrative constipation in the county.