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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.