The following is from the blog of Diane Ravitch. If education policy is important to you then I suggest you read Ravitch's blog. It's informative as well as enlightening and will occasionally make you want to scream.
by Diane Ravitch
7/3/2017
There is one super-smart columnist writing in Esquire, and his name is Charles P. Pierce.
He gets it.
Unlike the editorial boards of the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post, he understands that schools don’t get “better” by competing.
He understands that what is called “reform” these days is a massive failure.
He knows that charter schools, despite the boasting, despite the hundreds of millions squandered on them, don’t get better results than public schools and usually get worse results.
He has been paying attention.
In district after district, public schools are outperforming charter schools.
Will someone tell the Walton Family?
Will someone tell Eli Broad and Reed Hastings?
Will the editorial writers wake up anytime soon?
*****
h/t Paula Ram
Showing posts with label charter schools. Show all posts
Showing posts with label charter schools. Show all posts
Monday, July 3, 2017
Saturday, October 19, 2013
An Unnecessary Crisis
The following is from Congressman Rush Holt's newsletter:
Earlier this week, I voted for a compromise measure that reopened the federal government through January 15, 2014 and ensures that America will pay its bills through at least February 7, 2014.
This bill ended an unnecessary, self-induced crisis. But it failed to end sequestration’s painful cuts in government services. It failed to invest in creating new jobs. It followed costly weeks of government shutdown and unnerving the financial world. It set up the prospect of additional confrontations over the budget and the debt ceiling early next year.
Ever since this phony crisis began, a majority of the Congress – Democrats and Republicans alike – sought to reopen the government. Yet Republican leaders, out of misguided deference to the reckless ideologues in their ranks, refused to allow a vote on clean legislation to reopen the government.
On Wednesday that finally changed. The Speaker allowed the majority of House members to work their will, and as a result, our government has reopened and the U.S. can continue paying her debts, as we have for centuries. My hope is that, in the months ahead, Speaker Boehner will follow this week’s precedent and allow votes on other pressing issues, such as job creation and immigration reform, that Democrats and Republicans can agree on. The alternative would be to continue to follow the extreme minority who shut down the government for no apparent reason, with no clear idea of what they hoped to win.
The Evidence Is Clear on School Vouchers
School “vouchers” are a longstanding conservative education reform proposal to allow parents to use taxpayer money to subsidize their children’s attendance at private schools. Proponents hope that vouchers will create a “free market” in education that will improve outcomes – but the evidence shows that, to the contrary, vouchers just drain money from public schools.
In a recent study, researchers at Princeton University and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago found, overall, no statistical difference in achievement between students receiving vouchers and their peers who remained in public school. In a separate study, Milwaukee voucher students did no better than their public school peers in reading, math, and science from 4th through 10th grade. Similar results were found by independent studies in D.C. and Cleveland.
Guided by such evidence, I have always opposed and voted in Congress against school vouchers. We should work to improve our public schools, not pilfer from them.
Working for You
Recently, I was contacted by a Spotswood woman who had discovered an error in her Social Security benefits: due to a mix-up, the Social Security Administration had wrongly cut her monthly benefit, and she was unable to reach anyone who could fix the problem. After I intervened, she was reimbursed more than $800 for the benefits she had missed, and she will receive the correct benefit amount moving forward.
Have you encountered a similar problem with Social Security or any other federal agency? If so, please drop me a line at 1-87-RUSH-HOLT or by sending an e-mail. I’ll be glad to help.
Sincerely,
Rush Holt
Member of Congress
Earlier this week, I voted for a compromise measure that reopened the federal government through January 15, 2014 and ensures that America will pay its bills through at least February 7, 2014.
This bill ended an unnecessary, self-induced crisis. But it failed to end sequestration’s painful cuts in government services. It failed to invest in creating new jobs. It followed costly weeks of government shutdown and unnerving the financial world. It set up the prospect of additional confrontations over the budget and the debt ceiling early next year.
Ever since this phony crisis began, a majority of the Congress – Democrats and Republicans alike – sought to reopen the government. Yet Republican leaders, out of misguided deference to the reckless ideologues in their ranks, refused to allow a vote on clean legislation to reopen the government.
On Wednesday that finally changed. The Speaker allowed the majority of House members to work their will, and as a result, our government has reopened and the U.S. can continue paying her debts, as we have for centuries. My hope is that, in the months ahead, Speaker Boehner will follow this week’s precedent and allow votes on other pressing issues, such as job creation and immigration reform, that Democrats and Republicans can agree on. The alternative would be to continue to follow the extreme minority who shut down the government for no apparent reason, with no clear idea of what they hoped to win.
The Evidence Is Clear on School Vouchers
School “vouchers” are a longstanding conservative education reform proposal to allow parents to use taxpayer money to subsidize their children’s attendance at private schools. Proponents hope that vouchers will create a “free market” in education that will improve outcomes – but the evidence shows that, to the contrary, vouchers just drain money from public schools.
In a recent study, researchers at Princeton University and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago found, overall, no statistical difference in achievement between students receiving vouchers and their peers who remained in public school. In a separate study, Milwaukee voucher students did no better than their public school peers in reading, math, and science from 4th through 10th grade. Similar results were found by independent studies in D.C. and Cleveland.
Guided by such evidence, I have always opposed and voted in Congress against school vouchers. We should work to improve our public schools, not pilfer from them.
Working for You
Recently, I was contacted by a Spotswood woman who had discovered an error in her Social Security benefits: due to a mix-up, the Social Security Administration had wrongly cut her monthly benefit, and she was unable to reach anyone who could fix the problem. After I intervened, she was reimbursed more than $800 for the benefits she had missed, and she will receive the correct benefit amount moving forward.
Have you encountered a similar problem with Social Security or any other federal agency? If so, please drop me a line at 1-87-RUSH-HOLT or by sending an e-mail. I’ll be glad to help.
Sincerely,
Rush Holt
Member of Congress
Friday, March 19, 2010
Christie Cuts State Aid To Middletown's Schools By $7.2 Million, What does It Mean?
Wednesday afternoon School Districts all over the state learned how much state aid they could expect from Trenton this year, some districts had all state aid withheld while other had little to no aid cut from their budgets.
In Middletown's case more than $7.2 million or roughly 34% has been cut from state aid, which is on top of the loss of over $2.8 million in surplus funds that Gov. Christie instructed the school system to use earlier this month to make up for the difference in aid that would not be coming to finish out the school year.
At last nights Board of Education meeting, the Board was suppose to unveil its proposed budget for the upcoming school year but could not due to the latest announcement.
Earlier this month, the Board already announced the layoff of 36 teachers, 18 paraprofessionals,2 administrators, 4 secretaries and 4 facilities staffers as a result of the aid cut, now what is the school district suppose to due about this latest announced aid cut that will amount to an $11 million hole in it's budget, how many more staff members will Middletown lose as a result? I would think doubling the amount of staff cuts would be the starting point.
How many teachers, administrators and support staff will have to be let go? Will a school somewhere in the district have to be closed? If so, which one and what will that do to class sizes throughout the district. Class size averages about 22 kids per class right now, will class size increase to 35 or more per classroom?
How about after school programs and extra-curricular activities? Will sports programs be cut, what will Middletown do without football, soccer, wrestling, field hockey or other sports to keep the community and kids active, involved and engaged in school spirit, self-worth and education?
Gov. Christie doesn't seem to be all that concerned about how these cuts in aid will effect the education of Middletown students or students in other school districts receive. It seems that all he is concerned about is breaking the back of the NJEA and its members, with little regard for the collateral damage that he will cause in the process.
Christie has told school districts across the state that there should be no need to cut programs or teachers to balance their budgets, he has stated to them that in essence, all a school district needs to do is break existing teacher contracts by freeze pending contractual teacher salary increase and imposing higher health care co-pays on the NJEA members. Which makes a lot of sense since Christie himself realized that he couldn't do the same thing to state workers in order to balance the State's budget.
Other than breaking the backs of the public unions in this state, which I'll admit need to be overhauled in someway, Christie is going after the public education system in order to push his plans for Charter School vouchers and school choice.
Both he and his Education Secretary Bret Schundler, are advocates for Charter Schools even though it has been shown that charter schools often have worse track records at teaching our kids than public schools have.
Charter schools are for profit operations that do not always make the right decisions for children based on education standards, they make decisions that effect their bottom line and in so doing the quality of education suffers. Statistics show that for each charter school that has some success 2 or more fail and go out of business.
Is that what New Jerseyians really want for their kids education, a weakened public education system that will drive children to a possibly inferior Charter School? I don't think so, residents for the most part believe in the public school system and feel that it is an important institution that needs to be maintained.
It may not be perfect but neither are most Charter Schools that are more interested in their bottom line than the overall quality of their education.
This latest announcement of cuts in State aid to education will have devastating effects on Middletown and other municipalities through out Monmouth County and the State.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Corzine wants to streamline creation of new charter schools
The number of charter schools in the state and the students that participate in the has seen significant growth 2006 and the Governor announced that As a result, he is recommending to the state Board of Education that a new process be adopted to expedite charter approvals. He said an expedited process would cut the approval process time from 18 months to about 11 months, allowing more charter schools to open within a shorter time frame:
Gov. Jon Corzine Wednesday announced significant growth in both the number of New Jersey charter schools and the number of students.
Since 2006, the number of charter schools has increased by 34 percent while student enrollment rose almost 55 percent, the governor said in Paterson.
As a result, Corzine said he is recommending to the state Board of Education that a new process be adopted to expedite charter approvals. He said an expedited process would cut the approval process time from 18 months to about 11 months, allowing more charter schools to open within a shorter time frame.
"Community Charter School in Paterson mirrors the growth that is occurring at charter school throughout the state," Corzine said during a visit to the school. "I am proud of the work that is occurring at charter schools in New Jersey, as well as the work ongoing in many of our traditional public schools. Both our traditional public schools and our charter schools are preparing our students with the skills they will need to compete in the ever-evolving global economy and to secure a brighter economic future."
Corzine's action comes as a rival for the governor's post, Republican Chris Christie campaigns that he would allow for the opening of more charter schools and provide parents a choice on where to have their children educated.
Currently, there are 68 charter schools operating in the state. Six of these will open for the first time this month. Approximately 14,496 students attended charter schools in 2006. That number is projected to increase to more than 22,000 by October.
The Community Charter School opened last September. It was founded by the New Jersey Community Development Corporation and provides education for 350 kindergarten through third grade students. This year, the school has expanded to fourth grade and will serve 450 students.
"New Jersey is fortunate to have a number of charter schools that have been providing high-quality educational programs to children for nearly a decade," state Education Commissioner Lucille E. Davy said. "New Jersey should welcome people with a track record of success who want to open additional charter schools by providing an early decision process. The proposed application procedures will recognize the effective work of proven charter school operators but still give additional time to applicants who are new to the process."
Charter schools are public schools operated by a charter granted by the Department of Education. A charter school is open to all students on a space-available basis with preference being given to students who live nearby. All classroom teachers and professional support staff must hold appropriate state certification.
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