A Case of Charter School Sabotage
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The Biden Administration is deep in the tank for the teachers unions, and it is proving it again by imposing new rules to sabotage a modest $440 million grant program for charter schools.
The 28-year-old federal Charter Schools Program helps pay for charter start-up expenses such as technology and staff. The funds go chiefly to state agencies, which award the money to charters, and to nonprofit charter management organizations. The federal Department of Education recently proposed new rules that would discourage charters from even applying for grants—which may be the goal.
Applicants will now have to describe “unmet demand for the charter school.” Having hundreds or thousands of children on charter waiting lists won’t suffice. The Administration wants evidence of “over-enrollment of existing public schools,” as well as proof that the new charter “does not exceed the number of public schools needed to accommodate the demand in the community.”
This means that charter applicants in school districts with shrinking enrollment, which includes many big cities, would almost certainly be rejected. “Demand for charter schools isn’t just about demand for the availability of any seat but the demand for a high-quality seat,” says Karega Rausch, president and CEO of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers. That’s why charters have waiting lists in cities with empty public-school buildings.
The Administration also plans to require applicants to “collaborate” with a traditional public school or school district on an “activity” such as transportation or curriculum. In other words, charter operators will be obliged to give the teachers unions that dominate traditional school systems a say in how their charters are run.
Charters would also have to show “plans to establish and maintain racially and socio-economically diverse student and staff populations.” Many charter schools serve chiefly black and Hispanic students in cities. Charter advocates worry this needless diversity rule could discourage schools that don’t prioritize racial diversity in their enrollment models. The rule could also deter schools from opening in suburban areas, or from hiring white teachers even if they are willing, able and qualified.
States and local school districts are the main regulators and funders of charters, which are public schools. But the Administration is trying to leverage federal dollars to limit school choice and prop up failing union-run schools that received an incredible $200 billion in Covid relief since 2020.
After unions spent two pandemic years keeping public schools closed, while many charters and most private schools stayed open, this is an educational and moral disgrace.
Tags
Who is online
418 visitors
Evil won the 2020 presidential election.
Yep.
Such wanton exaggeration in this case is the evil ... congrats on your (Vic)tory.
most charter schools are nothing more than the latest bankruptcy scam for rwnj white collar criminals.
“The fact is we won the presidential election, we won it big." - Donald Trump
Just a reminder, dirty Donald didn't actually win so no, evil didn't win. That was just another lie repeated over and over by evil's sycophant boot licking followers. 'Evil' got its ass kicked in 2020.
After all those lies conservatives Christians have been repeating perhaps it's worth reminding them who the father of the lie is according to their own religion.
"Your father is the devil. You are his children, and you want to do what your father wants. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has never stood for the truth, because there’s no truth in him. Whenever that liar speaks, he speaks according to his own nature, because he’s a liar and the father of liars." - John 8:44
“We stand for organized terror - this should be frankly admitted. Terror is an absolute necessity during times of revolution.... V.I. Lenin
The Administration wants evidence of “over-enrollment of existing public schools,” as well as proof that the new charter “does not exceed the number of public schools needed to accommodate the demand in the community.”
It is astounding that conservatives would find this concept controversial. The staggering amount of money that goes into public education needs to be distributed as efficiently and pragmatically as possible. Favoring charter schools while knowingly letting the massive expenditures on public school go idle is no better than proposals to build bridges to nowhere. Once again Republicans prove that they are fiscally irresponsible.
The fact any Charter or private school gets tax payer funding is in itself irresponsible.
Did you go to public school?
As if that has anything to do with my post, but I did. A small rural community that put an emphasis on critical thinking skills, problem solving and reading comprehension.
I used to repair the typewriters in our typing class. Later I, and a couple of others, learned what was called at the time "basic computer language" from a nearby school and then coached one of our math teachers while he taught his first class in our school.
Said no one who values freedom of choice.
I'm all for choice. I'm just not for paying for your choice.
Then you aren’t for freedom of choice. You support only freedom for your choice.
Huge difference between the two .....
“…freedom of choice…”
Those who choose to enroll their children in private, parochial, or charter schools have never, ever been denied their freedom of choice. But never, ever ask those that disagree with your choice to pay for it.
Have a problem with our public dollars being spent to your dissatisfaction? Either get engaged in fixing it or exercise your freedom.
Let’s not confuse the two.
Never huh? ..... well the gig is up. People are asking. Too bad it took a pandemic for it to happen. People have a right to have the money they are paying for schools, to go to their school of choice and not to a failing business model.
See above.
It’s happening and the NEA and all it’s supporters know it. What do you think this Biden decision is about? Control while he still has it because after November it’s gone. The current public school/union teacher business model has failed and will get revamped. Parents all over the country are demanding that right now.
You’d have to be deaf, dumb and blind to have not noticed it .....
“Parents all over the country are demanding that right now.”
As they have every right and dare I say public responsibility to engage.
But let us not confuse demands for accountability with demands for allocation of individual tax payer dollars.
Lol .... well the system is about to collapse then because taxes for public schools are already being routed to private schools in some states. The fight for all federal per student funds, doing the same is on.
You are free to believe that but it’s not true. The NEA is strong but parents are stronger. Much stronger. Surprised you haven’t noticed declining public school enrollment and rising private school enrollment. This trend started before the pandemic. The pandemic will accelerate that since more parents began paying attention.
Once the funding gets squared away so Funding can follow each student, true choice by the way, kids leaving Public schools will accelerate even faster.
Good luck union teachers ...... you did it to yourselves or I should say union management did it to you good.
When you want to honestly engage in the subject let me know. Until then...
Lol .... translation:
you’re cornered and can’t find a way to save face.
Your shtick is getting awful old ....
Is not an argument. It's a cop out.
Your taunting will get you nowhere.
You have the FREEDOM of continuing to be an ass, the FREEDOM of not replying to my comments or the FREEDOM of putting up an actual intelligent comment worth further discussion. The CHOICE is yours.
“…so Funding can follow each student…”
So you agree with my premise that it is ‘funding’ with which you take issue. You propose that public educational dollars should be determined by the individual tax payer.
So by extension, then every single outlay of public spending should be held to the same standard…be careful what you wish for.
Let us all work to fix what is wrong in dispersing these local and state expenditures than to conflate it to yet another national political scrum…where it is expediently talked about but never practically addressed.
Charter school? Good on you, but your choice to pay to play.
Charter schools are public schools
I went to both. I had a private elementary school education and was half way through a private high school when I decided that I didn't want to go to college. I switched over the the public high school to simply to finish high school. (Don't ask we where my mind was at the time.) After my first full day in the public high school, my Math teacher took we aside and asked "how far behind are we?" I told him about 1 year behind. Mr Walsh, as I recall.
Fascinating idea.
I disagree with the choice of borrowing $300k to get a university degree in some unemployable gobshiterry like "gender studies". So does this mean those people have to stop asking me to pay their student loans?
Indeed.
Couple of questions: Are food stamps only good at government-owned grocery stores? Section 8 vouchers only good in govt-run apartments? Medicaid only good at government hospitals?
Or do we in fact have a longstanding arrangement where goods and services paid for by tax dollars can be fulfilled by private vendors?
Obviously, having hundreds or thousands of children on charter waiting lists should be ample evidence of the need for them.
The public school system has failed us and the Teacher's union was a big part of that.
Suck it up, get your ass to school, and quit blaming the school for your failure to learn. There was no internet or even cell phone technology when I was in school, thus options for learning assistance were far fewer. This is just cover for the real goal of conservatives - taking America in the direction they want it to go.
Fuck off.
Been there done that won several attendance awards- almost as good as a participation award.
Did you have to walk up hill both ways? I know I did. My parents had to 3 miles a piece each day. I wimped out at only a mile and a half. Internet wasn't even a real thing until I was out of college.
I didn't have to blame the school system for their piss poor educational system. I had a father for that. Miserable father; but great at busting worthless teacher's chops that didn't give a shit. Unions made sure their worthless asses that were only waiting on retirement got tenure; and my father made their life a hell over it. I had several tutors I learned far more from than any of my public school teachers. Schools kept asking for increased mileages; which they always received. Since most of those went to the football and hockey team stadiums (something the area actually supported; not the worthless teacher's unions). Graduated both high school and college with honors; no thanks to the public system. I don't blame anyone for wanting a choice in how their kids are educated; or not wanting to us the public school system.
Like Democrats aren't by turning the public school system into their own indoctrination centers. What are Democrats so damn afraid of; that given the choice people will make them irrelevant?
“The public school system has failed us…”
Please.
Do you enjoy the life you are living at this moment? If so, you should acknowledge the efforts of those innumerable, unnamed, and publicly educated people that enable that enjoyment.
If you for a second think that we, as a society, would be better served without public education as an essential piece of an ever evolving puzzle, then you become but another piece that will never fit in attempting to see the entire picture.
That would imply having to walk downhill both ways.
Wow, your education really failed you if you never heard the saying "Had to walk to school up hill. Both ways!"
Your parents never said that once to you? No teachers when students were bitching about the weather? Didn't get the trick math problem asking that question; and have to figure out how to solve it?
By the way; it literally doesn't mean uphill both ways.
A society of individuals who have the ability to think for themselves and not rely on the government for hand outs.
Isn't the whole article about conservatives whining they aren't getting enough government hand outs?
Since you’re getting personal, let’s talk. I went to public grade school, then public middle school, and then my landlord (aka parents) decided I was going to a private Jesuit high school - knowing full well that I was an atheist. At first I protested, but I knew that capitulation was the road to stability at home so I sucked it up and graduated from there. Did I whine like a little bitch that I had to wear a tie every day, listen to regular prayer garbage, take a mandatory religion class every year, settle for having religious iconography shoved down my throat every day, and be governed by people who overtly shared views 100% opposite as my own? No. As a private, parochial school they had every right to manage education how they saw fit, and it would be pointless and hypocritical of me to argue against it.
Conservatives, on the other hand, regularly whine like little bitches that public schools are forbid from conducting themselves like private parochial schools. They have the same options as I did in choosing a school, and they have churches up the wazoo to fill that religious gap, but they just want every option to conform to their twisted values. Incidentally, the Jesuit HS is where I first got introduced to a long history of recreational drugs. Turns out that forcing your kids into that environment does nothing to combat their sense of experimentation, it just introduces more kids with greater access to money to the substances you wanted them to not be exposed to in the first place.
Yep, parents are pulling their kids from public schools for cause in record numbers. This is the only way to stop the bleeding.
Totalitarian control ..... stop freedom of school choice at any cost. The NEA mantra.
No to all 3 questions., being from Canada you would have to add barefoot in the snow.
Your argument is about as cogent and logical as the Op-Ed posted here.
That is not in question.
No trouble. I understand exactly how populist conservative deflect blame for all their troubles. It's not working so well for them, but it's a hill most of them are willing to die on so lead on Macduff...
Well, to be more specific it's about conservatives whining that the federal government isn't giving them more hand outs and taking money from public schools to give to them so they can start more of their Christian madrassas in areas where there is more than enough room for students in the current public school system but they object to the public school system curriculum void of Christian teachings but containing unvarnished American history, alertness to injustice (especially racism) and their rules on diversity.
When conservatives whine and complain about taxation and socialist programs while also demanding they get a larger share of entitlements you have to remember many believe their "God/faith/religious belief" justifies their blatant hypocrisy if they're even aware of it. Christians and those of other faiths have, throughout history, used their faith to justify wars, genocides, forced conversions, torture and all manner of despicable behavior, their blatant hypocrisy is almost too minor a discretion to even mention in comparison.
Also, they likely believe liberals and progressives take twice as much in entitlements so they justify just jumping on the entitlement train so all the money doesn't get "stolen" by the 'Cadillac driving welfare queens' they imagine are gobbling up all the entitlement funds. Of course the fact that more conservatives use entitlements than liberals is a fact they refuse to believe because like so many other inconvenient facts in the world around them like the age of the earth, their conservative candidate lost the election, climate change etc. don't pass their religious 'gut' test which is the best some can do with barely a high school education but decades of religious indoctrination.
"when the lens shifts to political ideology" " the share of conservatives (57% ), liberals (53%) or political moderates (53%) who have been assisted by at least one entitlement program ."
Why on earth was that hateful disgusting personal attack allowed?
[removed]
Fantastically racist statement, given the statistics on public education in this country.
Racist? Omg, you guys are everything that you claim liberals are - snowflakes who find racism in everything.
The question is why are the conservatives steering this conversation directly into racism?
Clearly you are the type of person I am referring to, as indicated by your lack of reading skills.
Yes. Or are you just completely unaware of the statistics?
American public schools have failed minority children for decades, by every empirical metric. There is a gargantuan racial achievement gap that has been widely documented since the 1980s. Before you give the standard lovely lefty excuse about funding, understand that the gap still exists in integrated schools where per-pupil funding is identical. Also understand that this gap can be measured consistently as early as the third grade.
So saying "suck it up" and "stop blaming the school for your failure to learn" to kids who are trapped in shitty schools that don't teach them anything is not only asinine, it's racist, because the majority of those kids are black or Latino.
As inconvenient as it may be for your raging and idiotic political bias, math is a real thing (which public schools actually teach to Asians and affluent white kids).
Because the majority of kids enrolled in charter schools are minority....which everybody with a clue about charter schools already knows.
If you're really this unfamiliar, maybe you should read a little before saying shit like "suck it up" and "stop blaming the school for your failure to learn."
Start here:
Then maybe go here:
Answer is simple- cut funding to public schools were demand is down. If demand us high for charter schools in the area- then the funding should go to them. Reward what works; not teachers unions that don't give a rats ass about the quality of education.
Democrats don't get that not everyone wants their children run through their leftist indoctrination meat grinders of poor education. The public school systems that are beholden to teachers unions and leftist dogma are the true bridges to no where.
Once again Democrats prove they don't give a rats as about education or children. Keep dumping forever more money into the failed public school systems; and the US will continue to lag behind the rest of the developed world in education.
If demand us high for charter schools in the area- then the funding should go to them.
You’ve just crystallized the point of my comment. The infrastructure is extremely expensive and already exists. When you move do you just abandon your old home and let it rot back into the earth so you can start from scratch with a new one? Of course not. You have just demonstrated the epitome of fiscal irresponsibility.
Democrats don't get that not everyone wants their children run through their leftist indoctrination meat grinders of poor education.
Oh goody - more extreme OAN talking points.
It sucks; and will continue to suck no matter how much money Democrats want to dump into it.
Seen Detroit? Abandoned houses everywhere. All in piss poor condition that can be bought for a few thousand dollars; that is if you can fix everything wrong with them. They even have a TV show all about 2 guys who live in the houses while they are fixing them; they renovate 3 or 4 houses at once. Look up "Bargain Block" on HGTV. Seems that Democrats don't agree with you in principle. Most people would try and sell their homes and see what they could get to help offset the price of a new one. That is unless they are so underwater that it is just cheaper to walk away than continue to pay the bank. They are called money pits; and that is exactly what the public school system is.
Coming from someone that doesn't understand fiscal responsibility that is a laugh.
Just look at all that fiscal irresponsibility; and the crappy results that go along with it. But don't blame the public education system sucking down all the money. Typical leftist drivel.
Picking Detroit to define the state of public education is pretty fucking desperate. I grew up in Toledo, just a few miles south of Detroit and the difference is stark. If you want to be taken seriously then stop presenting the worst case scenario as if it’s the state of the union.
Check the link. We spend more on public education than any other country by a wide margin; and get shitty results for it. That isn't just Detroit. It is the entire US. Why is that?
So first, let's be clear, this has nothing to do with vouchers and a charter school getting the same amount per student for an equal education from a public school. This is about hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding to "start up" new charter schools. The rules of course require that the local public schools be full for the government to give millions to some likely Christian group or investors who want to build another mostly segregated Christian madrassa.
Translation: White conservative Christians want the hundreds of millions in federal funding that come out of every Americans pockets regardless of race, but they reject any diversity requirements that might encourage them to hire anyone other than white conservative Christians.
Ah yes, the classic cry of victimhood from those persecuted white conservative Christians who claim any support for diversity is reverse racism against white Christians.
I mean even in public schools, where Christian conservatives say the reverse racism is overwhelmingly prevalent which is why they want their kids indoctrinated in a white Christian charter school that won't teach their kids about how their white conservative Christian ancestors treated minorities, 80% of public school teachers identify as non-Hispanic White. Does that sound like there's an issue "hiring white teachers even if they are willing, able and qualified"?
Complete nonsense. The only "moral disgrace" are the Christian conservative wolves in sheep's clothing that are desperately trying to get those hundreds of millions in federal funding into their own or their churches deep pockets and to move our country closer to a right wing conservative Christian theocracy where most federal dollars for education are given to them along with the job of indoctrinating children in white conservative Christian ideology.
Also, claiming the charter and private schools fared so much better than public schools during the pandemic without noting the huge differences in both schools sizes, financial diversity and the fact that charter and public schools often have far more authoritarian structures and latitude when creating and enforcing safety protocols is dishonest at best.
The problem as I see it is that our nations youth do need a quality education and frankly many public schools are falling short. This should inspire American parents to support public school improvements and investment in our teachers since it's an investment in our children's futures yet right now the average teachers makes about the same as the average construction worker. And instead of wanting what's best for all children the mostly right wing conservative Christians seem desperate to defund the public school system that embraces diversity and teach unvarnished American history, while giving that federal funding to their exclusive right wing conservative Christian schools where they have not only the ability but a mission to indoctrinate children with their conservative Christian ideology unopposed.
Some charter schools are probably well run, but the majority of students that have been enrolled in charter schools have had worse academic outcomes than the students in regular public schools.
If anyone cares about educating children in the US, then they should be involved in childhood education in their own communities.
As per usual with privatizing services that should never be privatized, the charter schools have largely just funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to con artists.
One small example of cases of corruption in the charter school system.
another example of why charter schools may have done far more damage than just working on improving existing public schools without a profit motive.