Senators: VOTE NO on H.R. 2218 - Empowering Parents through Quality Charter Schools Act
Charter Schools are not a meaningful direction for education reform for these six reasons:
1) Charter schools are an idea, a leap of faith made by MBA-style thinkers. They were not an idea born of educators or learning theory.
I learned about charter schools when I was a teacher in Colorado. I wanted to know why charter schools were better than traditional public schools. No Child Left Behind stated that if a school did not meet AYP for three years, all teachers would be removed and the school would become a charter. I had no formulated opinion of charter schools at the time. I simply wanted to know more about what they were and why they were the solution.
I read most of the No Child Left Behind Act and set up appointments with a variety of people. I met with our superintendent, a number of people from the Education Commission of the States and my state representative. Once I became more politically involved, I realized the disconnect between education reform and learning theory. People in the field of education policy were not teachers at one point. Their backgrounds varied but they had no base in learning theory.
When I was asking about charter schools, I was referred to a man from the Education Commission of the States who was the major charter school proponent. He offered no proof to me that turning my school into a charter school would work, but we had an interesting conversation. He now he works for a prominent charter school organization.
Charter school advocates had no promise of a grand plan of how to make a charter school a center of learning. Charter schools simply stripped many of the rules away that apply to public schools. The movie Waiting for Superman, while very gripping, had a very slanted view. It made charter schools into the answer for public education when they have actually exacerbated the problem that No Child Left Behind established.
2) Charter schools are denying access to students with special needs to public education.
A very serious problem is occurring because of charter schools. Public education is being denied to students and students are being asked to leave charter schools. Public schools do not turn students away. We do not send children back. Children are not blueberries. Please read Jamie Vollmer's story about Blueberries.
"When talk-show host Oprah Winfrey handed a $1 million check last September to the principal of New Orleans Charter Science and Math Academy, 200 students watched the broadcast from a church and celebrated with a brass band.
Lawrence Melrose, a ninth-grader with learning and emotional disabilities, sat next door in a school office. The staff was concerned his fighting and cursing could be an embarrassment..."- from Oprah-Backed Charter School Denying Disabled Collides With Law
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"My son, Matthew, was kicked out of Kindergarten in the fall of 2008 at the Harlem Success Charter. It took a long time for me and Matthew to get over this experience, and for me to feel comfortable talking about it..." Eva Moskowitz
----- "It should be noted—and Guggenheim didn’t note it—that Canada (Waiting for Superman)kicked out his entire first class of middle school students when they didn’t get good enough test scores to satisfy his board of trustees. This sad event was documented by Paul Tough in his laudatory account of Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone, Whatever It Takes (2009)." The Myth of Charter Schools by Diane Ravitch
3) Charter schools are re-segregating public schools.
There an investigation into Florida's charter schools re-segregating public schools in Florida. Florida Charters Less Diverse than Other Public Schools by Dave Weber
4) Charter schools have not outperformed public schools.
- Charter schools are an idea, a leap of faith made by MBA-style thinkers. They were not an idea born of educators or learning theory.
- Charter schools are denying access to students with special needs to public education.
- Charter schools are resegregating public schools.
- Charter schools have not outperformed public schools.
- There are no requirements that a teacher be trained or certified to be hired by many charter schools.
- Charter schools are found in strip malls in Florida. After reading proposed HR 2218, I expect to see charter schools expand in this nature.
Voters, join me by signing this petition
1) Charter schools are an idea, a leap of faith made by MBA-style thinkers. They were not an idea born of educators or learning theory.
I learned about charter schools when I was a teacher in Colorado. I wanted to know why charter schools were better than traditional public schools. No Child Left Behind stated that if a school did not meet AYP for three years, all teachers would be removed and the school would become a charter. I had no formulated opinion of charter schools at the time. I simply wanted to know more about what they were and why they were the solution.
I read most of the No Child Left Behind Act and set up appointments with a variety of people. I met with our superintendent, a number of people from the Education Commission of the States and my state representative. Once I became more politically involved, I realized the disconnect between education reform and learning theory. People in the field of education policy were not teachers at one point. Their backgrounds varied but they had no base in learning theory.
When I was asking about charter schools, I was referred to a man from the Education Commission of the States who was the major charter school proponent. He offered no proof to me that turning my school into a charter school would work, but we had an interesting conversation. He now he works for a prominent charter school organization.
Charter school advocates had no promise of a grand plan of how to make a charter school a center of learning. Charter schools simply stripped many of the rules away that apply to public schools. The movie Waiting for Superman, while very gripping, had a very slanted view. It made charter schools into the answer for public education when they have actually exacerbated the problem that No Child Left Behind established.
2) Charter schools are denying access to students with special needs to public education.
A very serious problem is occurring because of charter schools. Public education is being denied to students and students are being asked to leave charter schools. Public schools do not turn students away. We do not send children back. Children are not blueberries. Please read Jamie Vollmer's story about Blueberries.
"When talk-show host Oprah Winfrey handed a $1 million check last September to the principal of New Orleans Charter Science and Math Academy, 200 students watched the broadcast from a church and celebrated with a brass band.
Lawrence Melrose, a ninth-grader with learning and emotional disabilities, sat next door in a school office. The staff was concerned his fighting and cursing could be an embarrassment..."- from Oprah-Backed Charter School Denying Disabled Collides With Law
-----
"My son, Matthew, was kicked out of Kindergarten in the fall of 2008 at the Harlem Success Charter. It took a long time for me and Matthew to get over this experience, and for me to feel comfortable talking about it..." Eva Moskowitz
----- "It should be noted—and Guggenheim didn’t note it—that Canada (Waiting for Superman)kicked out his entire first class of middle school students when they didn’t get good enough test scores to satisfy his board of trustees. This sad event was documented by Paul Tough in his laudatory account of Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone, Whatever It Takes (2009)." The Myth of Charter Schools by Diane Ravitch
3) Charter schools are re-segregating public schools.
There an investigation into Florida's charter schools re-segregating public schools in Florida. Florida Charters Less Diverse than Other Public Schools by Dave Weber
4) Charter schools have not outperformed public schools.
"When charter schools started in the early 1990s, their supporters promised that they would unleash a new era of innovation and effectiveness. Now there are some 5,000 charter schools, which serve about 3% of the nation's students, and the Obama administration is pushing for many more.
But the promise has not been fulfilled. Most studies of charter schools acknowledge that they vary widely in quality. The only major national evaluation of charter schools was carried out by Stanford economist Margaret Raymond and funded by pro-charter foundations. Her group found that compared to regular public schools, 17% of charters got higher test scores, 46% had gains that were no different than their public counterparts, and 37% were significantly worse." Taken from Why I Changed My Mind About School Reform by Diane Ravitch