Charter schools: Segregation or choice? – Schools of Thought - CNN.com Blogs

Charter schools: Segregation or choice? – Schools of Thought - CNN.com Blogs:

Charter schools: Segregation or choice?

from Starting Point

(CNN) More than 2 million kids are enrolled in charter schools, 32% of which are African American – and of that 32%, more that half attend schools comprised mostly of minority students. This morning, CNN education contributor Steve Perry explains the lack of diversity, saying "We had to convince white people to come to a very good school in the hood."

Perry is the founder of charter school Capital Preparatory Magnet School in Hartford, CT. The demographic of his school has, in the past, been primarily black, poor students–until they were given a quota to provide some semblance of balance. Perry explained the reasoning for the so-called "segregation."

"The children who are typically choosing charter schools are the children who

Florida Board of Education calls emergency meeting as FCAT writing scores tank | Education articles blog on schools in Florida & Tampa Bay: the Gradebook | Tampa Bay Times

Florida Board of Education calls emergency meeting as FCAT writing scores tank | Education articles blog on schools in Florida & Tampa Bay: the Gradebook | Tampa Bay Times:

Florida Board of Education calls emergency meeting as FCAT writing scores tank

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The Florida Board of Education has called an emergency conference call session for Tuesday morning to talk about how to handle a huge decline in the percentage of students scoring a passing mark on the FCAT writing exam.

Preliminary data released today shows that just 27 percent of fourth graders scored a Level 4 or higher on the test, compared to 81 percent in 2011. The numbers were 33 percent of eighth graders this year, compared to 82 percent last year; and 38 percent of tenth graders compared to 80 percent. See our story here.

The primary drivers of this steep drop are tougher scoring standards combined with a return to two graders for each test, rather than just one. As a budget-cutting move, the state decided to 

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National Resolution on High-Stakes Testing

THE PERIMETER PRIMATE: My response to 60 Minutes’ piece on the Gulen Movement

THE PERIMETER PRIMATE: My response to 60 Minutes’ piece on the Gulen Movement:

My response to 60 Minutes’ piece on the Gulen Movement

by The Perimeter Primate

Those of us who have been aware of the Gulen movement’s stealth involvement in an enormous network of publicly-funded charter schools are pleased that CBS News finally gave the situation wide national coverage. However, the 60 Minutes segment left out a number of important things. 

[NOTE: They (and you!) should be following @CASILIPS on Twitter.]

What 60 Minutes omitted

60 Minutes should have independently verified the Harmony administrator's claim that the chain has a waiting list of ~30,000 students. Unless such numbers can be independently verified, the waiting list figures offered by charter schools are hearsay and should be viewed as a marketing strategy.

Sac City Unified's Board Creates Division and Dissension Among Teachers | The Sacramento Coalition to Save Public Education

Sac City Unified's Board Creates Division and Dissension Among Teachers | The Sacramento Coalition to Save Public Education:

Sac City Unified's Board Creates Division and Dissension Among Teachers

by Kate_Lenox

             

                 Last Friday night at an emergency school board meeting that wasn't televised, the SCUSD school board resolved to set aside an administrative law judge's ruling on skipping teacher seniority on layoffs. In voting for the resolution, the board decided to protect newer teacher's jobs at the superintendent's Priority Schools, rather than accepting the judge's decision that the teachers at the priority schools didn't meet the criteria for skipping layoffs laid out in the Education Code.

                The district's Priority Schools have undergone  "transformation" by having new administrators and replacing at least half their staff in the last two years.  They have also had an infusion of cash at the expense of other high poverty district schools through the Superintendent's decision to raise the criteria for Title 1 funds.  Schools now have to have a higher percentage of students who qualify for Free and Reduced Price Lunches to receive the federal funds meant for students in poverty. Another unacknowledged piece of the turnaround plan is alternative placement for some students. Hiram Johnson High School, one of seven priority schools, has hundreds fewer students now than it did one year ago.
                Budget projections are so dire that every district school has had layoffs, even teachers with as much as ten years experience have received layoff notices. Every school has at-risk students living in poverty. The effects are especially noticeable at the comprehensive high schools which are now at 35-1 teacher to student 

Schooling in the Ownership Society: ALEC finds a friend in the charter world

Schooling in the Ownership Society: ALEC finds a friend in the charter world:

ALEC finds a friend in the charter world

by Mike Klonsky

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is an  extreme right-wing, anti-union, corporate front groupthat has worked successfully to pass pro-corporate laws in state legislatures across the country. They have been especially active in pushing legislation that supports school vouchers, privately-managed charter schools, and the outlawing of collective-bargaining rights for teachers.

Following the outcry over the group's pushing of  "Stand Your Ground" laws and racist voter-suppression acts, at least 15 major corporations, foundations, and other organizations have decided to end their funding commitments to ALEC.

Richmond

But ALEC has another way of financing itself that doesn't involve private corporations at all, writes Huffington's Zaid Jilani.  He reports that The National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) is one of ALEC's members at least through 2009 and may 

At Last, Parents Rebel against Standardized Tests | Nat Hentoff | Cato Institute: Commentary

At Last, Parents Rebel against Standardized Tests | Nat Hentoff | Cato Institute: Commentary:

At Last, Parents Rebel against Standardized Tests

by Nat Hentoff

This article appeared in Cato.org on May 9, 2012.

Around the country, more parents are protesting — and some even boycotting — the standardized collective tests that grade the progress of entire classes and whole schools. In New York City and state, where I live — and elsewhere — the results can cause teachers to lose their jobs and can shut down whole schools.

As for the kids, a parent, Coleen Mingo, describes the stress on her sixth-grade son, and on many other students nationally, in “A testing culture out of control,” (NYDailyNews.com, May 2, 2012):

“He worked hard on an unending slew of practice tests. He obsessed over each mistake as if it were proof he was doomed... ”

The Daily News article notes that a 2011 report commissioned by Congress and conducted by the National Academy of Sciences Committee found that America’s test-based accountability systems “have not increased student achievement.”

Moreover, an author of the report charged that “there is widespread teaching to the test and gaming of the systems that reflects a wasteful use of resources and leads to inaccurate or inflated measures of performance.”

And what of the many students who fail — and whose individual problems and backgrounds are not at all known to the test-makers? As I’ve learned from some of them through the years,