Thursday, January 14, 2010

Class Struggle - Suburbs too good for charters?


Class Struggle- Suburbs too good for charters?:

"Why are there so few public charter schools in the Washington suburbs? It seems obvious. Both Virginia and Maryland let local school boards decide if somebody, or anybody, is going to get a charter to compete with their own schools. It is a conflict of interest as bad as it would be to let the Post overrule any new newspapers in the region.

Amazingly, the local school board members I have asked about this, all of them caring and intelligent people, don’t see the problem. They have a blindspot about their blindspot, which reduces the chances of creative solutions to our educational problems."



Saturday detention at Langley H.S.

The Breakfast Club” it’s not.
Danielle Burger, executive editor of the Saxon Scope, the student newspaper at Langley High School in McLean, Va., makes that clear in a story about kids ordered into Saturday detention.
While the influential 1985 movie told a story about a bunch of kids who talk and bond during detention, Langley’s detention on Saturday’s is a quiet, solitary affair.
She wrote:
“Students don’t dance around to music and attempt to break out. No sleeping, no talking, no hall privileges, no tardiness--Saturday school is serious business.”
How does someone wind up doing detention on Saturday? Cutting class. Leaving the school grounds. Failing to show up for detentions after school.
The story notes that not all schools have Saturday school, in at least one case because there is no one to staff it.
Read the story to find out what happens if a student breaks a rule on Saturday school, and more.