Raj Chetty Discovers that Poverty Matters After All - Living in Dialogue

Raj Chetty Discovers that Poverty Matters After All - Living in Dialogue:

Raj Chetty Discovers that Poverty Matters After All

 By John Thompson.

Hopefully, a new quasi-experimental study, The Effects of Exposure to Better Neighborhoods on Children, by Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren and Lawrence Katz will influence the domestic policy of Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration. Hopefully, Hillary will understand that this new research by Chetty et. al refutes the teacher-bashing policies promoted by Chetty, Jonah Rockoff, and John Friedman in their previous study of the impact teachers made on students. This prior study has been used to justify the use of VAM in teacher evaluations, and the elimination of due process for teachers.

The new Chetty et. al data shows that the place where children live has a major effect on the economic prospects of poor children. The old Chetty et. al commentary denied that the place where children went to school had an important effect on their outcomes.

The new Chetty shows that the 1990s Moving to Opportunity program improved the health of children who move to better neighborhoods and resulted in a 31% increase in their income. The old Chetty denied that peer pressure had a significant effect on teens and he leaped to the conclusion that it was the influence of teachers, inside the four walls of the classroom, that raised economic outcomes.

As the New York Times’ Paul Tough explains, school reform came from “liberal ptsd” from supposedly losing the War on Poverty. As the New York Times’ David Leonhardt, Amanda Cox, and Claire Cain Miller report, Moving to Opportunity was once seen as an example of an unsuccessful antipoverty program, and its “apparent failure has haunted social scientists and policy makers, making poverty seem all the more intractable.” Concluding that the battle against poverty was too hard, accountability-driven school reformers attempted a cheap and easy shortcut. As Stanford Professor Emeritus Larry Cuban says, these reformers tried to “deputize” teachers as the agents for breaking the cycle of generational poverty.

Test-driven school reformers pushed the bizarre claim that it was poor “teacher quality,” as opposed to the lack of jobs, segregation, and other complex, interrelated factors, that was the key to fighting extreme poverty. And, they did so in a way that was equally strange. Seeming to be oblivious to the dubious Raj Chetty Discovers that Poverty Matters After All - Living in Dialogue:

Grassroots Lobbying Charter School Style - $14k for sandwiches, $87k for buses - Wait What?

Grassroots Lobbying Charter School Style - $14k for sandwiches, $87k for buses - Wait What?:

Grassroots Lobbying Charter School Style – $14k for sandwiches, $87k for buses

Calling themselves a “grassroots movement” in support of Governor Dannel Malloy’s plan to use taxpayer money to open two new charter schools while making historic cuts to Connecticut’s public schools, the New York based charter school industry group known as “Families for Excellent Schools Inc./Coalition for Every Child” paid at least $87,000 to rent buses to bring in charter school parents and students from as far away as New York and Boston for the pro-charter school rally that took place at the Connecticut State Capitol last week.

According to the group’s most recent filing with the State Ethics Commission (filed yesterday), the corporate funded education reform advocacy front group also spent $14,000 for subway sandwiches and $6,771 to Staples to pay for the signs demanding that Connecticut legislators hand over nearly $21 million in scarce taxpayer money so that the infamous Steve Perry can open a publicly funded, but privately owned charter school in Bridgeport and a Bronx, New York charter school chain can save Stamford by opening up a charter school there.

Although parents who “volunteer” for the rallies sponsored by Families for Excellent Schools Inc. are apparently given “parent stipends” for their efforts, the charter industry advocacy group failed to list any payments for the parents who were bussed in for the Connecticut demonstration.

According to their website, Families for Excellent Schools, Inc. “serves more than 50,000 families from over 90 schools in New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.”

The website adds, “Founded in 2011 through a partnership between schools and families, Families for Excellent Schools has built power in communities by engaging parents in the transformation of their schools.”

The group, of course, fails to explain that since it was founded, Families for Excellent Schools Inc. has collected an estimated $25 million from wealthy individuals and foundations to pay for its lobbying and advocacy work.

In New York State Families for Excellent Schools Inc. has become the single largest lobbying entity in the State of New York spending nearly $10 million in 2014 alone to support the funding and expansion of charter schools.  [See Pro-charter group sets lobby record.]  However, Families for Excellent Schools has repeatedly refused to release a list of its donors.

What is known is that among the group’s major sponsors is the Walton Family, owners of Walmart.

According to the foundation’s reports, “The Walton Family Foundation supports Families for Excellent Schools in its work to train parents to create and run advocacy efforts to improveGrassroots Lobbying Charter School Style - $14k for sandwiches, $87k for buses - Wait What?:

 Beware of AstroTurf Ed Reformers 

Just Like Michelle Rhee's Students first only BETTER

Astroturf lobbying refers to political organizations or campaigns that appear to be made up of grassroots activists but are actually organized and run by corporate interests seeking to further their own agendas. Such groups are often typified by innocent-sounding names that have been chosen specifically to disguise the group's true backers

Just Like Michelle Rhee's

 Students first Astroturf lobbying (only Better) 

Other Astroturf lobbying groups

DON'T FORGET THE TAX BENEFITS

Just Like Michelle Rhee's

 Students first Astroturf lobbying (only Better) 

How low voter turnout impacts LAUSD schools | 89.3 KPCC

Slideshow: How low voter turnout impacts LAUSD schools | 89.3 KPCC:

How low voter turnout impacts LAUSD schools

Voters in east Los Angeles, the west San Fernando Valley and harbor areas will cast ballots next Tuesday to select their Los Angeles Unified school board members –  that is, if voters show up.

Past history shows many won't. Over the last 50 years, local election turnout plummeted from a about 50 percent to less than 10 percent of eligible voters.

Without a mayor's race on the ticket, this month's school board runoff for three of seven members may set a new record low. But, as advocates point out, the classroom needs of the district's students are no less urgent and the decisions facing the school board no less vital than 50 years ago.

The incoming school board faces an especially heavy agenda: members will select the next superintendent of the country's second largest school district and decide on a $7.3 billion budget – an amount rivaling Nevada's state budget.

When few people show up at the polls, people are putting special interest groups in charge, said Antonio Gonzalez, the president of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project.

"The only people that participate are the most self-interested, vested constituencies," Gonzalez said at the group's local headquarters in Lincoln Heights.



Government 101



The next generation of Los Angeles voters, U.S.-born children of immigrants among them, may not be so inclined to forfeit their voting rights.

At North Hollywood High School, seniors in an Advanced Placement class, equivalent to a Government 101 college course, are filling out voter registration forms.

"If you are 18 by May 19th, you can vote in that election, but you have to meet the deadline,” Mynor Godoy, education program officer at United Way of Greater Los Angeles, told the students.

Last summer, Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB 1817 allowing voter registration in high schools. Godoy is part of United Way’s citywide initiative to use that entree into the schools to boost turnout.

Critics of United Way point to its close ties with self-described education reform school board candidates who champion the growth of charter schools. But organizers of United Way's voter drive said they are strictly nonpartisan.

Godoy gave the high school students an energetic tutorial on the tricky voter registration form and reminded them not to forget their signature.

"Last [election] cycle, there were more than 33,000 forms that were not accepted solely because folks forgot to sign at the bottom," he said.

When turnout is low, each vote carries with it more impact, a fact well known to labor unions and special interest groups that can get supporters out to the polls.

For Los Angeles Unified's school board elections, those vested interests include the United Teachers Los Angeles and the California Charter Schools Association Advocates.

The board is ideologically split between the two groups, which means this election could tip control of the board toward one or the other alliance.

So far, UTLA and CCSAA have spent $3 million in this year's board elections. The board has opened more than 200 charter schools over the years. Board members also support a 10 percent raise for teachers over two years and approved a $1 billion a year healthcare package for district employees.

Given the political power of the pro-charter and labor groups, other issues before the board can get relegated to the back burner.

North Hollywood high school senior Sienna Holmes' priority is increasing arts funding. The board promised to provide all students with access to music, drama and visual arts instruction, but the initiative sat dormant for more than two years.

"I think that’s what needs to change," Holmes said in class, voter registration forms spread out around the room. "Because we have great teachers and a great program, but it’s not getting the support it needs to really blossom."



Turning up turnout



Students hope to wield more influence over board members this time around. With the help of voter drives, 3,000 of them registered ahead of the May 4th deadline.

North Hollywood High School senior Emily Cisneros spent her lunch talking to her friends about the election and convincing them to sign up.

“Melissa!" Cisneros shouted across the quad. "Quick question: Are you registered to vote?”

Working on one future voter at a time, she walked over and made her case.

“Young kids are not airheads," she said, as she hands out LA Youth Vote pins. "They actually care about stuff."



Once elected, the new school board faces a major challenge: how to turn California' growing investment in public schools, following years of budget cuts, into better education outcomes.

With an improving economy, LAUSD and other school districts are seeing more funding for foster youth, English learners and low-income students.

Some researchers who track school financing said it's difficult to tell if school boards are using the extra money to plug gaps left by the recession or seeding new initiatives targeting high-need children.

Cisneros hopes some of those resources will eventually trickle down to struggling students.

"What I would like – more counselors and more programs," Cisneros said. "Not just for the smarter kids or the honors kids, but also the lower [achieving] kids."

Fifteen miles southwest of North Hollywood, Gonzalez is organizing the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project's latest brainchild – a votería. The campaign is a play on la lotería, the Spanish word for lottery. It offers a shot at a $25,000 cash prize to an east Los Angeles voter casting a ballot in one school board.

The lottery targets Latinos in District 5, where a Latino candidate, Ref Rodriguez, is trying to unseat the white incumbent, Bennett Kayser.

Gonzalez said SVREP received a donation for the initiative, but he declined to say who pledged the cash. He insists the effort is meant only to give voters an incentive to participate in community decision-making.

 "You can't even say you are a democracy at 10 percent," said Gonzalez, referring to the low turnout in elections. "It's not a democracy."Slideshow: How low voter turnout impacts LAUSD schools | 89.3 KPCC:

Abstinence-only curriculum is not sex education, judge rules - SFGate

Abstinence-only curriculum is not sex education, judge rules - SFGate:

Abstinence-only curriculum is not sex education, judge rules

California’s sex-education law prohibits school districts from indoctrinating students on the need to remain celibate before marriage or teaching them that abstinence is the only safe way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, a judge has ruled.

The decision by Fresno County Superior Court Judge Donald Black applies only to the 40,000-student Clovis Unified School District. But as the first ruling to interpret California’s 11-year-old law on sex education and disease prevention, it should put schools on notice that “young people need complete, accurate health information required by law,” said attorney Phyllida Burlingame of the American Civil Liberties Union, which took part in the suit.

“This is the first time that abstinence-only-until-marriage curricula have been found to be medically inaccurate,” Burlingame said Monday.

The state law requires school districts to make their sex-education programs “age-appropriate” and directs them to teach students, starting in the seventh grade, that abstinence from sex is the only sure way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. But it also requires districts to provide “medically accurate information” on other methods, including all contraceptives approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

The law also requires public schools to teach students, in middle school and again in high school, about the dangers of HIV and AIDS and how they can be prevented.

A group of parents in Clovis filed suit in November 2012, saying the school district was using texts and videos that focused on abstinence and made little or no mention of contraceptives or claimed they were ineffective. One video, described in Black’s ruling, compared a woman who was not a virgin to a dirty shoe. Other videos “perpetuated sexual orientation bias,” the judge said, including one that encouraged students to adopt the mantra, “One man, one woman, one life.”

The parents dismissed their suit in February 2014 after the district changed its policies. But Black, in a ruling issued April 28, ordered the district to pay attorneys’ fees to the parents’ lawyers, saying the suit had been the catalyst that led Clovis to bring its ninth-grade courses into compliance with the law.

“Access to medically and socially appropriate sexual education is an important public right,” Black said.

Burlingame, the ACLU lawyer, said objections from students and parents have prompted other California school districts to Abstinence-only curriculum is not sex education, judge rules - SFGate:

California: Bill to limit how districts investigate school residency - ContraCostaTimes.com

California: Bill to limit how districts investigate school residency - ContraCostaTimes.com:

California: Bill to limit how districts investigate school residency 

Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla, D-Concord, has crafted legislation that would place parameters on investigations into school district residency. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group)

On April 2, a Berkeley Unified School District employee knocked on the door of Kim Zvik's Kensington home as part of an unannounced home visit to determine whether Zvik's son lived within the district's high school boundaries.

Her younger 11-year-old son answered the door. The employee asked if the boy's parents were home, and when he said he was alone, she asked whether his brother and parents lived in the house.

Welcome to the squishy world of school residency investigations where kids often find themselves in the cross hairs of investigators' clandestine inspections, interviews, and sometimes their camera lenses.
After reading this newspaper's report last year on an Orinda girl's struggles with her elementary school district and the private investigator who lied to the girl's mother about his residency probe, Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla, D-Concord, has now crafted legislation that would place parameters on those investigations.

Assembly Bill 1101 does not specifically prohibit investigators from posing questions to children, as occurred with the Zvik family, but it does require school boards to adopt a policy for residency investigations. The bill, which will be heard Wednesday in the Assembly Education Committee for the first time, also requires:

Investigators to identify themselves truthfully to those interviewed during an investigation.

Five days' written notice to families before an investigation starts.

Districts to describe investigation methods and provide information about the query to guardians if asked.

No "surreptitious photographing" of targeted children.

An appeal process.

"Specific" facts supporting the launch of a residency investigation.

"I as a parent and grandmother would be very upset if I felt that was happening with my children or grandchildren," Bonilla said in a phone interview. "This shouldn't be done under secrecy. ... In this day and age, we really should expect from our school districts a higher degree of transparency."

Bonilla created AB 1101 after reading in this newspaper about Vivian, a 7-year-old girl who lived in Orinda with her mother, a live-in nanny. The girl was told she would have to disenroll from her Orinda elementary school after the district hired a private investigator who disguised his true identity to her mother, claiming he was an insurance adjuster investigating a fictitious accident involving the mother's car.

Further reporting by the paper also found many districts hire investigators who secretly photograph children coming and going from their houses, with some districts claiming they need such evidence to prove someone lives inside or outside their district.

"There's probably an equal number of school districts that don't use these tactics and they get very good results ... and the process is not violating privacy rights," Bonilla said, citing Pleasanton and Fremont districts as having clear policies.

As for the Berkeley case, the school district said it's constantly combating Kensington parents who want their children to attend Berkeley schools when they are supposed to attend West Contra Costa district schools. Berkeley Unified spokesman Mark Coplan cited an example of a parent California: Bill to limit how districts investigate school residency - ContraCostaTimes.com:

Government Takeover of MPS schools in GOP plan

County exec would oversee turnaround of MPS schools in GOP plan:

County exec would oversee turnaround of MPS schools in GOP plan

The Milwaukee County executive would oversee the turnover of up to five struggling Milwaukee Public Schools per year to operators of successful public charter or private voucher schools, according to details of a proposalthat two suburban Republican lawmakers have been working on for months.

Under the proposal, County Executive Chris Abele — who was not fully briefed about the plan before details were leaked to the media — would name a commissioner with parallel authority to Milwaukee Public Schools.

Abele said Monday that he didn't seek the legislation, but if it passed, he would accept the responsibility.

Staff at the public schools run by new operators — or directly by the commissioner — would have to re-apply for their jobs and, if hired, would waive their right to be represented by a union.

The "Opportunity Schools and Partnership Program" is a proposal by Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) and Rep. Dale Kooyenga (Brookfield). An email they sent to education leaders in Milwaukee late last week for feedback on the plan was obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Darling and Kooyenga believe it's a way to spark change at schools that desperately need it, and to work around the Milwaukee School Board, which Darling said has blocked reforms over the years, instead protecting teachers or the status quo.

District supporters say the plan is a cloaked attempt by GOP lawmakers to dismantle and privatize the public school system, without regard for the glaring factor that's largely responsible for low academic achievement: extreme poverty.

"It could contribute to the total demise of MPS," Milwaukee School Board President Michael Bonds said. "You can only pull out so many resources."

There are 55 MPS schools in the middle of the debate: schools that received "fails to meet expectations" ratings on the latest round of state performance report cards and would be eligible for a change in governance, according to the proposal. In many of the schools, more than 90% of children are not reading on grade level and less than three out of four attend school regularly.

"For decades we have had failing schools in Milwaukee and the leadership has not said: This is unacceptable," Darling said.

Try something new

Kooyenga said they are not trying to undermine MPS Superintendent Darienne Driver, but help her by allowing other parties to try something radically different in the district's most challenged programs.

Darling added that she thought highly of Driver, and that she would like to see her be considered for the role of commissioner — as long as the school board isn't involved in the turnaround schools.

Kooyenga said the charter or voucher school operators chosen to partner with specific MPS schools might be local or national operators that could attract high-quality teaching talent. He said a successful partner might be defined as schools that post average reading and math state test scores that are at least 10% higher than the MPS district average.

Having voucher schools, which are private and in most cases religious schools, assume management of any city public schools is a new twist. Most other states with turnaround zones only invite charter school operators to manage chronically underperforming schools. Charter schools are public schools and cannot teach religion.

Darling said they might change the proposal to say that private schools that took over district schools would have to be nonsectarian.

Darling said the goal would be to gain feedback from stakeholders this week and potentially wrap the proposal into the state budget by the end of this month.

Both lawmakers said there are enough votes in the GOP-controlled state Legislature to approve the plan.

In a statement Monday, Abele said if placed in the position to oversee the program, he would work hard to make it successful.

"I like and respect MPS Superintendent Darienne Driver and would want to work closely with her," Abele said in a statement.

He added that proponents of the legislation should know that he was still concerned about the negative financial impact voucher schools can have on MPS and that he believes public money should be directed to open admission schools, not selective admission schools.

No silver bullet

Driver said the impact of poverty on low test scores would not be alleviated by a change in school governance. She also pointed to the fact that private voucher schools have no better performance record overall than the city's public schools.

"We can't go to the quick fix," she said Monday during an education conference at Marquette University. "I just beg everyone: Don't go to what sounds sexy. Let's go to the data."

Driver said any new plan to address low-performing schools in Milwaukee should also address chronically underperforming voucher and charter schools — not just district schools. She also highlighted programs already in place at some of the district's lowest-performing schools that have started to show signs of improvement.

Bonds said there are other options. For example, he said he could support a proposal to put Driver directly in charge of some schools — as long as it didn't include turning over the schools to non-district operators.

Bob Peterson, president of the Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association union, said the plan was "an insult" to the Milwaukee community and part of a larger plan to privatize schools throughout the state.

"For two white suburban legislators to propose that the white county executive appoint a 'Commissioner' who will have 'parallel authority' to the democratically elected school board is a racist attack on the democratic rights of the citizens of Milwaukee, the majority of whom are black and brown," Peterson said in a statement.

State Superintendent Tony Evers said Monday at the Marquette conference that improving schools doesn't hinge on changing governance but on hard work and adequate resources.

"Looking for a silver bullet is a fool's errand," he said.

Details of the plan call for:

■The commissioner to select up to three schools in 2015-'16 for a change in governance. After that, up to five schools could be added each year.

■The commissioner to oversee schools in the program through direct management or through soliciting offers from charter or voucher school operators. The commissioner would also manage partnerships for school wraparound services that help support children in non-school hours. Darling said they could direct money from other state departments to help fund those services.

■Teachers at schools in the program to not have to have traditional state teaching licenses, but to have to pass criminal background checks.

■Per-pupil payments for children in the program schools to come from funding that would otherwise flow to MPS.County exec would oversee turnaround of MPS schools in GOP plan:

How meaningful is school choice in New Orleans, the city of charters? - The Hechinger Report

How meaningful is school choice in New Orleans, the city of charters? - The Hechinger Report:
How meaningful is school choice in New Orleans, the city of charters? 

Charter school supporters and advocates frequently point to the broad choices that families have when seeking a school in New Orleans, where most of the 82 public schools are charters and most accept applications from across the city. But the concept of choice butts against the reality of supply and demand in a city where many schools rate only average or below.

Nearly 12,000 children in New Orleans chose their desired schools through the city’s mostly unified enrollment system this spring — but only half got their No. 1 choice, according to recently released results.

About 30 percent got their second, third or up-to-eighth choice, the most applicants can rank. The remaining 20 percent or so were not matched to any requested school; half of them will stay at their current school and the other half will go through the second round of the enrollment process.

This story also appeared in The Lens

Related: Billboards and celebrities: How charters vie for students in hyper competitive New Orleans

Granted a wish, most parents likely would put their students in a high-performing school rather than a failing one, but the top-rated schools only have so many seats. So parents are left to “choose” from the rest.

After parents submit applications at the end of February, it’s a waiting game for five weeks until an email reveals their placement — and whether it’s their top choice.

54%: The number of New Orleans students who got their top choice school; 20% of students didn’t get into any of the schools they picked.

Rebecca Lemon is among the 54 percent of families that got their No. 1 pick. Her 5-year-old daughter, Mia, will begin attending Bricolage Academy this fall. Bricolage is only 2 years old, which means the state hasn’t assigned it a letter grade yet.

“We were really nervous about where we might get in,” Lemon said.

She said the New Orleans Parents Guide was invaluable in their decision making process. Produced by a community organization, rather than any school system office, it is essentially the only unified source of public-school information, including information on academic programs, enrollment, school rating and extra-curriculars. The districts recently began funding a portion of its production.

Lemon, a former teacher, and her husband also narrowed their public school choices on principle.

“We wouldn’t want Mia at any school that accepts public funds but has selective enrollment,” Lemon said. “And I wouldn’t teach at any school that did that.”

Their criteria eliminated a handful of highly rated charter schools overseen by the Orleans Parish School Board that have selective admission. Charters overseen by the Recovery School District, all of which participate in OneApp, do not have selective admission policies.

While 5-year-old Mia is just entering school, students already enrolled in school see a lower match rate to their top choice. About 42 percent of students not entering kindergarten or ninth grade were matched to their top pick.

Some of those students requesting new schools were forced to do so. The state did not renew Lagniappe Academies charter, and Miller-McCoy Academy’s board of directors surrendered its charter. Both moves mean the schools will close for good this spring.

Related: Why Louisiana officials closed a struggling charter school while keeping a failing one open

Some Lagniappe Academies families say that effectively means their choice is being taken away from them. Parent Anthony Parker lamented the closing of the school in an interview with The Lens the week the announcement was made: “Why do I want the first round of OneApp when I made my choice last year for my son to come here?“

Parents attending state education board meetings frequently bemoan the dearth of schools directly run by the School Board, which has only five.

In the application process, the Recovery School District is quick to point out, the more choices a student lists on the OneApp, the more likely they are to get one of their choices, (basic statistics would tell you the same thing). And if they list eight schools, each is considered a “preferred” school, for the purposes of reporting on the OneApp success rate.

But sometimes, the schools many parents picked simply don’t have enough space to meet demand.

Edna Karr High School is one of them. The Orleans Parish charter school has a B rating. On the OneApp 1,476 rising eighth-grade students listed Karr as one of their choices. More than half of them, 777 students, listed Karr as their first choice. The high school only had 1,040 students total last year.

The OneApp selection uses software that takes a number of factors into account when placing students, including their ranking of schools and preferences for siblings or if a student’s current school is closing.

Of the 11,391 valid applications submitted through OneApp, which assigns students to a majority of the city’s schools, 75 percent of students got one of their top three choices. On the flip side, 2,325 students, were not matched to any school they wanted. About half of the unmatched students will apply again in a second round and the others will stay at their current school.

Related: The lost children of Katrina

OneApp is used to place students at public schools as well as private schools that accept vouchers. The idea behind the central application was to ease the process for both parents and school leaders, simplifying dozens of applications for parents and allowing schools to better track enrollment leading up to a new school year.

Until three years ago, charters managed their own enrollment systems. A parent would fill out a unique application for each charter school. If their student got into several schools, the schools may not find out until the first day of class whether the student accepted — when they had an empty seat. Or a parent may not have been How meaningful is school choice in New Orleans, the city of charters? - The Hechinger Report:

NYC Educator: Don't Steal Pissable?

NYC Educator: Don't Steal Pissable?:

Don't Steal Pissable?

 Charter schools can be very popular with parents.  Given the potential advantages, a little wee-in-the-pants accident may not mean so much.  So, "Don't Steal Possible."  And, while you're at it, "Don't Steal Pissable" either.


Understandably, parents want to put their children in environments conducive to learning.  High rates of suspension and the policy of "counseling out" can reduce potential disturbances.  So what, if you have inexperienced teachers, fresh out of college?  You don't have to deal with behavior you don't understand if discipline problems are solved by sending "distractive influences" back to the public schools.  The charter-school teacher's time can now be spent on prepping well-behaved kids, with the threat of expulsion hanging over their heads, instead of disciplining students. 

If charters have a secret sauce for "Success," it is not their largely inexperienced, nonunionized workforce.  It is:

1.  smaller class size (sometimes under 15)
2.  failure to "backfill" to the same degree
3.  strict discipline codes
4.  high suspension rates
5.  a greater focus on test prep
6.  counseling out students who might not succeed by school standards
7.  choosing students from a selective lottery process, subsequent to an application process, pretty much guaranteeing a certain caliber of parental concern and involvement
8.  well-funded

So, what if we create more and more charters?  The likes of Eva will end up exiling the very kids who might benefit the most from smaller class size and greater funding.  They are dumped back into the public schools.  There will be too many in overcrowded, underfunded classrooms. 

The proliferation of charter schools creates two increasingly divergent and unequal systems.  The two tier system is evident in any school that colocates with a Success Academy.  The charter school sector will seem to thrive with highly disciplined kids, focused on doing well on tests.  But what will be the long-term effects of a prison-like atmosphere of silent children marching hallways in lockstep?  I do not know.

I do know, however, if charters truly were interested in helping society, they would take the neediest kids, including those with behavioral issues, learning disabilities and severe language deficiencies.  They would focus their abundant resources on trying to help these kids soar in less restrictive environments of smaller class size.  They would function as truly public schools and work with everyone in the community.  Instead of sorting society, they would guarantee Success for all.  They would not "steal the possible" from anyone.  Instead, they would steal the "pissable" and flush it out of their system.NYC Educator: Don't Steal Pissable?: