Charter Schools I Love

If I were a young teacher, I’d work hard to set up an arts charter school.

There’s a cool one on the other side of the mountain here in Utah. On this side of the mountain, we are rather culturally deprived and certainly have far fewer funds than over there. The funny advertising slogan someone came up with is “the other side of Utah,” which we translate to mean, “the backside of Utah.” It certainly feels that way much of the time.

The arts charter school of which I speak is a great model. They practice performing arts, theater and music, during most of the day. There’s time provided during the day, and also provided after school and evenings, to do online core subjects. What a great way to do high school! What a great way to grow up!

There are many models of arts virtual schools. I like the idea of using cross-curricular instruction to teach the core, which is the model of Waldorf schools. There are Waldorf charter schools which do this very thing; two of my grandchildren attend such a school. Although they aren’t purist Waldorf schools, I think the adaptations they have to make to be charter schools, such as having certified teachers, are all good. Similarly, you can find Montessori charter schools which utilize this positive and humane approach.

For the science and technology charter schools, the reviews are mixed. This is because it’s very hard to find a large enough population, with the commitment and academic vigor, to sustain good work over the long-term in rigorous subjects.

We don’t particularly hear about athletic charter schools, but there are issues surrounding athletics, mainly that charter schools sometimes recruit and use top athletes that don’t attend their schools, and there is not enough regulation over that.

Measuring by academic achievement, there’s no good argument for thinking charter schools are better than regular public schools, but for these types of specialties, the arts, which are the birthright of all children but which are being cut in many schools, hurray for charters which will keep arts alive!

Is it really about Education, or is there a hidden agenda?

Charter Schools V. Public schools would be an interesting argument if it was truly about education. But look at the legislation currently being promulgated by the Republican Party in Pennsylvania.

Senate Bill (S.B. 1115) would create a statewide charter school authorizer that would remove local control from school districts and place charter approval and oversight in the hands of an outside authorizer with no accountability to local taxpayers, parents or students.

If that is not bad enough consider this from the Morning Call newspaper on October 5, 2012.

State changed PSSA testing rules for charter schools without federal approval

Rules change appears to have inflated success rate of some charter schools.

•                        

Pennsylvania Education Secretary Ron Tomalis (DONNA FISHER/THE MORNING…)

// October 05, 2012|By Steve Esack and Eugene Tauber, Of The Morning Call

Gov. Tom Corbett’s education chief changed the PSSA testing rules in a way that makes it easier for charter schools to meet federal benchmarks than traditional public schools.

Education Secretary Ron Tomalis’ change, made without federal approval, might have skewed the results of the 2011-12 PSSA scores to make it appear charter schools were outperforming traditional public schools, according to a Morning Call review of publicly available test score data.

 

I’ll give my colleagues across the nation a chance to digest this information, post on it, and look forward to an interesting discussion.

 

Good Parenting Leaves No Child Behind

It is a given that the academic achievement gap begins before children reach school. It’s been documented so often that only those who don’t believe in public education would argue that the home environment makes no difference in a child’s education. Only the profiteers like many Charter School operators would argue that schools can educate any child effectively regardless of the home or neighborhood environment they come from. Fortunately researchers like Lareau, Duncan, Steinberg, and of course Coleman demonstrate how foolish they are.

But the most powerful modern documentation that parenting matters comes from a Charter School. Look at the Harlem Children’s Zone.  Their secret isn’t in the curriculum or the teaching; it’s in the neighborhood outreach. Geoffrey Canada’s schools are successful because of the parenting program he put in place. It’s run by parents from the neighborhood that he trained to educate others in the neighborhood on how to successfully raise children.

Parenting is the most important job in the world. Most parents learn how to do it from on the job training or from their own parents, who most likely learned on the job or from their parents etc. We know how important good parenting is. Isn’t it about time that high school children learned how to be good parents? Isn’t it about time that parenting 101 became part of the curriculum? Isn’t this the real test and meaning for No Child Left Behind?

How Much Does a “Normal” education Cost?

How much should we be spending on education? Can anyone really put a quantitative number on that? I have worked with some children who are so profoundly incapacitated no amount of money will help. They have little or no chance of becoming self-sustaining. Without meaning to sound cruel, their time at school is a welcome and needed break for their parents.

Others with limited minds can achieve way above expectations, become self-reliant, experience satisfaction, and give meaning to their lives as well as to the lives of their loved ones.  They may require larger than “normal” amounts of help and money to reach this level of ability. I think of children with Downs Syndrome, Aspergers, and low or borderline IQs who I have witnessed function at high levels in society.

And then there is the so called normal child. Who is this child and what is the normal amount of money we need to spend in order to fully educate them?

I attended a private school mostly for the wealthy. It was an orderly environment, small class sizes, and only two of our graduating class chose not to attend college. I may have been the poorest child at that school and my Dad drove a Cadillac while I had my own vehicle.  That education today is equal to what we spend on expensive colleges.

But I know poverty. I taught in it, walked in it, and experienced the frustrations of it for 16 years. I have seen the debilitating effects that Lareau (2003) writes about stating that parents from different socioeconomic classes have different motivations in raising children. These differences could account for the absence of academic skills in low socioeconomic children when they arrive at school. According to (Lareau, 2003) in poor families it takes strenuous effort just to get through the day. This strain is felt by the children. How much do we spend on these children who have as much ability to contribute as my wealthier classmates did so that they can benefit from education in similar ways?  If we decide not to spend this undetermined amount then is America truly the land of equal opportunity?

Can this number be quantitatively determined? I think not, nor can schools by themselves help children in poverty overcome their home environments. Yet the money and the demand by the public is for schools to do this.

The lack of satisfaction in meeting this demand instead of resulting in programs that work has led to vouchers and charter schools. Only until these methods are proven failures does it seem public education for children living in poverty will truly advance.

I am impatient for that day.  These next few blogs will deal with how the money should be spent, how vouchers, charters, and privatization are just robbing the public in the name of corporate profits.

I would hope that someone can determine a formula detailing how much we need to teach a child with Down’s syndrome, the “normal child”, and the children living in poverty. Each of these children needs a different amount of money to reach their full potential.  We are in era today where public education is viewed by many politicians as growing big government. Education is about growing children, creating citizens. How much should we spend on it and what should it entail. As schools become more homogenous are we truly preparing future citizens for a diverse economic reality? What is the future worth to us who live in the present? How do we avoid being selfish?  These are important questions to answer.

 

Lareau, A. (2003). Unequal childhoods: Class, race, and family life . University of California Press.

 

 

 

 

Up Down All Around & Never Again

I attended an end of year party. The teachers in attendance were joyous and the room was filled with laughter. It was a reunion of sorts, as several teachers no longer on the faculty came to say goodbye. It was the last time they would all be together.

Next year, the school buildings 100^th birthday, it will no longer be a public school. The building is being turned into a charter school. Although a few teachers were asked to remain, none chose to stay. The new charter will have a longer day and a longer school year, but offered no increase in salary. Teachers were expected to work an extra 20 hours a month + 3 full weeks in July for the same money they are paid now.

Not exactly fair is it? That’s why teachers need unions.

Here was a school that just a few short years ago had it together. A tight staff led by a supportive administration, teachers had bought in, worked hard, test scores were up, and no one transferred out of this school. Then the principal retired. The new principal gave no support to staff, blamed them for the problems this inner city high poverty school faced, and after one year teachers left in droves. In the second year some took early retirement in the middle of the year. By spring the amount of teachers seeking transfers multiplies exponentially.  This year test scores went down.  When it was announced the school was being given to a charter operator, no one decided to stay.

If there is a way to turn a school around to the dark side the school the School District of Philadelphia has demonstrated how to do it. Their plan to improve schools, hire someone to manage the school.

What do we pay these school administrators for?

Whose to Blame?

So we had a debate tonight, myself and the other candidates. One opponent, the favorite in the race, announced he supports the idea of Charter Schools as a means of keeping people in the city.

Look, the people who attend charter schools in Philly in general aren’t going anywhere. It’s not about keeping people in the city, it’s about teaching children so they can achieve. Charter school kids are the same kids who can do well in public schools because they have parental involvement. We need programs to reach the kids we currently can’t teach: The ones who start school a half a lifetime behind in what we call the academic achievement gap, the ones who suffer from post traumatic stress syndrome who can’t get the academics in until the emotions get out.

We all know politicians know nothing about education, yet teachers don’t support one of their own who has plans to address these issues. So we get what we deserve. One teacher actually asked me how can you run for political office, you’re not a lawyer? Teachers evidently know nothing about politics and politicians know nothing about education. Whose to blame for the educational nightmare we find ourselves in? Well that answer doesn’t make a difference. As long as we have teachers the politicians have scapegoats.  Thank God for job security.

Go Ahead: Make me a politician

We, the People…

Deserve a government that responds to our needs.  We deserve a government that cares about the issues facing our neighborhoods – facing our children – facing our future.  We deserve a government that knows its job is serving the people.  And how do we get the government we deserve?  We get it by electing people who also know what should be done to make our lives and the lives of our children better.  We need a government made up of competent and dedicated professionals; people that know how to fix problems, not just point them out and use them to make others look bad.

The challenges facing our schools…

Are real.  They did not just appear, but developed over time; despite the efforts of innovative teachers and dedicated professionals.  These problems – the enduring and worsening gap in classroom achievement between urban and suburban students and between students from different economic classes; government mandates that squelch creativity and innovation in the classroom; an education system that coldly equates students with numbers and education with test scores – continue to get worse, despite the efforts of our elected politicians.  Why?  Because politicians are in the politics business.  They do not understand how to solve these very real challenges.

It’s time to take back our government…

From the career politicians.  Our schools are our most important means to shape our society’s future.  Our schools should provide safe, creative, dynamic learning environments that challenge our young people to think and to grow, and to understand their world.  We need to stop relying on the career politicians to fix these problems and turn instead to the career educators.  We need someone who has been successful in the classroom to reform our education policies.  We need someone who has been on the front lines of education to bring a sense of realism and a real urgency to this debate.  We need Keith Newman.

Keith Newman knows our schools.

As an award-winning educator, Keith has real experience with what works and what doesn’t work in the classroom.  He has real experience with proven educational strategies like innovative learning communities, creative assessment tools, and “whole student” approaches to education.  Keith has been forced to accept the unfunded and underfunded mandates imposed on our education system by career politicians whose goal is only re-election.  Our schools don’t need any more politicians trying to help; instead, we need competent and dedicated professionals who know what needs to be done.  Our schools need Keith Newman.

We need your help…

Keith is running for the vacant seat representing the 194^th District in Pennsylvania.  He needs your help to win this seat and to bring to the government the perspective of the teacher.  It’s time we stopped hoping that career politicians will somehow figure out how to fix our schools.  It’s time we elected a teacher leader who knows the problems, has dealt with the problems, and who has practical and proven ideas of how to fix the problems.  We ask for your support in electing Keith Newman representative of the 194^th District. Please visit his website at http://www.electkeithnewman.com and consider making a small donation so we can educate our politicians and our children.

Charter Schools are a Failing Concept

Charters Schools fail because they have abandoned the concept they were created for. Charter Schools were conceived to fill a niche role, to provide a service public schools weren’t designed to perform.

An example of a real Charter School is Arise Academy. Arise Academy only takes students who are or were in the foster care system. Many of these children have emotional scars preventing them from succeeding in a traditional school. The majority of children in foster care end up in prison. Arise Academy has been created to stem that prison pipeline and help these children recreate their lives in a positive manner.

Too many charter schools only seek children whose parents are involved, who behave well, and whose test scores are acceptable enough to raise the esteem of the school. The truth is that if every public school in Philadelphia were turned into a Charter School the dropout rate and the test scores would not change. Philadelphia already is successful at educating the children that the majority of Charter Schools take in. Indeed the highest achieving schools in the tri-state region surrounding Philadelphia are all Philadelphia Public Schools. Masterman, Central, Cappa, Carver, Northeast Science, Bodine I.B., do more than compete. Heck, one of our toughest schools, West Philadelphia, has beaten MIT in solar car competitions on several occasions. Another one, Overbrook, has won the state mock trial competition more than once in recent years. They do it with the same students the Charter Schools are recruiting.

Charter Schools such as Arise Academy are a benefit to education. To many other Charter Schools are in the education business to profit off the current environment created by NCLB. The purpose of NCLB was not to fix education, but to destroy public education and the unions. NCLB may be successful in doing that, but it won’t be successful in changing education or improving it for the children who need it most, the children who Charter Schools don’t take in. So what happens in 2014 when public schools close and Charter Schools refuse admission to the children who are too expensive for Charter Schools to educate?

What does Arne Duncan know about that?

I am tired of reading about Arne Duncan rant and rave that schools aren’t effective, that teachers need merit pay, that charter schools are the way to go, that teacher training needs a revolution. What does Arne Duncan know?

What does Arne Duncan know about kids whose parent keeps them home, truant, hoping the kid gets tagged as special ed so the parents can make some more money from disability income?

What does Arne Duncan know about teaching students whose fathers were killed in the house by armed gunman?

What does Arne Duncan know about the kids in Watts, one in five who has witnessed violent crime?

What does Arne Duncan know about teaching kids in Philadelphia, where its estimated one in ten children suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?

What does Arne Duncan even know about Charter Schools? Here in Philadelphia 60 public schools missed AYP in one target area, a target area most of the charter schools don’t have to meet because they don’t accept students with I.E.P.s.

It is easy to rant and rave about what’s wrong. The biggest thing that’s wrong is teachers no longer have time to demonstrate how much they care about their students. They don’t have time to display how much the student’s success means to the teacher. The research is conclusive that school climate impacts academic achievement. It’s an easy thing to create, but Arne Duncan doesn’t know about that.

 

Hey Chester, I’ve got the good news

The Wall Street Journal reported today that SAT test scores have slipped since the initiation of NCLB and that reading scores on this year’s SAT were the lowest they’ve been since 1994. Additionally, the Academic Achievement Gap is enlarging instead of decreasing.

Chester Finn, a former Reagan education advisor said that if there was any good news in these results he couldn’t find it.

I can. NCLB isn’t working.

The result of NCLB has coincided with the growth of charter schools racially isolating our populations at least here in Philadelphia and from what I can determine in other large cities as well.

There is one stunning success, and that is the Harlem Children’s Zone. What has made Geoffrey Canada’s program so successful is that he has invested in high quality early child care. He has trained parents to insure their children arrive at school on day one with the proper social skills, nutrition, and they are reading ready. This is a formula for success anyone can copy, except bureaucratic bunglers who think they can raise your children.

The message here is parenting works, so let’s reward god parenting. How about cash for brains?  It’s called Individual College Accounts (ICAs)?

ICAs return taxpayer money to taxpayers and benefit all of society.
Here is how it works. When a child is born, $5000 is placed one time into an Individual College Account ( ICA) in the child’s name. The ICA matures as a 401K or 403 B would. When the child enters first grade, assuming the child is reading ready, the parents receive $2000. If the child is not reading ready, the $2000 goes right to the district the child is enrolled in to help pay for the extra costs associated with enabling this child to be at grade level reading by grade 3.
The remaining money in the account continues to mature until the child enters college or technical training school. At that time, a percentage of the matured funds based on grades, behavior, and parental involvement, are sent to the college or trade school the child will be attending.
ICAs reward taxpayers. According to national statistics, a high school graduate earns $392,000 more than a non high school graduate. Children who read at grade level are certainly more than those who do not read at grade level to finish high school. Assuming a 40 year working career at a conservative 20% income tax rate, the high school graduate will pay more than $75,000 in taxes to the federal government than a non high school graduate.
The difference in earnings between a college graduate and a non college graduate nationwide is approximately $1.1 million. Assuming the same conservative tax rate a college grad pays more than $135,000 in taxes over the course of a career than a non college grad.

It just might cost less than NCLB.