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The school choice and 2-parent household official thread

Compared to the public school system as a whole ?

good lord you suck

yes, it’s a big deal we never figured out whether charters effectively educate students, compensate teachers and protect teachers’ rights, and spend taxpayer dollars that are oftentimes siphoned away from regional public schools
 
Compared to the public school system as a whole ?

There is a ton of data on public schools. Much of what we see is that public schools are tasked with fixing the tragedies in our society and have varying success doing so. Public schools themselves aren't a failure. It's not like middle-class children with adequate resources at home and going to public schools and coming out failures.
 
There is a ton of data on public schools. Much of what we see is that public schools are tasked with fixing the tragedies in our society and have varying success doing so. Public schools themselves aren't a failure. It's not like middle-class children with adequate resources at home and going to public schools and coming out failures.

Public schools are some of the last social mobility institutions in a society that has largely gotten rid of the other ones. Without public schools, for example, we would have to have solved the universal childcare problem already.
 
Public schools are some of the last social mobility institutions in a society that has largely gotten rid of the other ones. Without public schools, for example, we would have to have solved the universal childcare problem already.

Yes. Look at middle-class white kids. The "failures" in their schooling are if they attend school with too many Black kids, learn about history and a multicultural society, and if they don't get into their top choice for college. Those are the main ways middle-class white parents think public schools let their children down. Is that really a failure? No.
 
Yes. Look at middle-class white kids. The "failures" in their schooling are if they attend school with too many Black kids, learn about history and a multicultural society, and if they don't get into their top choice for college. Those are the main ways middle-class white parents think public schools let their children down. Is that really a failure? No.

white peoples’ penchant for land use NIMBYism and reactionary anti-public school politics is an interesting tandem
 
Counter point: CHOICE!

I still remember anti-charter folks in the early 00s saying that the charter boom was a scheme to defund public schools and liberal types (aka “school reformers”) called them crazy
 
I still remember anti-charter folks in the early 00s saying that the charter boom was a scheme to defund public schools and liberal types (aka “school reformers”) called them crazy

I admit to not being keenly aware of macro scale public school policy debates in the early ‘00 or honestly even now. To me, it seems pretty obviously a funding diversion and another way for “capitalists” to carve out a new market for getting government money into their own pockets. My main contribution to this debate today is to sarcastically offer JH talking points in the face of his entire argument and plan being undercut with data and facts.
 
I admit to not being keenly aware of macro scale public school policy debates in the early ‘00 or honestly even now. To me, it seems pretty obviously a funding diversion and another way for “capitalists” to carve out a new market for getting government money into their own pockets. My main contribution to this debate today is to sarcastically offer JH talking points in the face of his entire argument and plan being undercut with data and facts.

Diane Ravitch was a big voice in that corner at the time. I have no idea what she’s been up to since the Obama administration, but she was a voice of reason in a sea of stupidity for a really long time.
 
A lot of the problems with neoliberalism is "well-meaning" center-left people buying conservative arguments in good faith and pushing them as bipartisan priorities until enough people realize they've been had. Education reform, charter schools, and opportunity zones are good examples of this.

Of course, the Democratic Party is still run by the generation that fell for these schemes.
 
A lot of the problems with neoliberalism is "well-meaning" center-left people buying conservative arguments in good faith and pushing them as bipartisan priorities until enough people realize they've been had. Education reform, charter schools, and opportunity zones are good examples of this.

Of course, the Democratic Party is still run by the generation that fell for these schemes.

The United States is actually being run by a pretty big proponent of a lot of bad stuff. Are we allowed to criticize his policy record yet?
 
The United States is actually being run by a pretty big proponent of a lot of bad stuff. Are we allowed to criticize his policy record yet?

Several big proponents. That’s what I’m talking about. Biden has always represented the dead center of the party and plenty of Democrats have been all in for “reform.”

I’ll say that I think the “solution” to public education is simple. Pay teachers competitive salaries and give them the resources they need. Professionalize teaching. Strip the massive bureaucracy of people telling teachers what to do and refocus it toward getting teachers and students what they need.

As long as we don’t do that, we’ll waste money on other things that won’t work. And conservatives know that and will have their wallets open to receive that waste. Neoliberals are fine with more money toward education with little care about where it actually goes.

Give students more of a leadership role in schools and districts. They know schooling better than anyone else. Establish student leadership boards at the school level. Establish a student school board at the district level. Even have elections and have kids run for office. Make sure they have real influence without having to protest or walk-out.

“Teach them well and let them lead the way.”
 
Audits show lucrative family venture at soon-to-be shuttered charter school

https://ncpolicywatch.com/2022/03/1...enture-at-soon-to-be-shuttered-charter-school

https://ncpolicywatch.com/2022/03/1...enture-at-soon-to-be-shuttered-charter-school



Managing Raleigh’s Torchlight Academy was a lucrative family venture for Don McQueen. The school paid McQueen nearly $3 million in management fees between 2016 and 2020, financial audits submitted by the school show.

The Raleigh businessman ran the K-8 charter school with a reported 600 students (state officials could only confirm 489 during a recent on-site headcount) through his educational management organization (EMO), Torchlight Academy Schools, LLC. He created the firm in 2015, along with his business partner and wife, Cynthia McQueen.

Don McQueen is also the school’s executive director, and Cynthia McQueen is Torchlight Academy’s principal. Each was paid $160,000 during the 2020-21 school year, a $60,000 increase over the $100,000 each reportedly received the year before. Those hefty salaries are in addition to the hundreds of thousands of dollars they are paid to manage the school. The arrangement raised conflict of interest concerns among Charter School Advisory Board members, which recommended to the State Board of Education that the school be closed. Last week, the state board followed that recommendation, citing McQueen’s “self-dealing” and “conflicts of interest” and missteps in the school’s special education program.

The school has appealed the decision and the state board will establish a panel to hear the appeal.




This is a long detailed story about pretty blatant charter school corruption.
 
Russia has been a kleptocracy for a long time under Putin's regime, and we can all see the results of that in Russia's embarrassingly bungled invasion of a much weaker and smaller neighbor. It seems pretty clear that the Trump GOP's goal is do the same for America. Trump's presidency was a textbook case of kleptocracy and grifters run amok. While I don't think that all charters are bad, it's clear that too many of them are poorly regulated and monitored by the state (if at all), and for-profit charters have an embarrassing number of cases like this nationally - grifting off public ed, basically.
 
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