Charter Schools Vote (Atlanta: appointed, how much, school district)

[AcidSnake]

Originally Posted by MathmanMathman

The State Charter Commission sounds like it will work like our BOR. Maybe removing politics and union influence would help our schools. Our university and technical college system are burdened by unprepared students to whom post-secondary schools have to finally give the education the students should have had in high school.

I'm not comfortable with the comparison of the State Charter Commission to the Board of Regents.

The first reason being that when children reach age that they legally able to make adult decisions, they have multiple avenues to living their lives, whether it's going to an academic college, going to a technical college, going into the workforce, joining the military, or getting an apprenticeship from a local guild or craft union(plumbing, electrician, etc.)

The second reason being that as a child you don't have a choice where you receive an education. You are solely dependent on the hopes that your elders, be they your parents/guardians and/or the larger political forces who govern your education systems, have your best interests at heart.

Legislation that can give an unelected agency the potential to rob your local education system of the resources needed to mold your educational development at the moment where it is needed most...cannot be compared to a system(GaBOR) that you have the freedom of choice legally to either receive schooling from or not.

It's just not comparable.

But I do agree with you that under our current K-12 education system, young adults are graduating unprepared. You and I simply disagree on how to solve this situation.

[aries4118]

I have voted--

NO.



See Brother Snake's and Lady Holcomb's excellent commentary for a lot of my reasons.

[MathmanMathman]

Originally Posted by AcidSnake

There are complexities to be sure, I'll give you that much.

But in my opinion, those complexities stem only from the political & social realities that have plagued Georgia off and on since the end of the Reconstruction era.

If people would only open their minds a little bit, a whole lot can be done. I only wish that the successful but fragile multiracial coalition of political, business, & community leadership that were able to steer Atlanta from the chaos of the Civil Rights era up until around end of the 1990s was still in control.

So much was accomplished in that brief time span.

Why do you want a multiracial coalition when you reject it as issue in school excellence in the first place?

[AcidSnake]

"Waiting for Superman" is a sad but shortsighted documentary that is long on emotional heartstring pulling...and short on truly looking at the political, economic, & social factors that hinders real education reform. So I would definitely not look to that movie as some sort of raison d'être to jump fully headfirst into a unelected State Charter Commission that at best only provides a piecemeal reform effort.

"Waiting for Superman" to me is simply using the suffering of inner-city children at the hands of a structurally unequal economic & political system to trojan horse into mass acceptance of an even more unequal piecemeal education system that only a few can truly take advantage of.

I can't in all good conscious, reconcile myself with that reality.

Originally Posted by MathmanMathman

Check out "Waiting for Superman". A documentary about our school systems.

Libraries with a copy
1. Georgia State University
DVD video

2.Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System
DVD video

3.Georgia Institute of Technology
DVD video

4.Robert W. Woodruff Library of the Atlanta University Center, Inc.
DVD video

5.Atlanta Metropolitan State College
DVD video

6.Emory University
Robert W. Woodruff Library
DVD video

The teacher's unions will not accept reform...just more money. And why aren't there more Charter Schools? Because of opposition to it like we see now.

[atltechdude]

Originally Posted by AcidSnake

"Waiting for Superman" to me is simply using the suffering of inner-city children at the hands of a structurally unequal economic & political system to trojan horse into mass acceptance an even more unequal piecemeal education system that only a few can truly take advantage of.

It's true that only a few will be enrolled in charter schools, but the hope here is that when school boards see that the performance of their schools has dropped to such a degree that the possibility of a charter school opening up and taking away some of their funding is now a reality, that will be a powerful motivating factor for them to improve things for all of the students.

[AcidSnake]

Originally Posted by MathmanMathman

Why do you want a multiracial coalition when you reject it as issue in school excellence in the first place?

1. My refutation to your point on Vermont public education's system being inapplicable to Georgia's public education system on the basis of Vermont's homogeneity of race and culture, is that race and culture does not stop people from being able to learn in the same way.

2. Also I said that the only role that race may have in hindering education reform is from the reality that southern whites and southern blacks are acculturated and socialized into not truly working with each other, due to historical concerns. And I did say "may", so this reasoning is not exactly a definite factor.

3. Then I lamented that the multiracial political, economic, and community coalition at the end of the Civil Rights Era up until the the end of the 1990s was not in-play currently; to deal with this perceived problem with the education system situation that our state & country are grappling with as of recent.

How did you twist and distort all of my opinions that I have succinctly and articulately put forth into this ludicrous claim that I said that a multiracial coalition hinders school excellence? How did you come to this conclusion?

I hope you are not twisting my words to elicit some elusive "gotcha!" moment. I find that tactic both cheap and unbecoming of a very fruitful and rigorous debate on the upcoming Charter Amendment vote.

[RoslynHolcomb]

Originally Posted by atltechdude

It's true that only a few will be enrolled in charter schools, but the hope here is that when school boards see that the performance of their schools has dropped to such a degree that the possibility of a charter school opening up and taking away some of their funding is now a reality, that will be a powerful motivating factor for them to improve things for all of the students.

Hmmm, so basically we allow some of the kids to wither on the vine in the hope that school boards will see the light. That seems quite unreasonable to me. If we know there are techniques and methods that are to the benefit of children then that is what we should do, for ALL the children, not just the select few ho will have the wherewithal to start a charter school. These schoolswill be run by corporations. We know without a doubt that they will only be interested in opening these schools in certain neighborhoods. How do we know that? Because that's what corporations do. That's all well and good for Publix, but when we're talking about a crucial need for ALL our children, I'm of the humble opinion that taxpayer funds should go to things that benefit ALL the children, not just a select few.

[AcidSnake]

School boards are government agencies made up of different people from different backgrounds. They are not like a corporation or a company, defined by the single-minded purpose of profiting or not-profiting from the success or failure of a product or service.

And I think it's dangerous to view the education of students as that of a mere commodity, where the existence of a school and its funding depends on whether or not the kids pass or fail a test.

There waaay too many factors that govern a child's ability to be educated well, be it the education level of the parents as it relates to reading to that child at an early age, the parent's economic level as relates to be able to feed that child properly, be able to arrange for transportation for that child to & from extracurricular activities, being able to take off work to attend meetings with the teacher to ensure that child is on track, and much more.

And then there is the consideration that many parents(such as my mother) hail from former legalized segregated systems...that for large portion of their lives severely uneducated them, so they may not know how to properly see to it that their kids are being educated right. Stuff like that transfers intergenerational, so there are times in which teachers & school administrators may need to pick up the slack.

So you'll have to excuse me if I don't hang my hat on the notion that an unelected State Charter Commission agency is the cure-all for what ails Georgia's public education system.

Originally Posted by atltechdude

It's true that only a few will be enrolled in charter schools, but the hope here is that when school boards see that the performance of their schools has dropped to such a degree that the possibility of a charter school opening up and taking away some of their funding is now a reality, that will be a powerful motivating factor for them to improve things for all of the students.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by AcidSnake

Legislation that can give an unelected agency the potential to rob your local education system of the resources needed to mold your educational development at the moment where it is needed most...cannot be compared to a system(GaBOR) that you have the freedom of choice legally to either receive schooling from or not.

I'm not disagreeing, but how does a public charter school rob the system of resources?

Also, the fact is that some local school boards have proven to be extremely inept at running a school system. They ignore the wishes of parents, they hire huge staffs of highly paid administrators even though the schools are going down the tubes, they allow and/or cover up mass cheating, they squabble so much among themselves that they put the entire system at risk for losing accreditation, they fund schools unevenly, etc., etc.

When citizens propose innovation they circle the wagons do everything they can to protect their own power.

How is any of this good for students? I understand that public charter schools may not be a magic bullet and that they may not help all students right off the bat. But don't we have to start somewhere?

[RoslynHolcomb]

How is any of this good for students? I understand that public charter schools may not be a magic bullet and that they may not help all students right off the bat. But don't we have to start somewhere?

A school board is an elected body. That which is elected can be unelected. A charter school is a corporation. A corporation funded by superpacs like ALEC. Why on earth should we trust these people when for more than fifty years these groups have been trying to eliminate public education?