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In fairness, there are a few good charter schools. However the descriptions given by the above two posters seem to be the rule and not the exception when it comes to charter schools. In general, charter schools represent the McDonaldization of K-12 education in reducing quality and maximizing profit. Why profit should ever be a part of education is beyond me, but we've opened the door and it's going to be a corrupting force moving forward until the public wakes up. Teacher's unions aren't perfect, but their goals (small class sizes, experienced/well-educated/well-paid/supported teachers) are much more closely aligned with the best interests of the students than most charter school operators.
Teacher's unions aren't perfect, but their goals (small class sizes, experienced/well-educated/well-paid/supported teachers) are much more closely aligned with the best interests of the students than most charter school operators.
You're kidding right?
The only things teachers unions care about is collecting dues and maintaining their power. They don't give a damn about the students or the quality of education.
The only things teachers unions care about is collecting dues and maintaining their power. They don't give a damn about the students or the quality of education.
Wrong, but I doubt anyone will convince you.
When the teachers unions negotiate, salary is an issue, but... so is class size and working conditions which typically affect our students. Often we try to negotiate better climate control in our classrooms so children and teachers will not end up either too hot or too cold.
If teachers' unions were to blame for failing schools, then places like Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, who have relatively few unionized teachers, would do much better than the states with the most densely unionized teachers—Massachusetts, New York, Maryland. But those are the states whose schools do best.
Give me a break. Our public education system is rife with examples of how teachers unions do not, in fact care about students.
Just admit it, you're a union hack.
I am retired, but I know what I have seen. I am currently in a right to work state and science teachers often have to keep quiet and teach creationism in the science classroom despite knowing it is not science. I have had some science teachers tell me that when they are required to give these lessons, they try to make it clear that the lesson is *junk* science rather than real science, but they are risking their jobs if they do this.
The only things teachers unions care about is collecting dues and maintaining their power. They don't give a damn about the students or the quality of education.
Have you worked with a teacher's union? I have. Their goals do indeed consider the student. They consider the teacher first but what is good for the teacher is often good for the student. If they make my working conditions better, I'm better able to educate your kids. I've worked in a charter school and in a union district. Trust me. Conditions are much better for educating kids in the union school. My experience with charters is they only care about profit. Teachers are treated like a cheap and easily replacable commodity. Experience has no value.
First off, I am not a teacher! I just wanted to chime in based on what I know from having my kids in a charter school for years. Also, my comments are ONLY about the school my kids have attended. I am sure there are great charter schools out there. Just not in my city.
The concept seems great (at their school), which is supposed to be arts integrated and focused on intellectual inquiry...but the execution is lacking. The spending is skewed. For example, the director (or superintendent or whatever she is) decided EVERY classroom needed a flat screen TV, back when thy were pricey as hell.... but they never use them and then the following year, my son was sharing textbooks with his neighbor because there were not enough to go around.
She also runs things based on her personal pet projects. The school is split into two campuses, a couple blocks apart. One is 3rd through 12th grade, the other is K through 2nd. The k-2nd claims to have Montessori "trained" teachers and the woman in charge pours all her energy into this "academy". They have the playground, the better facilities, the best field trips, the computers, the low S/T ratios. The 3rd through 12th kids are the proverbial "redheaded stepchildren" and largely ignored when it comes to how they spend money. The Montessori thing though? Um, no. I've had my kids in legit Montessori schools, I know what's what and that's not it.
So imagine that from a teacher's POV. I don't know what teachers are paid there but I don't think it is much. There is a high teacher turnover. Also a lot of office politics BS that spills over onto the kids. For example, our daughter's 3rd grade teacher upped and quit 2 weeks before Christmas! She was a 1st year teacher (and our daughter quite liked her, we did too!) but her teaching assistant was someone hired because of who she is related to, and was never around to actually help her, so the ratio that was supposed to be 15 students per adult was not actually that, and the teacher was always left with no help. No one did anything because this TA was related to the right person, so she could get away with spending her days texting or whatever. I've also suspected other teachers were fired due to personal issues/personality clashes with the director and for reasons having NOTHING to do with their teaching ability.
Another teacher was fired for allegedly having an affair with a parent. The person in charge of the school seems to treat teachers as just warm bodies and any one will do. My son has lucked out with some amazing teachers there but overall the school is a joke. Of course, since they brought their standardized test scores up, that's all anyone cares about. It's a big eye-roll at this point and my oldest (15) just has zero respect anymore for that school as an institution. We are actively seeking out someplace else for him. The grading practices are a joke: they don't hold anyone back if that child passes the state standardized test. My son knows this and he knows he'll end up "passing" even when he doesn't do his work, because he was advanced a year, and receives commended on the state test in all subjects every year, so any threats about his grade don't bother him.
It is hard to pull the youngest out though because she has emotional disabilities and does well when things are familiar.
I know this is not from a teacher's POV but this experience can still tell you a lot regardless, about this particular charter school. There are other charter schools in town but my kids have not attended those. However, when my kids were in private school, there was another mom who sent her kids to that same private school but worked in a local charter school, and she had nothing but horrible things to say about it. She was constantly being told to push Christian doctrine and also intimidated because she herself was not Christian and she was counting the days until she could leave when the school year was over.
You're all forgetting one major point. Parents can send a charter school of their choosing when sending them to charter schools but most times they do not have this choice when it comes to traditional public schools.
You live in this zip code? You'll send your kids to this school. Don't like it? Too bad, shut up and keep paying your taxes.
I don't need a bunch of public school teachers and teachers union members to tell me how great our public schoools are or how the only problem is lack of funding. No, I'd rather believe my lying eyes.
There is a reason why parents with the means to pay for a private education always opt to do so, passing on the public education system. Teachers unions, like any other unions, main goals are to stick up for the union members (regardless of how incompetent they may be) collect dues and maintain/increase the unions power. That's it. Saying the teachers union cares about the kids is like saying the UAW in Michigan cares about people getting a good value when they buy a GM vehicle. It aint so!
But they don't take my word for it. Listen to NEA General Counsel Bob Chanin:
You're all forgetting one major point. Parents can send a charter school of their choosing when sending them to charter schools but most times they do not have this choice when it comes to traditional public schools.
You live in this zip code? You'll send your kids to this school. Don't like it? Too bad, shut up and keep paying your taxes.
I don't need a bunch of public school teachers and teachers union members to tell me how great our public schoools are or how the only problem is lack of funding. No, I'd rather believe my lying eyes.
There is a reason why parents with the means to pay for a private education always opt to do so, passing on the public education system. Teachers unions, like any other unions, main goals are to stick up for the union members (regardless of how incompetent they may be) collect dues and maintain/increase the unions power. That's it. Saying the teachers union cares about the kids is like saying the UAW in Michigan cares about people getting a good value when they buy a GM vehicle. It aint so!
But they don't take my word for it. Listen to NEA General Counsel Bob Chanin:
First, they do not "always" choose to do so. Many of the kids at my school have parents who could send them to the best private schools in the area but choose not to (we are a leading district). Second, the real advantage of a private school is your child goes to school with kids from families with similar beliefs who have parents who are able and willing to pay for education. They, literally, go to school with kids whose parents value education enough to pay for it vs. going to school with every child who happens to live in your area including the ones who don't want to be there and who are openly defiant about it (Read the book "The Nurture Assumption". Peers strongly influence outcomes. Give your kids the right peers and you increase the odds of getting the outcome you want.). I can tell you from experience teaching that it is the latter that makes school a miserable experience for all. The distruptive kids, the kids who don't want to learn the kids who cop an attitude towards me because the state makes them take my class to graduate and they don't want to take it take 80% of my effort. The state measures my effectiveness not by how well my top kids do but by how many/few of my kids are at the bottom. So I have no choice but to focus on the kids least likely to succeed (NCLB after all). The end result is I have little left to give the top half of my class. Even in a school like mine that is top rated.
The problem with public education isn't that it's broken. It's that we try to force every child onto the same track (because they're ALL special snowflakes who can be ANYTHING when they grow up (they have no limitations)). 5 years ago, half the kids in my school did not take chemistry. Now it's required for graduation. The state calls this "raising the bar". The problem is, you have to LOWER the bar, significantly, to get to where that bottom quartile has a chance at passing. I would argue that when you force kids to take college bound classes that are are not interested in that they lack the background for for graduation and would choose not to take if they were given a choice, you're not raising the bar, you're forcing us to do the limbo.
I'll compare and contrast my school (top rated high school) with the private school a classmate of mine teaches at.
The state gives my school $8500/student to function plus property taxes for infrastructure. In her school, parents pay $20K in tuition for each child and alumni make donations to the school. The recommended safe class size for a chemistry class is 24, my, chemistry, classes cap at 28 (the union has fought that down to 26 every year they've tried to push it to 28). Her classes are capped at 15 per class. I teach 6 classes per day (three types of classes) and have one 50 minute prep "hour". She teaches 4 classes per day (two types of classes) with 2 60 minute prep hours (one after and for each type of class she teaches). (I'll contrast to when I taught all science here). She grades papers for 60 students. I grade papers for 144 students. She has a teaching assistant to help with lab set ups, tear downs, chemical waste prcessing, grading, help students with work...I have me. Oh, and she makes a lot more than I do....and her kids get to go to said school for free because she teaches there.
Yes the $20K school is better than my $8500 school. But the biggest difference isn't the schools. It's teh fact that all of her students come from affluent families who value education. THAT is the real selling point here, however, small class sizes and more prep time for teachers and aids to help in the heavier load classes would actually help in my school too. We just can't afford that. These are things the union you hate so much fights for. Their job is to see that I get what I need to do my job.
I'm not going to tell you that funding is THE issue (just an issue). IME, the real issue is that we are forcing kids all onto a college bound track. I also think we need exit exams at the high school level for each class type. Don't pass the test then you don't pass the class. We need to stop pusing kids through who don't have the prerequisite skills to succeed. (This is an offshoot of the every child is special school of parenting. You aren't allowed to fail MY special snowflake). The problem isn't education though. It's society and the fact that society values special snowflakes over learning.
I just posted a thread on test retakes. It's all about grade chasing not education. My friend gets to teach because her students are expected to earn their grades.
Charter schools have three advantages over public schools. 1) They can more easily get rid of trouble makers (after count day of course), 2) The kids who attend them come from families that cared enough about education to inconvenience themselves (they have to drive their kids to school now or somehow go out of the way to get them to school) and 3) because charters can start culling after collecting 75% of the funds for each student, they can have more operating funds but this may just offset that they don't have property tax monies for infrastructures.
The negative of charter schools is that the problem students who get kicked out after count day are sent back to schools that now will get only 1/4th the funding for that child. Around here, the quality of teachers is hit or miss as many charters have high turn over rates and a, relatively, inexperienced staff.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 02-03-2013 at 05:20 AM..
Have you worked with a teacher's union? I have. Their goals do indeed consider the student. They consider the teacher first but what is good for the teacher is often good for the student. If they make my working conditions better, I'm better able to educate your kids. I've worked in a charter school and in a union district. Trust me. Conditions are much better for educating kids in the union school. My experience with charters is they only care about profit. Teachers are treated like a cheap and easily replacable commodity. Experience has no value.
Unfortunately, there is so much negative propaganda that has been put out there about teacher unions, that anyone who hasn't actually worked in a school will never believe the truth. I've worked both with and without a union, and it was a million times better for everyone with one, including students. The funny thing is, my state has no teacher's union, and yet people constantly complain about how the union is ruining education here. And then when I tell them there IS no union, they don't even believe it! That's how strong the anti-union propaganda is - people see unions where there aren't any, and blame them for things that are actually being done by the government.
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The person in charge of the school seems to treat teachers as just warm bodies and any one will do. My son has lucked out with some amazing teachers there but overall the school is a joke. Of course, since they brought their standardized test scores up, that's all anyone cares about. It's a big eye-roll at this point and my oldest (15) just has zero respect anymore for that school as an institution. We are actively seeking out someplace else for him. The grading practices are a joke: they don't hold anyone back if that child passes the state standardized test. My son knows this and he knows he'll end up "passing" even when he doesn't do his work, because he was advanced a year, and receives commended on the state test in all subjects every year, so any threats about his grade don't bother him. 
)). 5 years ago, half the kids in my school did not take chemistry. Now it's required for graduation. The state calls this "raising the bar". The problem is, you have to LOWER the bar, significantly, to get to where that bottom quartile has a chance at passing. I would argue that when you force kids to take college bound classes that are are not interested in that they lack the background for for graduation and would choose not to take if they were given a choice, you're not raising the bar, you're forcing us to do the limbo. 
