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Public schools, particularly those in lower income areas, are funded based on their enrollment. Charter schools are taking the kids smarter kids with minimal needs (IEPS, etc) and the money leaves the district. So now the public school has less kids, a larger ratio of kids with expensive needs that must be met, and now the average kid in that district is getting a smaller piece of the pie.
Magnet schools are taking some of the kids out of the building but those kids are still in the district or public sphere so the money doesn't go anywhere and services are shared. It is still available for all the kids, even the ones with mandated needs.
The solution is not to deny kids freedom or choice in something as vital as their education, but rather to reform the policies that are driving down the quality of public education and encouraging families to flee their neighborhood schools. Maybe those special needs kids should be somewhere else or have a separate budget? Maybe they should rethink their behavioral standards? I don't know exactly, but the one thing that isn't fair is for well off White people who don't live in these districts to try to force others to send their kids to failing schools, while their owns kids have access to quality educations.
Love John Oliver
Weather you agree or disagree with him the problem is here and needs to be dealt with.
At the end of the day some if these charter schools are stealing from the taxpayers. Right-Wing or leftist, if you support people stealing your tax dollars, you're an idiot.
I'm sure you're a good person and aren't trying to sound arrogant and entitled but that's what this post sounds like. A person who's own kids have middle class schools, telling the poor, that if they don't like their failing schools to move to a wealthier neighborhood like yours and basically blaming them by saying they should get off their butts and fix the school.
In my city, charter schools have won best school in the state award three years running. That's over all the wealthiest suburban schools. The reasons, at least in our cases are two fold. 1) Self selection. In order to attend our school, parents have to know what a charter school is, care enough to go to a school fair, tour the schools, send their kids on a shadow day, apply to get into the lottery, agree to a behavioral covenant and then agree to 20 hours of family participation per year. Point black, it weeds out families who're not activated or don't care & attracts families who do care. 2) The Behavioral Covenant. In our county we had over 200 teacher assaults last year in the public schools. Mass fights, drug dealing, guns, students running absolutely would and disrupting the educational process for everyone else. In one year they emptied the Special Ed classrooms back into mainstream classrooms, added 6th grade to the middle schools and essentially stopped disciplining minority students for their behavior. It's become an absolute madhouse. As a parent I'm against these policies since they hurt the students who want to learn. Over 50% of our students are minority and we also have over 50% low income students. There is no achievement gap" as our students all score about the same on standardized tests. How can that be? Simple, our Black students and low income students all come from families that may be poor, or Black or both, but care deeply about their kids' educations. How anyone can begrudge that type of opportunity to low income and minority students, when their neighborhood schools are failing them academically & now can not even ensure their physical safety, is beyond me.
You are being perfectly rational for your own children. But that is not an outcome that favors the children who do not go to the charter or the magnet. And those are the children who are dragging down the school system. The model simply does not work with them. The single mother with three children has neither the skills nor the desire to navigate the protocols to get her children into a magnet. And she may well move twice in a school year further interrupting her children's education.
So what do we do with those who will not move their children to the magnet or charter? Abandon them? I suppose we could do that. Set up semi reformatory babysitting and stop reporting the results. Make the system look a lot better quick for little cost.
But if we really want to educate the lower end children we need something better and it does not, so far, appear to be charter schools. Our low end charters at best get to the level of the public schools and are often worse. So what now?
You are being perfectly rational for your own children. But that is not an outcome that favors the children who do not go to the charter or the magnet. And those are the children who are dragging down the school system. The model simply does not work with them.The single mother with three children has neither the skills nor the desire to navigate the protocols to get her children into a magnet. And she may well move twice in a school year further interrupting her children's education.
So what do we do with those who will not move their children to the magnet or charter? Abandon them? I suppose we could do that. Set up semi reformatory babysitting and stop reporting the results. Make the system look a lot better quick for little cost.
But if we really want to educate the lower end children we need something better and it does not, so far, appear to be charter schools. Our low end charters at best get to the level of the public schools and are often worse. So what now?
This is the million dollar question! First off though, plenty of single Mothers send their kids to charter & magnet schools, with excellent results. As another poster pointed out, the people trying to stop charters are almost exclusively well-to-do White people who don't have to worry about where their own kids go to school. Basically, we now have a system for those who are activated and involved in their kids' educations and those who aren't. Asking the children of families who take an active role in their children's educations, to sacrifice their kids' educations and safety for the betterment of those that don't care isn't going to work. Even the people I know here in the city who're hard-core public school people, send their kids into the IB and AP programs, which are almost entirely White & Asian and are often housed on separate floors. It's really nothing more than a form of academic segregation, but one that allows them to feel superior because their kids "go to diverse, inner-city, public schools", even though they're in an elitist program and segregated from the low achieving students.
One of the biggest problems is the Dept of Education issuing mandates that simply don't work. By demanding equality in standardized test scores, they've created unrealistic goals. Expecting the children of a middle class family, with college educated parents and a poor Black kid with a single mom who's a HS drop out to have equal test scores, grades, graduation rates and college acceptance rates isn't realistic. It's not systemic racism. It's not White privilege. It's parental privilege. Being born to parents who care about their children's education is the real privilege. The worst thing to happen to the public schools in the last few years though are the federal mandates to close the behavioral gap. They've created an environment where the teachers are powerless to remove disruptive students and that created an impasse in education. My friend who's a teacher no longer gives homework. He says it's for two reason. 1) To ensure pass Black students pass, thus giving the illusion of academic equality and 2) Because the kids who refuse to do homework can be controlled to a point, until they're mathematically eliminated from passing the class. At that point all hell breaks loose and the rest of the semester is ruined for everyone in the class. So, if they're going to force our kids to endure chaos, violence and a diminished education, there's only one thing to do and it's not to endure it for the betterment (which is debatable) of the problem students. The thing to do is vote with your feet. In our case, until the district stops promoting policies that condone violence and anti-social behavioral, which is now absolutely RAMPANT, we will not be sending our kids to that environment.
John Oliver is talking to his audience of upper-middle-class white liberals who live in great districts or can send their kids to private school if they choose.
Most people who use charter schools are working-class inner city dwellers who would not otherwise have a choice of schools.
You've correctly identified his target audience, which can be summed up as "people who can afford HBO". Normally he's got a pretty one-sided attack on his issue du juor, but he actually put aside whether charter schools were a good thing and mostly attacked charter school abuses like effectively for-profit schools and schools that close after a few months.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cloudwalker
"While I support our schools, I don't support a blank check. How much more money do you need?"
The state of California is projected to spend around $14,500 per student in 2016 (up from around $10,000 in 2011) and $64,000 per prisoner in 2016 (up from $49,000 in 2011). I imagine it's similar in many other states. That is a ridiculous situation.
Imagine how many of those 112,000 people currently rotting in CA jails could have been healthy citizens if we collectively as a society had been willing to put the money in at the front end, when it really makes a difference, and properly fund and support all of our public schools? It's a tragic waste of people and money.
What amount of money would be needed? There are about 1m students in California's schools. i don't think an extra $6500/student spent on education will completely eliminate crime. It's not even clear if there is a direct correlation between spending and student performance.
Excessive imprisoment is definitely a problem in California, but I don't think the answer is as simple as "spend more on schools, spend less on prisons".
I love John Oliver, watch his show each week and thought that was a very enlightening piece...I live in Kentucky and we don't have Charter Schools here, but have read about them a bit over the last few years.
I'm sure you're a good person and aren't trying to sound arrogant and entitled but that's what this post sounds like. A person who's own kids have middle class schools, telling the poor, that if they don't like their failing schools to move to a wealthier neighborhood like yours and basically blaming them by saying they should get off their butts and fix the school.
In my city, charter schools have won best school in the state award three years running. That's over all the wealthiest suburban schools. The reasons, at least in our cases are two fold. 1) Self selection. In order to attend our school, parents have to know what a charter school is, care enough to go to a school fair, tour the schools, send their kids on a shadow day, apply to get into the lottery, agree to a behavioral covenant and then agree to 20 hours of family participation per year. Point black, it weeds out families who're not activated or don't care & attracts families who do care. 2) The Behavioral Covenant. In our county we had over 200 teacher assaults last year in the public schools. Mass fights, drug dealing, guns, students running absolutely would and disrupting the educational process for everyone else. In one year they emptied the Special Ed classrooms back into mainstream classrooms, added 6th grade to the middle schools and essentially stopped disciplining minority students for their behavior. It's become an absolute madhouse. As a parent I'm against these policies since they hurt the students who want to learn. Over 50% of our students are minority and we also have over 50% low income students. There is no achievement gap" as our students all score about the same on standardized tests. How can that be? Simple, our Black students and low income students all come from families that may be poor, or Black or both, but care deeply about their kids' educations. How anyone can begrudge that type of opportunity to low income and minority students, when their neighborhood schools are failing them academically & now can not even ensure their physical safety, is beyond me.
Actually my oldest child (whom we adopted after fostering) stayed in the poor city district he had started in and has now graduated. He left for college last week with a ton of scholarships, so I know poor "failing" schools really aren't failing. I know all about kids who don't behave, but I also had enough faith in my parenting to keep my kid on the right path. The school's are something you own and if the awful things you heard are true (which I'm skeptical of since I heard the same crap from parents when they heard where my kid went) then it's your responsibility to get them to the quality you want them to be. Running away and blindly giving tax dollars to a charter school isn't the answer because you only take care of a few kids. Why is there no alternative school in your county if so many students are the devil? I'm sorry, but yes you do need to get off your butt and do something about your local school. If being forced to by a charter is what led you behave like a citizen, well that's sad. Now given that your kid's school is private (charters are) and the public can't see what they are doing, I pray that they are truly being educated properly. The whole piece has pointed out that many haven't.
Nice try accusing me of denying an entire race of an opportunity...or what you think is an opportunity. Frankly charters begrudge my minority child and others' achievements when their chief marketing ploy is trashing the schools other minorities attend and doing their best to close the school.
NJ is a perfect example of where throwing more cash at social problems with regards to schools is a losing deal.
Camden, NJ, as one example, spends approx 30K per student.
Let that sink in for a moment.
Camden is charter central. Think about that.
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