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Independent research in recent months has documented that the nation's wealthiest philanthropic foundations are steering funding away from public school systems, attended by 90 percent of American students, and toward "challengers" to public education, especially charter schools. Education Week recently reported that at the start of the decade, less than a quarter of K-12 giving from top foundations was given to groups supporting charter schools and privatization, about $90 million in all.
By 2010, $540 million -- fully 64 percent of major foundation giving -- was directed to these private groups, including KIPP, Teach for America, the NewSchools Venture Fund, the Charter School Growth Fund, and the D.C. Public Education Fund.
Although charter schools engender fierce debate — most recently over ballot measures in Georgia and Washington State — their ranks are growing rapidly, according to a new report. Between 2010-11 and 2011-12, the number of students in charter schools increased close to 13 percent, to just over two million.The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, a nonprofit advocacy group, released the report on Wednesday. It showed that in some cities, charter schools — which are publicly financed but privately operated — enroll a significant proportion of public school students.
The recently updated CREDO study at Stanford revealed that while charters have made progress since 2009, their performance is about the same as that of public schools. The differences are, in the words of the National Education Policy Center, “so small as to be regarded, without hyperbole, as trivial.” Furthermore, the four-year improvement demonstrated by charters may have been due to the closing of schools that underperformed in the earlier study, and also by a variety of means to discourage the attendance of lower-performing students.
But, I do suspect that the reason they pass archaic social laws, refuse to expand Medicaid, etc are to drive away "progressive" and other traditionally Democratic demographics. Make life more difficult for poor people and hope they move to a state that's friendlier to them = fewer Dem voters. Pass mean-spirited anti-gay laws and hope the gays, a Democratic "base", move elsewhere. Pass laws restricting freedoms relating to women's health issues, hope women move somewhere else, or think twice about coming here. Cut taxes for the super-rich, and entice rich folks to move here since they are often Republicans.
I have to take pause as I ponder this utopia. Imagine the state completely filled with only rich republican guys. No women at all, no gays, no middle class, no poor, just the oligarchs.
It would be pretty funny. Nobody paying any taxes, nobody would work the restaurants or the stores, nobody would do any home repairs or landscaping.
With no taxes being paid, nobody would repair roads. I imagine the legislature could close up shop, as there would be nothing to do ... besides, they wouldn't want to work for free, so they might as well move out if state along with everyone else they pushed away.
Ahh. So instead of this topic being about education it's yet another "I hate Republicans" topic.
As I understand it, you are not in favor of EITHER party. At least that is the way you've advertised yourself. You purportedly like to "call-out" wrongdoing and waste by whomever is in doing it, regardless of party affiliation, from either side of the aisle. I hope I understood you correctly from those posts I read several months ago, as this is a stance I am in total agreement with.
So I do not understand why you would be against a POV, only because it might shed unfavorable light on a particular party. I see that the links posted above, in Post #11 are all to left-leaning media. Do you have alternative views on charter schools, and the de-funding of public schools, that show these agendas as good things? Please don't just shoot down the way the thread is going, as you did in the quoted post ... please add your stance to the argument, and defend it with backup.
.... Please don't just shoot down the way the thread is going, as you did in the quoted post ... please add your stance to the argument, and defend it with backup.
I have yet to see a compelling argument made. That requires real data such as test scores, actual funding levels, graduation rates, data of jobs related to said changes.
I have seen two theories stated that are given as factual arguments. These would be:
The current GA hates education and seeks strangle it with funding cuts.
Use incentive bribery to lure jobs and people here trained in other states.
i.e. The GA only looks out for the rich.
Neither is true of course. Education is an extremely complex subject that covers much more these days than just the 3 Rs as it once did. Therefore any real discussion should first set some real bounds on what is being discussed, avoid gross generalizations, and leave out the political angle.
I have yet to see a compelling argument made. That requires real data such as test scores, actual funding levels, graduation rates, data of jobs related to said changes.
So we should just sit around and wait to see if the current GA policies actually do run public schools into a ditch from which it may take years to recover?
So we should just sit around and wait to see if the current GA policies actually do run public schools into a ditch from which it may take years to recover?
No thanks.
Yeah, that's kinda what I was thinking. I was hoping Waldo had some interesting links that might bring up an alternative and opposing POV. Waldo has indeed found some very interesting links for me in the past, and I had hoped he {?} had something here.
No, I don't feel the answer is to wait until we have employment data on today's kindergarteners so that we can compare (and debate), which education method was better.
.....
No, I don't feel the answer is to wait until we have employment data on today's kindergarteners so that we can compare (and debate), which education method was better.
You didn't ask me what you should do, and I wouldn't answer such a question.
You asked me to provide input and I answered as to why I would not. You can debate web links all you like as that isn't my call.
I will add this however. Americans as a whole are not ready to address the real issues that are causing a decline in education. A real discussion on fixing it, will involve questions that people are not even willing to ask (or answer). Until that changes, throwing money at the schools won't change anything.
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