Posted on 02/08/2016 9:35:18 AM PST by Academiadotorg
At least one form of very productive education disruption is growing exponentially.
"Parents can choose public schools for their children in 55 percent of the nation's largest school districts, more than double the percent of such districts that offered school choice 15 years ago," Grover (Russ) Whitehurst writes in the Education Choice and Competition Index for 2015 compiled by the Brookings Institution, for which he toils.
"In addition, programs that allow students to enroll in public schools outside their home district are available in about 20 percent of the states. Additions to the menu of school choice in many locales include virtual (online) schools; home schooling; and affordable private schools, including those supported by taxpayers through such mechanisms as education savings accounts, vouchers, and tax-credit scholarships. And for parents who don’t get to choose schools through an enrollment system but can afford it, there is the tried-and-true approach of buying a home in a preferred school's geographical assignment zone. Putting all these forms of choice together, a large majority of parents of school-aged children exercise choice."
Brookings gives both New Orleans and Denver As, New York City an A- and Washington, D. C. a B+. In collecting its data, Brookings looks for school districts that offer "amount, variety and quality" in its traditional public and charter schools, Whitehurst said.
My kids attend(ed) an amazing charter school. My son exempted his first year of college, and produced a 4.0 in his first semester last fall, because he is so well prepared for it by the charter school. Its a wonderful alternative.
Around here, there’s been a fair amount of corruption, followed by the crash-n-burn of the charter school. Students get hurt, teachers get stiffed, and the insiders take it to the bank.
Looked up some numbers. As of September, 2015, 187 Charter schools closed in Texas. Although, to be fair, many of those only closed due to mere incompetence; it would be unfair to assert fraud in all of the cases. Find the list for your state here: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/09/12936/cmd-publishes-full-list-2500-closed-charter-schools
Seems a bit of a stretch to call them a successful alternative to urban schools which were destroyed by the federal courts.
Not in Pennsylvania.
The teachers unions went to Defcon 1 electing Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf AND a Democrat Supreme Court majority for the specific purpose of kneecapping charter schools.
well they are rife with Islamic penetration. Think Gulen.
Brookings....the institute financed by stealth jihad Saudis/Qatar...that one?
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1tb15FdKNqz_FIkanHp2oV3nL4NjjKDMVvnWCmWrnrKc/edit#slide=id.p3
where is around here?
so union’s still have PA’s economy in a death grip, huh? I’m from there.
“Students get hurt, teachers get stiffed, and the insiders take it to the bank.”
That pretty much sums up all these special schools. Parents have A+ expectations, so these schools monkey with the grades to get that. No parent believes that they or their child are lazy losers, so anything less than an A+ must mean it is the school’s fault.
Once the corruption comes into play, and it happens very quickly, these schools are no better than any public school.
Fact is, a child can get a great education anywhere if the parents do their part, and they rarely do.
Texas in general, specifically the Metroplex. Prime Prep Academy provided hours of entertainment for everyone except its victims. And Honors Academy couldn’t meet standards, stranding a bunch of students while paying the boss $250,000 a year.
Yup. I was at a community meeting that had absolutely NOTHING to do with the schools. Through sheer happenstance the topic of charter schools came up, which immediately set off a bunch of other people in the room who were union public school teachers.
You would have thought we were at Pamplona and a red flag had just been waved. The anger and vitriol were unlike anything I’d ever seen before. These people viewed Scott Walker as a near-death experience and set out to make damned sure it does not happen here.
One dollar to a charter school is one less they can try to corral into their compensation package, you see.
Full disclosure: my daughter teaches at a charter school in another state.
NW Arkansas here-an embarassment of riches here in the wealthiest county in Arkansas. Granddaughter attends K in a classical academy charter, grandson freshman in a tech charter that will see him with an associates degree when he graduates.
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