Cap on the Number of Charter Schools

Great Lakes Education Project ^ | 6/19/03 | E-Mail

[netmilsmom]

A BIG WIN FOR KIDS! State Senate approves raising the cap on the number of charter schools in Michigan

[jackd]

Because No Child Left Behind states that only certified teachers can work in public schools. The current classroom teachers who are too stupid to pass the certification tests go to the charter schools. ANYONE can teach in a charter school. They don't even have to possess a college degree. They do not have to be certified in the subject area that they are teaching. Nor are they even required to have taken courses on the subjects. In elementary schools (the ones' that teach reading) anyone 98.6 degrees can occupy a teaching position. (And if "netilsmon" is reading this don't give me the nonsense about, "well that's not true in Michigan." If it isn't send me a copy of the Michigan law that says this is not true.)With NO Child Left Behind, middle school and high school teachers have one year in which to get their accredidation and certification. In Maryland this has resulted in a massive exodus of these unqualified "teachers." Guess who is hiring them this Spring? Maryland colleges turned out less than 1% of the numbers of certified teachers needed to fill all of the teacher vacancies for the year '03-'04.

[jackd]

Neither. You couldn't be farther from the truth. So much for guessing.

[jackd]

You REALLY miss the point here!!! Special Ed students that are below 120 IQ cannot get into private schools. It has nothing to do with behavior.

[jackd]

How many to a classroom? What is the student/ teacher ratio? Terra Nova is a national assessment. Your daugthers 99% means that on the day the test was administered, you daughter did as well as the 99% that took the test.
My point here is that it is NOT the school, the program, the conditions,the climate, etc. ALL research conducted in the last twenty years, including that of the Heritage Foundation and similar organizations, have all come to the same conclusion: It is the Teacher that matters. Nothing else. Conditions may affect scores. That is why ALL Terra Nova results come with the caveat of plus or minus 5 points.
I am not trying to put you down (anymore.) I had come from a meeting with politicians talking about the same topic. Their mindless rhetoric had me madder than Hell. I apologize for flying off as I did. Congratulations on your daughters score!
However, I can find nothing to recommend charter schools over any other form of public/private education in any urban area. Perhaps your school is suburban with an involved community of concerned parents and businesses. Sadly that is not the case here.

[SauronOfMordor]

Special Ed students that are below 120 IQ cannot get into private schools. It has nothing to do with behavior.

Your statement is incorrect. Catholic parochial schools, for example, will take anybody, without regard to IQ. I went to Catholic school. We had a wide mix of IQ's, and the nuns did their best with each.

And they did a far better job, with a fraction of the money, that public schools do

[redbaiter]

It may or may not be a good thing that NCLB demands teacher certification. But he who has the gold makes the rules.

If the charter parents approve of the charter school's hires, then so do I. A charter school that makes bad hiring decisions will lose its customers and go under. What's the problem, again?

[SauronOfMordor]

Because No Child Left Behind states that only certified teachers can work in public schools. The current classroom teachers who are too stupid to pass the certification tests go to the charter schools.

All teacher certification means is that you can spew back the edu-babbel that's currently in vogue. It does not mean that you know your subject matter, or are particularly intelligent. It's well known that teachers come from the bottom of the barrel, academicly. Look at the "US News and World Report" issue on grad schools. The average GRE scores for the top-ranked ed grad school was about 150 points below the 50th-ranked engineering school.

A cherter school that recruited from retired engineers and managers would have a faculty that was much smarter than the average public school

[SauronOfMordor]

My point here is that it is NOT the school, the program, the conditions,the climate, etc. ALL research conducted in the last twenty years, including that of the Heritage Foundation and similar organizations, have all come to the same conclusion: It is the Teacher that matters. Nothing else.

While I grant that the teacher is an important factor, she is not the only factor -- otherwise every student in a given teacher's class would have the same score. But they don't.

Asian and Black kids sitting side-by-side in the same school will come out with wildly different scores -- because one group comes from a culture that values scholarship, and whose parents demand good grades, while the other doesn't

IQ, also, has a strong genetic component (if you don't think it does, go teach calculus to your cat) and will vary within any given group

[netmilsmom]

Teacher certification required: Yes. An exception is made for college professors at a state college or university sponsoring a charter school, or community college faculty with five years experience teaching subject matter that they will be teaching.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is taken from this website..
http://www.aft.org/research/reports/charter/csweb/states/MI.HTM
Perhaps the problem is that charters are not the same in all states. In Michigan they are wonderful. We do have an exception also in teaching certificates when it comes to Canadians. They are given an amount of time to get a US cert if they are certified in Canada.
I don't know which state you are in but you must admit that competition makes for a good market place. This is what has happened in Grand Rapids. The district was failing before the charters moved in. Now the district has come up to standard and everyone wins. Maybe this wouldn't work where you are.
Thank you for the kudos for my baby. She is very bright and the little one is brighter. They would like to be the first sisters on Mars!

[netmilsmom]

I'm sorry, I missed that you are in Maryland. I don't even see the Charter for Maryland on the AFT site I referred you to. Are you fighting against charters in Maryland?? Perhaps I can refer you to our charter website and you will see how Michigan handles them. We must have a sponsoring University and a Management company for each of our schools. Also because the charters are a district onto themselves, they are under all the regulations of the district schools. They can turn no one away.
BTW, my daughter's class had 19. The limit is 20 in our school.
Really, it's not the charters that are bad, it is the way the charter law is put together. If they are held to high standards, that's what you will get.