Free Republic

Education, like many other things in America under the current Administration, is in decline. The youth of this country must be competitive with the youth of our major global rivals. That being said, they must be equipped to do that, which means the current education system must be reformed. In a country where, economically, competition has allowed the best to thrive and the worst to disappear to make America the most prosperous nation in the world, it only makes sense that the same idea would be applied in the education sector as well. The key to success of a society...

The president of the state’s largest government employee union, the Michigan Education Association, recently said the for-profit education management companies that manage online charter public schools here will make “hundreds of millions of Michigan taxpayer dollars” if a bill is passed increasing the arbitrary cap on the number of students allowed to enroll. This claim is laughable. Fiscal data from the two current online charters now allowed shows the vast majority of their money is spent on instruction and instructional support to students. Teachers and instructional supplies make up the bulk of this spending. Further, audits show the management companies...

Santorum Bashes Public Schools, Says They're Stuck In Factory Era By Mitchell Landsberg February 18, 2012 Reporting from Columbus, Ohio— Republican GOP hopeful Rick Santorum may be the most prominent homeschooler in America. So it might not have been surprising that, on Saturday, he told a conservative Christian audience that he intended to homeschool his children in the White House. In his remarks to the Ohio Christian Alliance, however, Santorum went further, seeming to attack the very idea of public education. In the nation’s past, he said, “Most presidents homeschooled their children in the White House.… Parents educated their children...

Possible IRS rule change alarms charter schools. The IRS is proposing changes to the rules for Charter Schools. You have until Monday to comment at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools website.The issue is this: The regulation would force those charter school teachers who have chosen to be in the state retirement system and are currently contributing to their state retirement plans to quit their charter-school jobs or lose the money that has been contributed to their accounts by the state. Teachers can keep what they've put into the account, but anything the state has put in would be...

Jennifer Jarosz is one of several parents in St. Helen, a small, rural community in Roscommon County, who wants to be able to place her children in a charter public school. She testified Dec. 1 in front of the Michigan House Education Committee. But currently the state's charter cap is blocking the schoolhouse door. "Our community is surrounded by two school districts with an average graduation rate of 75 percent,” Jarosz told the committee. "Educationally we are already an under-served community and it is only going to get worse if we are not provided some opportunities for educational alternatives.” The...

The metal bleachers in the middle of the school gymnasium fill slowly with expectant parents and playful youngsters. All of the adults are here on this warm spring afternoon for the same reason: to find out if their children will gain admission to South Arbor Academy, a Washtenaw County public charter school that has become so popular that it conducts a public lottery each spring to divvy up any openings in its K-8 program. Kindergarten is the most sought-after spot. The school has 77 seats available for the fall of 2010, but about 51 of those will be taken by...

Two Democrats, Sens. Rebekah Warren, D-Ann Arbor, and Hoon-Yung Hopgood, D-Taylor, announced this week that they would introduce a constitutional amendment to ban schools operated by for-profit entities in Michigan. “Our education institutions should not be guided by a mission statement focused on making a profit,” Sen. Warren said. “Michigan's children deserve to receive an education focused on their success and empowerment – a mission with no room for profits and corporate management.” In response, Senate Education Committee Chair Phil Pavlov, R-St. Clair, contrasted the Warren-Hopgood resolution, which targets groups that manage charter schools, with the fact that numerous for-profit...

A local law firm on Tuesday filed a class action suit in Hampden Superior Court against two major cable companies, Charter Communications and Comcast, charging each with “gouging” their customers by not automatically giving credit or refunds for lengthy service outages following the recent snowstorm. Lawyer Jeffrey S. Morneau of the Springfield firm Connor Morneau & Olin, filed two separate class action suits against the area’s two major cable companies. Each suit is filed on behalf of three plaintiffs, but as Morneau pointed out, the action covers “all persons residing in Massachusetts” who are customers of either company and who...

Agassi has used the platform that tennis gave him to pursue his lifelong goal of giving children in need a better education. He founded his own school in Las Vegas 10 years ago and just forged a partnership with Canyon Capital to provide $500 million of funding for 75 charter schools across the country in the next three years. "Andre Agassi has done more to help others than any athlete has ever done," his former coach Nick Bollettieri says. "He helped take tennis to another level, but what he is doing now with education will be so much greater because...

Charter School Accused of Becoming Adult Club at NightBy Kathleen McGrory, The Miami Herald 6:15 a.m. EDT, September 2, 2011 MIAMI-DADE COUNTY— By day, the Balare Language Academy is an A-rated charter school, home to children in kindergarten through middle school. But when the kids are tucked into bed, Balare apparently becomes a playground of a different kind. Party fliers, printed and on the Web, indicate that the campus at 10875 Quail Roost Dr. has been hosting raunchy, booze-soaked bashes into the wee hours. One flier for an upcoming party features a voluptuous, scantily clad woman posing with champagne bottles....

via U.S. charter-school network with Turkish link draws federal attention By Martha Woodall and Claudio Gatti | INQUIRER STAFF WRITER FOR THE INQUIRER Fethullah Gulen is a major Islamic political figure in Turkey, but he lives in self-imposed exile in a Poconos enclave and gained his green card by convincing a federal judge in Philadelphia that he was an influential educational figure in the United States. As evidence, his lawyer pointed to the charter schools, now more than 120 in 25 states, that his followers – Turkish scientists, engineers, and businessmen – have opened, including Truebright Science Academy in North...

In an interview on the local Pittsburgh TV station this morning, a Pittsburgh Carnegie Mellon startup has found a way to to identify and purchase unused or empty return space on private charter aircraft. Interestingly, it uses algorithms developed by DARPA and used by the U.S. air force. (Would also avoid TSA gropes). BTW, I have no relationship with the startup. But, I think it is a neat idea by a local Pittsburgh startup using DARPA technology. In any event, the company is at flyRuby.com. If interested in it or want to bookmark the site: http://flyruby.com/statics/charter101 From the site:* Using...

The educational reforms some conservatives have championed for decades may actually have a chance at a second life now that a few liberals have embraced them. For example, the current darling of conservative reformers, outgoing Washington, D. C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, was a Democratic appointee in a Democratic administration in one of the most Democratic (in party registrations) cities in America. In Washington, pre-Rhee, “Over 95 percent of teachers in D. C. P. S. rated satisfactory while 10 percent of students were reading at grade level,” Jason Kamras of Teaching Human Capital said at the Atlantic Forum on K-12...

, In New York, a public school system that once was the envy of the world has become an international laughingstock. The laugh track is not likely to die out anytime soon. “Virtually the entire New York press corps do not read the state test,” Harvard professor Daniel Koretz alleged at The Atlantic K-12 Education Forum. “Last year, the chancellor’s office, in a press conference, admitted that they did not read the state tests.” Maybe they should see The Lottery instead. The heart-wrenching documentary tells the tale of two families applying to the Harlem Success Academy (HSA). Five thousand applicants...

For Hire or Charter Bethany Stotts, July 8, 2010 In their interim report on a National Study of Charter Management Organization Effectiveness, Mathematica and the Center on Reinventing Public Education contrast charter management organizations (CMOs) with coexisting public school districts and explain how the leaders of the former have considerable latitude in terms of hiring, firing and other institutional practices. “In contrast to typical school districts in which school leaders frequently complain about the lack of flexibility in allocating school resources, well over one-third of surveyed CMOs (41 percent) allow their schools to determine the number of teaching positions needed...

HOUSTON - It's a story you saw First on FOX: A charter school has fired one of its teachers -- accused of beating up a student on video. A classmate captured the entire incident on their cell phone. The teacher in question, identified by school officials as Sherri Davis, was officially terminated on Monday night. “Now that officials at Jamie’s House Charter School have been able to review the video on Fox News, we are horrified at the actions of the teacher,” principal David Jones said in a statement.

While some may go on a field trip to the zoo or a museum, students from a Minneapolis charter school went to the state capitol to take part in a protest. Sixth, seventh and eighth graders from Southside Family Charter School chanted, held signs, and demanded answers on welfare reform outside of Gov. Tim Pawlenty's office Tuesday...

The Urban Prep Academy in Chicago has announced that 100% of its all-black graduating seniors are now college-bound. This is in contrast to the roughly 6% who graduate from Chicago's disastrous government-run system.

We've written a number of times about Minnesota's Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TiZA), a charter school that appears to be Muslim in all but name, and is closely affiliated with, if not an alter ego of, the radical Muslim American Society. The American Civil Liberties Union is engaged in litigation against TIZA, in which the ACLU alleges that the school unconstitutionally promotes religion at taxpayer expense. That litigation has gotten quite bitter. Our friend Kathy Kersten has done more than anyone else to shed light on TIZA and its relationship with the Muslim American Society through her columns in the...

Remember that the schools in New Orleans were a tragedy long before Katrina. ...In the 1970s, Mickey Landry and his wife both taught in New Orleans. “We used to come home and joke that the best thing that could happen to the Orleans Parish school system would be for someone to blow it up and start all over again.” Frustrated, Landry left New Orleans, but stayed in education, eventually running a prestigious private school in Colorado. Landry was lured back to post-Katrina New Orleans by the opportunity to run a school without the bureaucratic constraints of the old Orleans Parish...

Charter Colleges? Deborah Lambert, December 18, 2009 Amid the heavy-handed bureaucracies that dominate our nation’s colleges and universities, there are seeds of opportunity. Professor Marvin Olasky noted in a recent issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education that a move toward Charter Colleges might be the answer. Dr. Olasky, editor-in-chief of the news magazine World and a journalism professor at the U. of Texas, Austin, hails Rob Koons, “the University of Texas professor removed last fall as head of a UT Western Civilization program, who is proposing that Texas legislators back the creation of charter colleges, as they now support...

SAT Rap (Video) Bethany Stotts, November 23, 2009 Can the SAT be cool? The makers of this motivational video certainly try. “Relax” by Charta Squad [Video at link] YouTube user “Elka131” writes that the video is “created by teachers at the Believe High Schools in Brooklyn, NY.” Nancy Griesemer at The Examiner and Eric Hoover at Tweed attribute it to Williamsburg Charter High School (WCHS), which is part of a network of three charters in Brooklyn, NY. WCHS serves a low-income community (79% of students were eligible for a free lunch in the 2005-06 academic year)....

In a startling acknowledgment that the Los Angeles school system cannot improve enough schools on its own, the city Board of Education approved a plan Tuesday that could turn over 250 campuses -- including 50 new multimillion-dollar facilities -- to charter groups and other outside operators.

FRIENDSWOOD — The city has asked a Travis County judge to say it is legal for Friendswood to issue $11 million in debt without voter approval. The city had planned to issue $11 million in certificates of obligation to fund roads, parks, an animal shelter and a records building, but some residents said the city charter prohibited the city from issuing certificates of obligation. While bonds require voter approval, certificates of obligation do not. The city charter was amended by voters in 1997 to prohibit the city from issuing debt without voter approval that it could not finance from its...

School administrators take pride in their record of frequently firing teachers they consider to be underperforming. Unions are embraced with the same warmth accorded "self-esteem experts, panhandlers, drug dealers and those snapping turtles who refuse to put forth their best effort," to quote the school's website.

Tweet from Sarah... ------------------------------------------------------ Just signed SB 57, in support of AK's charter schools & families @ Academy Charter School. Many thanks to the 6th/7th grade classes & staff! ------------------------------------------------------ A bill passed by the Legislature and that is awaiting the governor's signature should help Alaska's small charter schools living on the financial edge. The Juneau Community Charter School, along with a handful of other small charter schools, have been coping with a state funding system that some say forces growth. For most schools, more students means more money. Public charter schools are not funded that way, however, and if...

Charter Communications Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Friday in an effort to reduce its debt by $8 billion. The cable giant is working toward getting its restructuring plan confirmed in August so it can emerge from bankruptcy later that month or early September, according to sources close to the process. Charter appointed attorney Gregory Doody as its chief restructuring officer to oversee the financial restructuring process and minimize the impact on day-to-day operations. Charter had recently hired Doody as a turnaround specialist and adviser. Doody previously led successful in-court and out-of-court restructurings, including at Calpine Corp., a San Jose,...

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Charter Communications Inc (CHTR.O) said on Thursday it will restructure its heavy debt load under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing by April 1, wiping out shareholders as the company reached a deal with senior debt holders. The cable operator, controlled by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, said in a statement it would file for Chapter 11 on or before April 1 after it reached a deal with some of its creditors helping to reduce its debt by around $8 billion. It had a debt load of around $21 billion as of Sept 30. Various debt holders and...

Mental self-flagellation. Here's a sample: "The Muslim Brotherhood Movement . . . is characterized by a profound understanding, by precise notions and by a complete comprehensiveness of all concepts of Islam in all domains of life: views and beliefs, politics and economics, education and society, jurisprudence and rule, indoctrination and teaching, the arts and publications, the hidden and the evident, and all the other domains of life."

Homeschool Bound by: Bethany Stotts, December 17, 2008 Homeschooling is catering to new, more diverse demographics, according to Messiah College associate professor Milton Gaither. The author of Homeschool: An American History, Professor Gaither writes in his Education Next (EN) article that “Growth in home schooling can be spotted among other ethnic and religious groups as well,” including “Native Americans in Virginia and North Carolina,” “Hawaiian natives,” Orthodox Jews, and Muslims, joining with an already strong Catholic and conservative Christian homeschooling movement. A 2006 report by the National Center for Education Statistics (the most recent data available), finds that in 2003...

America's first charter school opened in Minnesota in 1992. Sixteen years later, there are 4,128 charter schools educating 1.24 million students in 40 states and the District of Columbia. Another 300 to 400 are expected to open in the coming school year. Charter schools are public schools, but they are very different. The Center for Education Reform's 2008 Annual Survey reports that responding charter schools are one-third smaller than conventional public schools, with about 348 students, compared with 521. They spend less—about $7,625 per student, compared with $9,138 in public schools—and they receive only about 61% of the per pupil...

Charter Communications is sending letters to its customers informing them of an "enhanced online experience" that involves Charter monitoring its users' searches and the websites they visit, and inserting targeted third-party ads based on their web activity. Charter, which serves nearly six million customers, is requiring users who want to keep their activity private to submit their personal information to Charter via an unencrypted form and download a privacy cookie that must be downloaded again each time a user clears his web cache or uses a different browser... Deep packet inspection allows an ISP to monitor not only its users...

The bottom line is clear, says Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl: The Catholic Church can no longer afford to run a full complement of inner-city parochial schools serving a population that is, by an overwhelming majority, non-Catholic. So, facing a deficit of about $50 million over the next five years, the church is moving to convert at least seven D.C. elementary schools into secular, taxpayer-funded charter schools. "We simply don't have the resources to keep all those schools open," Wuerl said in an interview with Washington Post reporters and editors the other day. "We have exhausted the resources available to us."...

ST. LOUIS — Charter Communications officials believe a software error during routine maintenance caused the company to delete the contents of 14,000 customer e-mail accounts. There is no way to retrieve the messages, photos and other attachments that were erased from inboxes and archive folders across the country on Monday, said Anita Lamont, a spokeswoman for the suburban St. Louis-based company. "We really are sincerely sorry for having had this happen and do apologize to all those folks who were affected by the error," Lamont said Thursday when the company announced the gaffe. Charter, one of the nation's largest cable...

Southeast Asian leaders have adopted a landmark charter that seeks to integrate the region even as a contentious debate about human rights in Burma poisoned the atmosphere of the meeting. Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) signed the charter at a ceremony Tuesday in Singapore, which gives ASEAN legal identity for international negotiations, and sets out common rules for talks on trade, investment, environment and other fields. It also calls for the establishment of a human rights agency, but that agency lacks any mechanism for enforcing human rights standards. The charter still needs to be approved by...

Asean members hope to adopt the charter formally later this year Ministers from South-East Asian countries have reached agreement on a landmark draft charter. The document gives the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) a set of binding rules for the first time in the bloc's 40-year existence. The agreement comes after nearly two years of deliberations among members. It includes a contentious provision to set up a commission monitoring human rights in the region - despite strong misgivings from some Asean countries. Credibility boost With governments in the region running the gamut from fully-fledged democracies to a military...

Newspaper says suspected cheating common at charter schools AUSTIN — Suspected cheating on the state's standardized test is particularly prevalent at the state's charter schools, according to an analysis of test scores by The Dallas Morning News. The study flagged answer sheets from classrooms that had many more answers in common than experts say would happen by chance. In the top 50 most egregious cases of likely cheating, 37 of them took place in charter schools, which make up only 2 percent of the state's campuses. One charter school, Jesse Jackson Academy in Houston, was home to the most...

Public charter schools - separate and unequal Monday, June 4, 2007 By MARY JO MCKINLEY The state must do much more to ensure that thorough and efficient isn't an empty promise. CHARTER SCHOOLS are closing the achievement gap among New Jersey's poor urban schoolchildren, yet they continue to be treated as second-class citizens when it comes to receiving state education funding at levels enjoyed by other elementary and secondary schools. A new report by the Education Law Center supports this troubling conclusion. Charter schools in New Jersey predominantly serve students in the state's most at-risk Abbott districts, the report...

The Department of Education researchers “adjusted” the raw NAEP data ... Peterson substituted better criteria, such as the parent’s level of education and whether another language is spoken in the home, and found that “when student characteristics are estimated consistently across school sectors, a private-school advantage relative to public schools is evident at all grade levels in both math and reading in all estimations but one.” In most cases, the private-school advantage dwarfed the much more modest edge that elicited the cries of hallelujah from Weaver and his liberal allies.

It was a packed house for a historic court case. But if folks came in search of clues to how the state Supreme Court justices might rule on the validity of Knox County's charter, they left empty-handed. The state high court's five justices - Gary Wade, Janice Holder, William "Mickey" Barker, Cornelia A. Clark and the retiring Riley Anderson - fired off plenty of questions for the slew of attorneys arguing various points on the charter, term limits and application of term limits. None of those queries, however, revealed the justices' leanings in a case that some contend could rend...

Knox County's entire form of government is being put to the ultimate legal test today. The state Supreme Court will hear this afternoon arguments for and against the validity of Knox County's charter, the guiding force for the way citizens in Knox County are governed. Also on the Supreme Court platter will be the validity of an amendment to the charter that created term limits. Up in the air is whether the high court will go farther and opine as to which officeholders those term limits would apply if valid. As rare as the issue before it is, it is...

Dissolving the Knox County charter would gum up the government's purchasing machine and wind up costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars because of computer upgrades, an increased workload and personnel costs. Deputy Law Director Mary Ann Stackhouse outlined the problem to Knox County Chancellor John Weaver during a hearing Monday morning on the legal fate of the charter, which Weaver ruled invalid June 9. While listing the effects of dissolving the charter, Stackhouse told Weaver the procurement code would be invalid if his charter ruling becomes final. Right now, she said, the procurement code allows purchases of less than...

Illegal immigration, racism, education, Democrats and their creation of the KKK... Clark Baker ties it all together in this short smackdown of a local Los Angeles moonbat: Annie and I disagree about the merits of Academia Semillas del Pueblo, LAUSD’s deliberate attempt to discredit the charter school movement by granting a charter to racist and incompetent administrators. In our latest exchange, Annie exposes herself for the moonbat she is. ANNIE: You cannot compare a KKK school to Academia Semillas del Pueblo. The Klan is NOT about white pride, it's about hatred of other races. That's completely different. Unless you believe...

A federal judge said today he would cut through the confusion surrounding the Knox County charter by asking the Tennessee Supreme Court to rule on the charter's validity as soon as possible. Senior U.S. District Court Judge James H. Jarvis said he wants the state Supreme Court to settle the matter once and for all so he can hear a lawsuit challenging the county's adult business ordinance. Though a federal judge, Jarvis can ask the state's highest court to intervene to settle a matter of state law that is crucial to the federal lawsuit. Under court rules, Jarvis can send...

They have called. They have written. And, boy, are they mad. "They" are the residents of Knox County, and they haven't been shy about registering complaints about the charter fiasco that threatens to scuttle ordinances and torpedo term limits. They've been contacting Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale's office with comments during the week since Chancellor John Weaver ripped up the county charter. "They're angry over the charter verdict and they're angry over the term-limits issue," Ragsdale spokesman Dwight Van de Vate said. Weaver ruled last Friday that the charter, including its term-limits provision, is incomplete and wasn't properly filed with...

Confusion over the validity of Knox County's charter spilled over into its courtrooms Wednesday, with one lawyer alleging an appointed General Sessions Court judge shouldn't be allowed to preside over cases. It's the first direct challenge to a county government action since Chancellor John Weaver tossed out the charter Friday. In papers filed late Wednesday afternoon, lawyer Gregory P. Isaacs argues that General Sessions Court Judge Jimmy Kyle Davis shouldn't hear cases because he was appointed by County Commission under the authority of the charter. Weaver tossed out the Knox County Charter on Friday, ruling that it was "incomplete, invalid...

Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale said today he would most likely ask Chancellor John Weaver to stay his ruling invalidating the county charter so officials can address any insufficiencies in the document. If that doesn't work, the county could appeal Weaver's ruling, he said. Either way, he's asked County Commission Chairman Scott Moore to call a special meeting of commissioners on Monday to chart a course of action. "We want to work with commission to keep the charter form of government," Ragsdale said. Any tack they take apparently won't have an effect on the August general election, however. The same...

A chancellor ruled today that Knox County’s charter is "invalid and ineffective," meaning the county would revert to the form of government outlined in the state constitution. The ruling also invalidates term limits, which restricts the number of terms an elected official may serve. Appeals from the various parties are expected. The county won't lose any offices authorized when the government changed form in 1990, Law Director Mike Moyers said in an earlier interview, including his own. That's because the charter language regarding those offices, like many of the ordinances passed during the past 16 years, mirrors the language in...

WASHINGTON, April 24, 2006 – The Pentagon Channel has launched "Pentagon Channel In Flight," a military news and information service that will be aired on military charter flights worldwide. "Pentagon Channel In Flight is another way in which we can introduce servicemembers to the Pentagon Channel and provide them with the timely military news and information that they need to do their jobs." said Allison Barber, deputy assistant secretary of defense for internal communications. Pentagon Channel In Flight will air on participating military charter flights, including Air Transport International, ATA, Continental Airlines, Delta Airlines, Miami Air, North American Air, Omni...

More than a dozen D.C. public school system central office administrators are taking home base salaries of at least $150,000 per year, compared with just one official earning that much two years ago, according to an analysis of payroll records. The salary information, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, shows 14 central administration officials receiving a base pay of at least $150,000 in fiscal 2006, including five officials making $170,000 or more. By comparison, pay records approved by the Board of Education in July 2004 show only one administrator -- former interim Superintendent Elfreda Massie -- earning at least...