Public Education and Charter Schools

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

"Tres Whitlock is stuck in a public school where he feels ignored. He wants out.

The 17-year-old would-be video game designer researched his options online and found his perfect match: Pivot Charter School.

"It's computer-based, and I think I will do better," he says.

But when Whitlock tried to enroll in the school, he found a series of barriers in his way. The reason? He has cerebral palsy, and school officials say they don't have anyone to take Whitlock to the bathroom.

Whitlock and his parents are convinced their story isn't unique — and enrollment data backs them.
"

I've often heard here that the government ought to get out of the schooling business, and point to the statistics of private schools as proof of how superior they are. The truth of the matter is that private schools cherry pick their enrollments, which everyone already knew, but they also have a long history of denying enrollment to children with disabilities.



"More than 86 percent of the charter schools do not serve a single child with a severe disability — compared to more than half of district schools that do."

Basically, my question is this: How do people still justify defunding public education under the pretense that private education would be better for all? Removing federal funding and leaving it 'to the locals' is code for 'to the wolves'. Some districts would improve, but many more will fall into the same status that black schools in the South had prior to desegregation. Or better yet, just defund schools at every level of government and encourage people to enroll in private, which I guarantee will leave a hell of a lot of children behind, especially those with disabilities. Public education costs more because they have to accommodate these children, where the entire facility is federally-required to be handicap able and for there to be enough staff on hand to help them.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2011/12/14/143659449/florida-charter-schools-failing-disabled-students

Comments

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Wait, aren't charter schools public? I know they are here in NH. There was just a big lawsuit about this sort of discrimination in the Nashua, NH charter school system, and it ended with all the kids who had been deferred based on their grades getting admitted the next year, and damages being paid and all that.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

They're public in the sense that they're publicly funded, but the fact they're immune to many important rules and regulations that govern regular schools as long as they produce certain results, so they cherry pick their entrants (despite the fact that it's supposed to be undiscriminating) and achieve the results in order to be ignored by the government.

But yeah, I could've used better language to draw a distinction between charter schools and private schools.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Hm. I think NH might just be unique. We're required to admit on a first-come, first-served, with lotteries thereafter. The real selection pressures are because the schools don't have to provide transportation outside of the district in which they're located, while students come from 50+ miles away.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Yeah, most places are a lottery system as they fill up as far as I've been able to tell.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

The disabled kids can open and close the doors in the mine shaft, just like God intended.

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

C'mon, don't these families have attics or basements in which to lock their unmentionable progeny?

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

I think the way Arizona is handling the issue is a reasonable system, once the teachers union stops trying to fight it.
http://www.ij.org/about/3763

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

The Institute for Justice is America's premier libertarian public interest law firm.

lol

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

If the teacher's union is against it, it must be bad, teachers only think of the children. Oh wait, that's why they have unions.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Yeah, those idiot parents don't know how to pick what's good for their kids. I don't know why we even let them keep their kids at all.

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

You have a point.

However, just so long as we understand that public schools still suck and desperately need to be reformed, i.e. do away with teaching methods that are at least 25 years out of date.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

How can that be? In Ca they change methods ever few years (only when they run out of money to throw at programs that don't work)

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

One thing seems to remain the same across the land: Instead of flunking the kids, America would rather lower the passing grades.

Here in Mo, they don't change methods. They stick with the same mode of failure they've always had.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Holding kids back shows no increase in the educational attainment of the student and increases the chances that they will become socially isolated and educationally disengaged. You may not like the idea of passing everyone, but it is the best outcome for the general good.

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

So, graduating fewer scientists and engineers than any other country in the developed world is for the greater good? The H1 Visa isn't going to help us out forever, ya know.

mmmmkay.

Sorry but I still don't see this as a solution.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

You have a higher rate of private school attendance than most of those schools you're comparing against. If you want the answer to why you suck at maths and science look under the "standardised testing" tab.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

The problem isn't really with the schools. Back when kids got regularly flunked, they just joined the workforce (like grandpa, at age 10). That's no longer an option for most. So they dumbed down the curriculum to keep up with the move toward the 18-year enforced infancy society seems to have adopted.

As this move continued, you get some interesting results (http://davereed.tumblr.com/post/571391973/8th-grade-final-exam-circa-1900). If that test was standard, I am no longer amazed that Milton's nephews were fluent in Latin and Greek at that age.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

That seems similar enough to 8th grade here and now. The language we may perceive as more difficult, but I'd argue that's just a change in language over time. Also, those kids probably couldn't make a powerpoint worth a damn.

[onefatmusicnerd.livejournal.com]

http://www.snopes.com/language/document/1895exam.asp

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

I read the Snopes entry before I posted. The single example does not, however, diminish the well-documented phenomenon of grade inflation.

Five of my parents were teachers. They told stories.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

But hey they are going to start feeding the kids in KC and St
Louis thru the summer.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

It's called pooling. Essentially, you end up with good kids with engaged parents at one school (engaged parents = more money, more donations, more time put in etc., essentially reducing the per student cost of the school, so these schools look like they run more efficiently). In the other schools you have the disengaged parents, the learning problems, the behavioural problems and the disabled; kids who need more money spent on them to give them an equal education, but they end up with less money per child than the other schools. The net result is that where you live and who you were born to determine the quality of your education like never before. It's a really great way to entrench class differences and to create a divided society.

[harry-beast.livejournal.com]

The alternative, forcing education to the lowest common denominator, does not guarantee equality. If anything, it would exacerbate class differences by putting good quality schooling out of the reach of the the middle class. Reducing social mobility serves only to entrench divisions in society.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Basically, my question is this: How do people still justify defunding public education under the pretense that private education would be better for all?

They do a comparable job at a fraction of the cost, if not better. That's how.

Public education costs more because they have to accommodate these children, where the entire facility is federally-required to be handicap able and for there to be enough staff on hand to help them.

You...do know that charter schools are public schools right? Charter schools are not "failing disabled students," they're simply not serving a group that generally opts into charter schools. Major difference.

Besides, there's nothing in the "defund public schools" argument that says "don't help disabled kids." Two entirely different arguments.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

"Basically, my question is this: How do people still justify defunding public education under the pretense that private education would be better for all?

They do a comparable job at a fraction of the cost, if not better. That's how."

No they don't.
To quote a wise fellow:
It's called pooling. Essentially, you end up with good kids with engaged parents at one school (engaged parents = more money, more donations, more time put in etc., essentially reducing the per student cost of the school, so these schools look like they run more efficiently). In the other schools you have the disengaged parents, the learning problems, the behavioural problems and the disabled; kids who need more money spent on them to give them an equal education, but they end up with less money per child than the other schools.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

No they don't.
To quote a wise fellow

I disagree. The problem is ultimately not one issue, but a combination of many that can, in some cases, be magnified by pooling. To use pooling as an argument against school choice, private schooling, or other significant reforms that we need in public education pretty much makes sure the leaking vessel takes all our children down.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

Here's where I have questions:

"But there's a loophole. Where special education students attend school is determined by their Individual Education Plan (IEP). That plan is developed by the student, parents, school officials and therapists.

The IEP team won't send that student to a charter school that isn't set up to serve disabled students.

School districts design a systemic plan to educate students with disabilities. Charter schools do not. Their solution is often to refer students back to the traditional public schools — as happened to Tres Whitlock.

It's a Catch-22, according to Paul O'Neill, an expert in special education at Columbia University.

"When you get an IEP, it's now a mandate, it's a responsibility," he said. "You're not allowed to be any place that can't implement that IEP. That isn't an appropriate placement.""

This casts some doubt on what the data being presented means, and where further investigation is warranted before drawing lines that paints a portrait of a villain. After all, if the students are prevented from being considered for these schools, then there is little economic motivation to adapt to an influence which you are being shielded from. At the very least, this muddles the picture to the point where one should no longer feel comfortable taking a side, be that of the pro-privatization one, or the pro-teachers union one.

[korean-guy-01.livejournal.com]

Why can't he wear a diaper?

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

This case shows the rules for entry into charter schools need to be fixed and some loopholes closed, at least in Florida, not that charter schools should be closed down. Since charter schools tend to be smaller, you would expect fewer to have severely disabled kids, so the stats that fewer charter schools have kids with these kinds of disabilities is suspect. That said, they should not be able to turn down someone for excuses like this. Also, the public school's response is pretty shameful. You read that Tres was put into a class for mentally disabled kids in a public school and pretty much ignored, right? I can certainly see why Tres and his parents still want to go into a charter school.

I would also say that when you have the involved parents wanting to move their kids out of public schools and into charter schools, causing wait lists, the answer isn't to de-fund the charter schools but to expand them. I trust parents to be the most interested in their kids educations, especially the involved ones.

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

"More than 86 percent of the charter schools do not serve a single child with a severe disability — compared to more than half of district schools that do." -- Then people should be making phone calls to the ACLU (or ACLJ if you don't prefer the former) and do something about it. That's discrimination and even charter schools still have to follow laws against discrimination.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Private schools here are like your charter schools, we have two levels of private schools, the ones that are no better than public schools but make the parents think they're doing something good for their child's education, and the $20000 a year ones, which actually are better for your child's education, but will be more likely to turn your child into a heroin addict or a CEO, both horrible futures. Anyway, private schools don't have to give reasons for not admitting a student, they have limited spaces and they give it to those who "deserve" it the most. A disability may not take you off the list, but it will usually mean you don't have enough good points to get on the list. Not to mention that all you have to do is put "religious school" in your name and you're exempt from all discrimination laws.

[onefatmusicnerd.livejournal.com]

That happens here in the US also. The average private school graduate performs pretty similarly to the average public school graduate.

The Academy system in the south and most religious schools are really bad in this country. The Catholics run a two tier system - parish schools are pretty similar (actually performing a bit below) to the public schools around them while the schools run by orders are some of the best in the country.