Charters--Drain or draw?

Lively and feisty (as always) piece by Jeanne Allen defending charter schools. This gives you a flavor:


"We're so far beyond reason at this point. Even the media are picking up on the special interest rhetoric:

"Charters are siphoning money from the district."
Siphoning? You mean they are sticking a hose in and pulling it out involuntarily?? Money belongs to all of us, and charters are entitled to public funds to educate public kids no less than a school district.

"Charters are draining money from the budget."
Who’s draining what? Aren’t kids leaving because the think they’ll do better in another school? Maybe it’s really the parents that are draining the budget, in which case, you’d be picking on the parents. Not a good move, is it?

Here’s a better way to look at it, courtesy of the Gary, Indiana Post Tribune , April 11:
"Parents are showing their disenchantment with their feet. They’re walking away in droves from the city’s traditional public schools and toward newly created public charter schools. They say they’re looking for safer schools, smaller class sizes, and a better academic foundation."

Draining? I think not. These parents, and the thousands like them nationwide, are working for their kids, not the system. It costs us all when we don’t educate children. We should applaud when we find ways to keep people attending public schools, and if that costs the district funds they’d otherwise love to keep, maybe they need to act and stop complaining.

Until then, when you hear that charters are costing someone money, remember who pays for the schools and why they are supposed to exist. Money is for education, not just to perpetuate a system or jobs or programs that may not work for every child. If kids are leaving, it’s safe to say that there’s a problem. Thank God there are parents who care enough to buck the status quo."

Raspberry on parents

Columnist Bill Raspberry discusses two kinds of parents in his commentary on why NY City's school reforms, including paid parent coordinators in every school, have lagged. "What is hard for us to get our minds around is that school improvement is fairly easy to accomplish for children whose parents were successful in school and are enjoying some success in their lives. Threats of retention, loss of privilege, even the prospect of embarrassment, can nudge such parents into more active participation in their children's schooling.

"But for parents who have not enjoyed success or seriously envisioned success for their children, it takes more than reorganization and parent coordinators and such. It takes a consistent, nonjudgmental effort to reach and teach parents how to prepare their children for learning."

Special ed battles in suburbia

NY Times profiles ongoing fights between parents and wealthy Westport (CT) schools about how much special ed is enough.

New grading policy

Interesting piece in Washington Post about Montgomery County, MD's continuing efforts to help parents understand the new grading policy, which ends the long-standing practice of grading on a curve. Students now get A's only when they meet the standards, not simply for doing better than their classmates.

Where are the civil rights leaders?

Very thoughtful editorial from Brent Staples in today's NY Times. Bottom line: "This is a difficult moment for the civil rights movement, which is understandably fearful of taking positions that would discomfit the teachers among its supporters. But standing silently on the sidelines of the debate about teacher preparedness and No Child Left Behind is hardly the answer. Unless the civil rights establishment adopts a stronger and more public position, it will inevitably be viewed as having missed the most important civil rights battle of the last half-century." Agreed.

April FINE -- lots of links

April issue of monthly newsletter from Harvard's Family Involvement Network of Educators is out. As usual, lots of links to useful research and resources, including new tools from SEDL's Family Center and Virginia Dept. of Education. Subscribe here.

Too pushy?

National roundup from AP, profiling incidents of parents who are too aggressive. "Educators attribute the assaults and arguments, in part, to a general decline in civility and the intense competition these days to get into the right colleges. Lisa Jacobson, chief executive of the tutoring and test preparation business Inspirica, said teachers have told her they are overwhelmed by pushy parents. 'They feel like the parents come in as CEOs and order them around,' Jacobson said. 'I've seen many cases of parents going into schools and coercing teachers to change grades.'"

Closing gaps in Indiana

Profile of efforts in the Indianapolis area to encourage greater involvement of minority parents as a way to help close persistent achievement gaps.

Building quality schools

Did you know that...

• Half of all U.S. schools report one or more building features in "less than adequate" condition (NCES).
• About 40 percent of U.S. schools report one or more "unsatisfactory environmental condition" (NCES)
• The average age of a school facility in the U.S. is 40 years.
• According to a report from the National Education Association, it will take $332 billion to bring the nation's existing schools into good overall condition.

Just some of the many nuggets of information about school facilities available from the partnership promoting School Building Week (April 18).

Crimes and misdemeanors: parents and schools behaving badly

Parents blaming individual teachers for school-wide shortcomings...School leaders who keep low-performing teachers in schools....School leaders who fail to recognize and reward high-performing teachers...Not becoming a Picky Parent until something goes wrong for your child at school. Some of the good advice from this month's Picky Parents newsletter from Bryan and Emily Hassel. If you're not a subscriber, you should be.

Mild push for better reporting

New education secretary Spellings discusses much anticipated changes to help states meet NCLB rules. States that do certain things will be more likely to receive flexible treatment. Among the things: "making a good faith effort to reach out to parents, with easy-to-access information about their schools and frequent notices of their school transfer choices and tutoring options." Tennessee and Louisiana singled out for providing good info on supplemental services, but those were the only examples offered in a speech littered with examples of good practice in other areas. To date, the department has done nothing to push states and districts to provide parent-friendly report cards, a key but much-neglected part of the law. Maybe this signals a new focus? Stay tuned. Spellings' speech here.

A TV-Bullying connection

New study from University of Washington suggests that, for every hour of TV a 4-year-old watches daily, the risk of bullying in elementary school increases 9 percent.

Wanna' be a sub?

Denver schools may have a job for you. Facing continued shortage of substitute teachers, school system starts recruiting parents. Story.

Union contracts = "adult entitlements"?

Provocative new report from business-backed Education Partnership of Rhode Island charges that union contracts are "adult entitlements" that have little to do with improving student learning. Unions are furious. Excerpt:
"Because principals and superintendents, as well as teachers, must operate within the confines of collective bargaining agreements, contract clauses ... restrict managerial flexibility and represent costly expenditures that do not benefit students. Such clauses:
• Fill teaching positions on the basis of seniority, not on the basis of who is most qualified.
• Deny the ability to evaluate teachers meaningfully and to hold them accountable.
• Mandate costly grievance procedures.
• Limit teacher work day and year.
• Prescribe class size.
• Limit student contact outside of classes.
• Limit parent contact after school.
• Designate the insurer who provides (increasingly expensive) health insurance.
• Institutionalize excessive sick-day provisions.
• Limit collaborative meeting time with principals and teacher colleagues.
• Set work day schedules that limit common planning time."

Worth reading to better understand the rarely discussed collective bargaining process, which has so much to do with what happens in schools day to day.