How "Democracy" works
Hey Folks,
Democracy is supposed to serve the people, ALL the people, the voters. With that in mind you'd think that what our elected officials do would be intended to serve the people, all the people.
Well, think again.
The Charter School scheme was sold as a way to "improve education" especially for minorities being "left behind" by the "soft racism of low expectations."
Yeah, Republicans really care about minorities - that should have been the insurmountable tip-off that the scheme was crap. Actually it was hatched up to reduce spending on schools, produce profits for entremanures, weaken teachers unions, and con minorities into good thoughts about the kindly, white Republicans. There was nothing educational about it.
Check out the article below and see what the story is turning out to be - eight years down the road from the date of purchase.
- Uke Man
Ohio’s charter schools are failing to perform as well as its public schools
Monday, August 28, 2006
RICHARD GUNTHER
How well are charter schools meeting the needs of Ohio’s children and taxpayers?
When charter schools were first established eight years ago, state legislators argued that by allowing the private sector to compete with public schools, free of regulation by local school boards and the state board of education, charter schools would provide higher quality education more efficiently than traditional public schools. These privately owned and managed schools enrolled more than 70,000 students and received nearly a half-billion tax dollars last year, and it is high time that we look at the evidence to see if this policy has been successful.
Data released by the Ohio Department of Education on Aug. 14 demonstrated that most public schools are performing very well. Seventy percent of public schools statewide were categorized as excellent or effective, up from the 58 percent in those two top categories last year. These same data make clear that most charter schools have failed to achieve the quality promised by proponents. Only 17 percent were rated excellent or effective.
The most shocking finding is that 49 percent of charter schools statewide were given failing grades: 18 percent were placed on academic watch, while 31 percent were declared to be under academic emergency. This compares with just 6 percent in each category for public schools.
In central Ohio, the situation is even worse: Two-thirds of charter schools in Franklin County received failing grades, with an astonishing 52 percent of them placed on academic emergency, the lowest ranking. All 10 of the highestrated schools in central Ohio were traditional public schools. Conversely, seven of the 10 lowest-rated schools in central Ohio were charter schools.
Proponents of charter schools often claim that their performance suffers from the disproportionate enrollment of at-risk pupils in urban areas. In fact, data for public and charter schools in Ohio’s eight largest cities do not reveal a consistent difference with regard to composition of student populations. There are somewhat more blacks in charter schools (73 percent vs. 61 percent), but public schools in these urban areas have higher percentages of special-education and disabled students, members of other minority ethnic groups, percentages of pupils for whom English is a second language and children from economically disadvantaged families.
A study by the Ohio Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, took these factors into account by comparing public schools with charter schools within the same neighborhood in Ohio’s eight largest cities. It found that, by a wide margin, public schools perform much better on state-mandated standardized tests than charter schools in the same neighborhood.
In a world of unlimited money, the charter-school experiment might be justifiable. But the diversion of state funding has deprived public schools of badly needed money. In the Columbus school district, the fiscal crisis has led to the elimination of more than 900 teaching positions over the past four years, with several hundred more slated for elimination. In short, the costs of this failed experiment have undermined public education’s ability to place enough teachers in the classroom.
The basic design of the charter system is flawed and unfair to public education. Public schools are held accountable to the Ohio Department of Education. Why did charter schools receive $487 million in taxpayer dollars last year, but with no ODE oversight? Why should charter-school students be exempt from the testing requirements established by the No Child Left Behind law? Why should business executives, some of whom have made millions dollars in campaign contributions to politicians, be allowed to make enormous profits from managing charter schools at the taxpayers’ expense? And when will our elected officials demand that private institutions deliver a high-quality education in exchange for receiving hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars a year?
Competition among schools might be a good thing over the long term. But that competition must be conducted with the same standards of performance and accountability imposed on all.
Richard Gunther is a professor of political science at Ohio State University and is the 2006 recipient of the university’s Distinguished Scholar Award.
Richardgunther1 @netscape.net
Democracy is supposed to serve the people, ALL the people, the voters. With that in mind you'd think that what our elected officials do would be intended to serve the people, all the people.
Well, think again.
The Charter School scheme was sold as a way to "improve education" especially for minorities being "left behind" by the "soft racism of low expectations."
Yeah, Republicans really care about minorities - that should have been the insurmountable tip-off that the scheme was crap. Actually it was hatched up to reduce spending on schools, produce profits for entremanures, weaken teachers unions, and con minorities into good thoughts about the kindly, white Republicans. There was nothing educational about it.
Check out the article below and see what the story is turning out to be - eight years down the road from the date of purchase.
- Uke Man
Ohio’s charter schools are failing to perform as well as its public schools
Monday, August 28, 2006
RICHARD GUNTHER
How well are charter schools meeting the needs of Ohio’s children and taxpayers?
When charter schools were first established eight years ago, state legislators argued that by allowing the private sector to compete with public schools, free of regulation by local school boards and the state board of education, charter schools would provide higher quality education more efficiently than traditional public schools. These privately owned and managed schools enrolled more than 70,000 students and received nearly a half-billion tax dollars last year, and it is high time that we look at the evidence to see if this policy has been successful.
Data released by the Ohio Department of Education on Aug. 14 demonstrated that most public schools are performing very well. Seventy percent of public schools statewide were categorized as excellent or effective, up from the 58 percent in those two top categories last year. These same data make clear that most charter schools have failed to achieve the quality promised by proponents. Only 17 percent were rated excellent or effective.
The most shocking finding is that 49 percent of charter schools statewide were given failing grades: 18 percent were placed on academic watch, while 31 percent were declared to be under academic emergency. This compares with just 6 percent in each category for public schools.
In central Ohio, the situation is even worse: Two-thirds of charter schools in Franklin County received failing grades, with an astonishing 52 percent of them placed on academic emergency, the lowest ranking. All 10 of the highestrated schools in central Ohio were traditional public schools. Conversely, seven of the 10 lowest-rated schools in central Ohio were charter schools.
Proponents of charter schools often claim that their performance suffers from the disproportionate enrollment of at-risk pupils in urban areas. In fact, data for public and charter schools in Ohio’s eight largest cities do not reveal a consistent difference with regard to composition of student populations. There are somewhat more blacks in charter schools (73 percent vs. 61 percent), but public schools in these urban areas have higher percentages of special-education and disabled students, members of other minority ethnic groups, percentages of pupils for whom English is a second language and children from economically disadvantaged families.
A study by the Ohio Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, took these factors into account by comparing public schools with charter schools within the same neighborhood in Ohio’s eight largest cities. It found that, by a wide margin, public schools perform much better on state-mandated standardized tests than charter schools in the same neighborhood.
In a world of unlimited money, the charter-school experiment might be justifiable. But the diversion of state funding has deprived public schools of badly needed money. In the Columbus school district, the fiscal crisis has led to the elimination of more than 900 teaching positions over the past four years, with several hundred more slated for elimination. In short, the costs of this failed experiment have undermined public education’s ability to place enough teachers in the classroom.
The basic design of the charter system is flawed and unfair to public education. Public schools are held accountable to the Ohio Department of Education. Why did charter schools receive $487 million in taxpayer dollars last year, but with no ODE oversight? Why should charter-school students be exempt from the testing requirements established by the No Child Left Behind law? Why should business executives, some of whom have made millions dollars in campaign contributions to politicians, be allowed to make enormous profits from managing charter schools at the taxpayers’ expense? And when will our elected officials demand that private institutions deliver a high-quality education in exchange for receiving hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars a year?
Competition among schools might be a good thing over the long term. But that competition must be conducted with the same standards of performance and accountability imposed on all.
Richard Gunther is a professor of political science at Ohio State University and is the 2006 recipient of the university’s Distinguished Scholar Award.
Richardgunther1 @netscape.net
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