Let’s pull out of the geopolitical hole for awhile….shall we?
I remember a few years back when all the rage was the successes of the Charter Schools…..I said then that it was a con job….what it boiled down to was education by lotto.
The media trotted out the successful charter schools for all the world to see….it was then decided by the media) that this was the cause to highlight….the problem was they gave the public a very narrow view of the situation…..they never reported on the crappy job this did at educating our children….
The sell was a slogan…..”return control of public schools back to the local area”…..it is still being used to convince people of the necessity to privatize public education….of course they will not call it what it is……but rather some cutesy slogan that all can remember and repeat ad nauseum…..
Our kids deserve strong schools and great teachers under local control. That’s what the charter fight is all about…..it is a lie.
Source: Our real charter school nightmare: The new war on public schools and teachers – Salon.com
If this is an issue that will be on the ballot in your area…..then please learn everything you can about charter schools or whatever slogan they are using to get you to vote for the privatization of your public schools…..do not let them kill public education……it is a fundamental right of our republic…..do not let it go the way of your voting rights…….or abortion rights.
As far as I can see our schools are below par with the rest of the world and getting worse – so why doesn’t everyone make such a fuss about how little the ‘poor teacher’ makes for the 180 days a year that they work?
The schools in Finland are a perfect model of how schools should be…..
http://lobotero.com/2010/10/01/the-education-nation/
But do we listen or simply put a new band-aid over the previous ones? Patchwork solutions never work.
I totally agree….but here in the US we prefer reform to change….so band-aid is the answer…
Public schools don’t fit all students, by a long shot. Too often, the argument focuses on the schools, not the students. Save public education for students, not the schools themselves.
Good point…..one I agree with 100%
I echo many of your feelings. As a teacher in England I feel I am as much a servant to politicians as I am an educator – something I try to articulate in my blog.
I suppose we’ve had classrooms and teachers for more than two thousand years and we are still trying to get it right.
Charter schools seem much like Academies which are sneaking into our system. It is privatisation by stealth and I hate it.
Thanx for the comment and your visit….I agree and like I said “take a number and if you win you child gets into a good school”….education by lottery…..not something I will ever support…..chuq
I tried to figure out how the British system works and gave up. Mind boggling. Like opening one of those damn Russian dolls.
But thanks to watching The Inbetweeners , I did get an idea of what a “comprehensive” school is
like.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1_qe2Y9cYE
Actually, the show reminded me a lot of my school experience.
Thankfully, this charter school bullshit never caught on here in Canuckistan. (Well, at least outside of Canada’s illegitimate province fathered by Texas, aka Alberta.) So, I’m not too familiar with it beyond a few PBS stories and episodes of HBO’s Treme. But I do know one thing, it’s a total fucking con job!
It’s simple logic. Charter, or private, there is just NO way the educational system will get better if some kids get to go to “better” schools…even if they actually ARE better.
1) Most kids won’t get to go. They will get stuck with the leftovers (another great HBO show) of the favoured system. At best, they’ll get the 2nd class teachers and the 2nd class resources. Many will get their schools shut down altogether and taken somewhere else. And because it will happen more to The Poors, change “2nd class” to “5th class” (See: Rahm Emanuel’s school policies in Chicago.)
The educational system’s chain is only as strong as its weakest link. The private/charter approach is “The chain is as strong as it’s strongest link. And if it isn’t, nobody who counts will give a fuck because their kids are in the strongest link.”
2) The “success” of schools that can pick their own students is merely a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you can pick the smartest kids, the kids with parents who value education, the kid’s who parents have the resources, the kids with “less neighbourhood distractions”….then just imagine how incredibly AWFUL your school actually has to be to NOT top the charts! It would be like the NY Yankees losing to a local High School baseball team.
But people say “Oh, but some kids get there by lottery, so it’s random”. To a certain degree, depending on the exact details (fees, numbers of lottery kids,etc) But who enters their kids in the lottery? The parents who value education the most. Odds are, most of those kids were going to do better anyway because they already had one of the biggest pieces of the puzzle…better parents. All that was lacking was a better environment.
Here’s the “secret ingredient” to education. Put ANY kid in an environment where education is treated seriously and has the right resources…and they will all do better. The problem is that people just don’t want to pay for such a system, particularly the ones who have their kids in the “best” schools already. This is why any tinkering to public education will make the overall system worse, not better.
Any two/multi-tier system is guaranteed to favour the most exclusive tier at the expense of all others. (See: “Separate But Equal”)