House just passed bill to empower expansion of charter schools nationally.

madfloridian

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Sun Sep-18-11 01:03 PM
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House just passed bill to empower expansion of charter schools nationally.

And it now goes to the Senate. It is of course a "bipartisan" bill. It passed the House by 364-54.

This bill could be the death knell of public education in this country. It passed the House by a huge margin, although there is more and more evidence that charter schools do no better than public schools. There is plenty of evidence that the public taxpayer money going to charter groups is devastating traditional public education.

Bill to expand charter schools moves on to U.S. Senate

WASHINGTON � With a largely bipartisan vote, the U.S. House of Representatives this week approved legislation aimed at expanding and promoting charter schools throughout the country.

The Empowering Parents through Quality Charter Schools Act, passed 364-54, now goes to the Senate for further consideration. Although the bill, designated as HR 2218, had wide backing from both parties, including "ayes" from Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, and Rep. Frank Guinta, R-N.H., skepticism about the effectiveness of charter schools looms.

Organizations opposed to the bill include the National Education Association, the nation's largest teacher organization, the American Association of School Administrators and Parents Across America.

According to staffers on the Education and the Workforce Committee, from which the legislation emerged, HR 2218 is designed to facilitate states' expansion of charter schools and make it easier for them to obtain federal funding, as well as support an evaluation of such schools and encourage them to recruit troubled students.

Meanwhile, back in the world of education reality...we have known for years that charter schools do not outperform public schools. We have known that they can get higher test scores because they can be selective about their students.

From 2006 USA Today:

Charter schools fail to top their public peers

Independently run, publicly financed charter schools perform no better than comparable public schools, long-awaited federal data suggested Tuesday. Long considered a ticket out for students in poor public schools, charter schools have proliferated nationwide and are among reforms favored by the Bush administration. In Washington, D.C., one in four students attends one.

But Tuesday's report, which for the first time compares the performance of students in charters with that of public school peers in similar neighborhoods, finds that charter school students lag slightly.

The data show, for instance, that charter school students in 2003 were several points behind their counterparts in both reading and math in fourth and eighth grades. Standardized math scores in urban charters also lagged, but reading scores were comparable.

The results prompted Mark Schneider, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, to comment that the charter school movement is "not doing harm."

Yeh, well it is doing some harm now. Public schools are being defunded at an alarming rate.

We also were reminded of the failure of charter schools to outperform public ones in 2010 by Diane Ravitch. From the Collegiate Times.

Charter schools fail on promise to outperform public schools

As an education historian, I have often warned against the seductive lure of grand ideas to reform education. Our national infatuation with education fads and reforms distracts us from the steady work that must be done.

Our era is no different. We now face a wave of education reforms based on the belief that school choice, test-driven accountability and the resulting competition will dramatically improve student achievement.

Once again, I find myself sounding the alarm that the latest vision of education reform is deeply flawed. But this time my warning carries a personal rebuke.

For much of the last two decades, I was among those who jumped aboard the choice and accountability bandwagon. Choice and accountability, I believed, would offer a chance for poor children to escape failing schools. Testing and accountability, I thought, would cast sunshine on low-performing schools and lead to improvement. It all seemed to make sense, even if there was little empirical evidence, just promise and hope.

Today there is empirical evidence, and it shows clearly that choice, competition and accountability as education reform levers are not working. But with confidence bordering on recklessness, the Obama administration is plunging ahead, pushing an aggressive program of school reform � codified in its signature Race to the Top program � that relies on the power of incentives and competition. This approach may well make schools worse, not better.

Ravitch was the assistant Secretary of Education for the first Bush presidency. We should heed her words about this crazy push to kill public education.

In my state alone charter schools have failed at an alarming rate.

When it comes to the failure rate, charter Schools � operated at public expense by private companies � tanked on the 2011 FCAT. And an explanation provided by a major charter school booster does not appear to make the grade.

The numbers, first reported by CBS4 News Tuesday, are striking:

Of Florida�s 2,280 public elementary and middle schools, only 17 scored an �F� on the FCAT. Of the state�s 270 Charter elementary and middle schools, 15 flunked.

Charter schools had a failure rate 740% higher than that of public schools.

Charter school boosters were working damage control Wednesday.

It seems to me this bill would take the power from states to control the growth of charter schools.

While it isn't clear how many new charters schools would be created if the bill becomes law, a House Education and the Workforce Committee spokeswoman said "the legislation will give states greater opportunities to expand and replicate the state's highest-performing charter schools."

Charter school bill

It seems Eli Broad was correct when he said the "stars were aligned" when Arne Duncan was appointed.

The agenda of the Presidents Bush has come to fruition under a Democratic administration. It angers me greatly though I am retired as a teacher.

There is no justification for Democrats to be on board with the defunding and dismantling of public education.

364-54 in favor...that is a scary figure.