Charter Schools are a fine example of how constant hammering by the
Ruling Classes Media, can confuse citizens into voting against their
own best interest, and in favor of the raping and plundering of
publicly held institutions.
First, create a story about our failing public schools. Then create a
solution. The solution turns out to be a system that puts tax dollars
into private pockets. In addition we have been suckered into
believing that students must study hard and pass tests set up to
measure how well they can ingest propaganda and regurgitate it.
Mindless memorization with no test to measure how well our children
are dissecting the information placed before them, and drawing their
own conclusions. Creative thinking is being down graded and phased
out of the curriculum. Soon, if we don't dig in and resist, we'll be
paying to turn out little human robots. Actually, I should say, we
and our children will be paying for the privilege of becoming little
robots.
We have already been carjar82@gmail.com,
Bob and Gloria Lehnart <
pointwilson1@msn.com>,
carjar82 <
carjar82@gmail.com>,
catjar82 <
catjar82@gmail.com>,
earl
pickering <
deepsix@olympus.net>,
Gene and Lois Holly
<feholly@olypen.com>,
Gunther Dohse <
gunther@olympus.net>,
jo candler
<clairjo@cablespeed.com>,
John Ammeter <
jammeter@cablespeed.com>,
"Ken
Hanson (AA7CX)" <
ken_aa7cx@olypen.com>,
Leesa Monroe
<LMonroe@jeffersontransit.com>
, Lois and Gene Holly
<leholly@olypen.com>,
Nancy Kelly-Patnod <
gizmo@olypen.com>,
nancy
villagran <
nanscape@mindspring.com>,
Richard Dinger
<rrdinger@olypen.com>,
richard hausmann <
rghausmann63@yahoo.com>,
Sue
Ammeter <
sue.ammeter@cablespeed.com>
dummied down to the place where we are unable to see through the
Charter School Scam.
Sorry kids. You're being screwed by the Ruling Class along with the
support of your parents.
Carl Jarvis
On 2/23/15, joe harcz Comcast <joeharcz@comcast.net> wrote:
> Stop Michigan's reckless charter school authorizers Michigan taxpayers
> funnel more than $1 billion a year to some 380 charter schools exempt from
> much of
>
> the regulations and oversight that constrain the state's traditional public
> schools. State lawmakers responsible for this arrangement defend it by
> asserting
>
> that students benefit when they have more educational options, that charter
> schools offer students in many low-income neighborhoods a better education
>
> than the one available at their local public school, and that competition
> for students and the state funding that follows them gives all schools an
> incentive
>
> to improve. But a new analysis by one of the nation's most respected
> educational foundations challenges each of these premises. While recognizing
> that
>
> Michigan's best charter schools are delivering on their promise to provide
> an education as good or better than the one offered by traditional public
> schools,
>
> the report card released Thursday by the Education Trust-Midwest provides
> persuasive evidence that the authorizers and operators who serve the
> majority
>
> of Michigan's charter school students are falling short of that standard.
> Education Trust's analysis also reveals that a handful of colleges and
> school
>
> districts responsible for a disproportionate share of the state's
> worst-performing charter schools are continuing to authorize new charters at
> a frantic
>
> pace. Since 2011, when Gov. Rick Snyder signed legislation giving such
> institutions unchecked authority to open or expand an unlimited number of
> charter
>
> schools, more than 80 charter schools have opened for business in Michigan,
> including many sponsored by the state's worst-performing authorizers and
> run
>
> by operators with similarly poor track records. Among those contributing to
> this unprecedented expansion are Eastern Michigan University (12 charter
> schools)
>
> and Northern Michigan University (10 charters), both of which earned failing
> grades in Education Trust's exhaustively documented authorizer report card.
>
> It all adds up to an urgent, unambiguous imperative for the governor and
> legislators who designed this Wild West marketplace: Lansing needs to impose
> an
>
> immediate moratorium on chronically failing charter authorizers and insist
> that they meet tougher accountability standards before they are allowed to
> authorize
>
> new charter schools or expand existing ones. The 'good or better' test Other
> studies, including a major investigative project undertaken last year by
> the
>
> Free Press , have criticized the performance and financial practices of the
> state's charter schools and called for greater transparency and government
>
> oversight. But the Education Trust-Midwest analysis is unique ? and uniquely
> disturbing, in several respects. Amber Arellano, the group's executive
> director,
>
> says her organization's more than two-year study is the first to examine the
> track records of the colleges, public school districts and intermediate
> school
>
> districts authorized to approve new charter schools, monitor their
> performance and renew contracts with charter operators. Ten of the 16
> authorizers evaluated
>
> earned grades of A or B by consistently approving or renewing charter
> schools that demonstrated progress in improving student achievement. But the
> six
>
> authorizers who earned A's accounted for just 13 charter schools, while the
> six at the bottom of the grading scale (1 C, 3 D's and 2 F's) were
> responsible
>
> for authorizing 153 schools. The bottom line is that the most prolific
> authorizers are too often failing to assure that the charters they bring to
> life
>
> are providing students with an option as good or better than the public
> schools from whom they divert taxpayer money. And in Michigan, that record
> of failure
>
> can be be lucrative: Authorizers typically take 3% of the annual state
> funding provided to every charter school they approve, whether or not those
> schools
>
> serve students effective. Rigorous methodology Education Trust-Midwest used
> the same public state accountability data available to charter operators
> and
>
> authorizers to compare both student achievement and year-to-year improvement
> in math and reading. To be fair to charters, the report excluded from its
>
> analysis schools with less than three years of data or that have converted
> from traditional public schools to charters in the last three years, as
> well
>
> as those that serve specialized populations, such as strict discipline
> academies established as an alternative to incarceration. Individual charter
> schools
>
> were deemed to have met the charter movement's "as good as or better"
> promise if their students scored in the 50th percentile or above in the
> state's top-to-bottom
>
> ranking of all Michigan schools. Charter schools whose performance fell
> below the statewide average could also pass the "as good or better" test by
> demonstrating
>
> year-to-year improvement equal to or better than the average school in
> Michigan and in the public school district where most of its students
> reside. Thus,
>
> charter schools that draw the largest proportion of their students from
> Detroit were compared with public schools in Detroit, even if the charter is
> located
>
> outside the city's boundaries. The college or school district responsible
> for authorizing the charter was judged to have fallen short of the
> Education
>
> Trust's minimum quality standard only if it failed to meet the "as good or
> better" test for three consecutive years. "This gives us confidence that
> when
>
> we say a school is not serving its students well, it's really true," the
> report says. Just 16 of the state's 40 charter authorizers had amassed
> enough
>
> data to be included in the ETM study. But the 16 serve 96% of the students
> attending Michigan charters. Ad hominem attacks Prominent champions of
> Michigan's
>
> charter movement have hastened to dismiss the Education Trust study , mostly
> on the grounds that its authors were motivated by an animus to the charter
>
> movement. But the evidence provides scant support for this ad hominem
> critique. Arellano maintains that the Education Trust, which derives nearly
> all of
>
> its funding from nonpartisan groups like the Skillman Foundation, is
> emphatically "agnostic" on the issue of school governance. Its authorizer
> report card
>
> goes out of its way to celebrate the successes of responsible authorizers
> such as Washtenaw Community College and Grand Valley State University, and
> readily
>
> acknowledges the important role such authorizers have played in making
> higher quality choices available to students served by poorly performing
> traditional
>
> schools. But no one (except, perhaps, the authorizing institutions
> themselves) benefits when authorizers enable operators with poor performance
> records
>
> to replicate their formulas for academic failure. That's why Lansing must
> move expeditiously to put the brakes on the most irresponsible authorizers.
> Michigan
>
> School Superintendent Mike Flanagan, who has some authority to suspend
> authorizers for deficient oversight of charter schools in their portfolios,
> has
>
> already put 11 authorizers on notice that they are at risk of suspension.
> But Flanagan's list does not include some of the authorizers ETM singled
> out
>
> as poor performers, and neither Flanagan no anyone else has sufficient
> authority to make sure the $1 billion taxpayers provide to support charters
> is being
>
> spent wisely. Snyder and Republican legislative leaders have both identified
> charter accountability as a top priority for 2015. While they pursue a
> comprehensive
>
> solution, they should take immediate action to stem the damage Michigan's
> most irresponsible authorizers are doing right now. Grading charter
> authorizers
>
> Education Trust Midwest assessed and graded Michigan's charter school
> authorizers for more than two years. Its scorecard looked at a number of
> factors
>
> in assigning a grade, including: ? Did an authorizer give a new contract to
> an operator (between fall 2011 and 2014) that had more than half or more of
>
> its other schools not meeting a minimum quality standard? ? What percentage
> of an authorizer's current schools either performed at or above the 50th
> percentile
>
> or met the average statewide and local district improvement standard for
> three years in a row? ? What percentage of an authorizer's schools were in
> the
>
> state's bottom 5% of all schools for two years and didn't show at or above
> state-average improvement in the second year and are still open? ? Did an
> authorizer's
>
> schools meet or beat the improvement of the traditional public school where
> the majority of students come from? The group then assigned scores to that
>
> data and grades according to the overall score. Charter authorizers without
> schools open for at least three years were not included. The study also did
>
> not include strict discipline academies or schools in a transition mode in
> the overall grades for each authorizer. Based on this criteria, Ed Trust's
> report
>
> covers 16 of Michigan's 40 auth ? orizers, including 96% of the students in
> Michigan's charter schools. Grade: A Washtenaw Community College Schools
> measured:
>
> 1 Total schools: 1 Washtenaw ISD Schools measured: 1 Total schools: 1 Grand
> Rapids Public Schools Schools measured: 1 Total schools: 1 Wayne RESA
> Schools
>
> measured: 2* Total schools: 7 Hillsdale ISD Schools measured: 2 Total
> schools: 2 Macomb ISD Schools measured: 1 Total schools: 1 Grade: B Lake
> Superior
>
> State University Schools measured: 7* Total schools: 30 Ferris State
> University Schools measured: 16* Total schools: 30 Grand Valley State
> University Schools
>
> measured: 36* Total schools: 63 Bay Mills Community College Schools
> measured: 33* Total schools: 48 Grade: C Central Michigan University Schools
> measured:
>
> 50* Total schools: 73 Grade: D Oakland University Schools measured: 8* Total
> schools: 10 Detroit Public Schools Schools measured: 4* Total schools: 14
>
> Saginaw Valley State University Schools measured: 20* Total schools: 34
> Grade: F Eastern Michigan University Schools measured: 9* Total schools: 12
> Northern
>
> Michigan University Schools measured: 7* Total schools: 10 *In many cases,
> the number of schools measured do not match the number of schools in the
> authorizer's
>
> portfolio. This is because the only schools measured were those that had
> three years of academic data. Take action Tell Gov. Rick Snyder and your
> legislators
>
> to impose an immediate moratorium on failing charter authorizers. Urge your
> elected officials to implement tougher accountability standards for
> authorizers
>
> before they are allowed to open new charter schools or expand existing ones.
> ? Call Snyder at 517-373-3400; send a message at http:// bit .ly/1CUkfmL ;
>
> tweet him at @OneToughNerd; or post to his Facebook page: www .facebook .com
> /GovernorRickSnyder ? Use this link to find contact information for your
> state
>
> representative: http:// bit .ly /findmirep ? Use this link to find contact
> information for your state senator: http:// bit .ly/ findmisenator
>
>
>
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