It's always assumed no one notices when a swindle is taking place, or how far they go to convince you how much you need that swindle.

we are also a strong public employee union state. So I am not sure if your statement applies here.

Non-union jobs and in some cases 1/2-1/3 the pay doesn't "apply here"? Ok...

i just wanted to point out to the OP that charter schools are embraced by more than RW wing repukes.

Because funneling public money straight to the top is what purchased politicians do.

some more than others but all are for sale.

He just said he would not take corporate money. Maybe you should read about his campaign and it might get you to switch your avatar. I'm tired of politicians being bought and I think it is very important to turn the tide.

RW repukes don't have a lock on the stupid.

Or, some Dems are not politically inclined and are ignorant of what's going on in the world.

The OP is correct. There's a boatload of money to be skimmed off of the public education system.

The fact that some Democrats are supporting charter schools shouldn't provide any solace at all. On the contrary, it should sound the alarm that our once proud party has seriously lost its way.

but there is popular support for charter schools in the poor parts of the state because education in RI is so fucked up. Politicians support it because they are unwilling to fix public education.

We are intentionally dismantlng the public sector. It's a deliberate neo-liberal strategy, designed to satisfy the voracious appetite of un-regulated free-market capitalism. It's no wonder that people are dissatisfied with public education. As a former president of Amtrak once told Congress, "First you starve us. Then you yell at us for being too skinny."

they are king makers. How many state legislatures can you think of where union officials are elected representatives making policy.

why are you on this site?

I like the idea of politically powerful unions. RI will never be a right to work state because of them. My dad was a union member all his life. My mom lives well because of that union pension. I support unions.

There are many gun owning Dems. Sorry but that's a simple reality you need to accept.

are those not your words?

Give me 3 examples of the "kings" that were made by RI unions in the last 20 years.

even though I live here and am active in local elections. Not worth fighting over. Peace.

....speaker of the house is a pro life fraud. Most of the rest of them exist to take kickbacks and have zero political compass beyond their pocket. And don't get me started on Dan McKee.

But then again, Hack, you're a "conservative Democrat" so you think they're all wonderful I'm sure.

and I would have never considered a charter school. I not conservative in any manner. I am a pro-choice, pro-marriage equality atheist. I do like guns and dare disagree with you, however, which I suppose is good enough to stick a label on me.

We're supposed to ignore his previous 8 years of harshing on public education.

but madfloridian has tons of great posts on this subject alone. The propaganda put out there that our schools are failing has worked its way into our subconscious just like the anti-abortion framing. It's been a concerted, expensive campaign and needs to be countered whenever possible. Obama has been entirely awful on public education with his pick of Arne Duncan and Race to the Bottom. The WORST education policy for a Democratic administration that I can remember.

And then the charter school officials come in and rent the same damn building, for over half a million dollars a year, was eye opening.

Perpetual rent monies for those inside the Inner Circle of corruption. While meanwhile the kids are suffering through the most boring curricula ever known to students.

charter companies. This is a wakeup call that charter schools DON'T WORK.

I simply said that states differ, they do, and that there are great and sucky charters and publics.

Are you trying to say that all charters suck, or something?

Or that states are all the same on this matter?

Charter schools are not the answer and are meant to destroy public schools and most especially, bust the teacher's union.

There are many things that need to improve in public schools and charters are definitely NOT the answer. Read madfloridian's posts who has given ample evidence of why this is so. And has been proven definitively, over and over, the best way to improve education is through economics. If we have almost 40% of school age children living in poverty, it's no wonder our education system is struggling. When we have class sizes balooning, a mixture of languages and educational levels, high stakes testing up the ass, and our only solution is to beat up on teachers, we are never going to get anywhere.

We need to vastly expand head start, tutoring programs, allow parents to volunteer in classrooms again, add teacher's aides, reduce class size, and add in abundant help for ESL learners. This is not to even mention classrooms that don't have books, paper, pencils or computers.

Charter schools should be vigorously opposed and public education strengthened all the way through university. If we could do things like make corporations pay taxes and shave mere points off the Pentagon budget, all of that and more are easily achievable.

Madfloridian is a friend, and both of us have years and years in public schools, she has more years.

But she's in Florida and I'm in California and the charters are run quite differently here, not that there are bad ones, or that they don't take ADA from public schools.

The problem I have is that this binary characterization between the two, that one is evil and the other good is just inaccurate and distracting.

Were we to kill of charter schools, we'd continue to have the problems we have with many public schools.

This is my concern about the whole thing, and when some members here, as has been done in this thread, use ad homina to attack me, personally, then it's just not productive.

I love public schools,, and I like a lot of charter schools programs I've seen, all of which are operated at a public level by county offices of education, and serving kids who simply don't do well on large campuses.

The fact that these even exist is a fact lost on those who would broadbrush.

As we have seen in countless cases state charter schools are for-profit. It takes the administration out of the hands of the public school system and funnels money to private corps that charters contract out to. It busts the teacher's union. And it is an attempt to skirt around the god-awful testing system that is being foisted upon kids because it allows charters to pick and choose only high-achieving students.

Charters are designed to dismantle public education. Full stop.

Wouldn't it be simpler to just distribute the tax proceeds from the Treasury directly to Wall Street without having to create all these farcical schools designed to mis-educate fundie kids? Hell there would probly be some major economic benefits to just letting those kids grow up feral.

Just give them a budget line because all this vampirism of the system make me sick.

Funnel money to private corporations and away from public schools. There is no doubt that many public schools need reforming, but charter schools is not the answer.

That other stuff is just gravy.

-- Mal

Republicans are always moving into ANY areas where they can make a profit.

And Education for profit is BAD.

When charter schools were first proposed, it was a back door way to pay for private religious schools. Then the money men took a look at it and saw a lot of dollars on the table. Now the primary reason for charter schools is to enrich a bunch of already rich people.

Yes, there are good charter schools, my two granddaughters went to one with high academic standards, located in a high income area. But every time a charter school is approved, it means less money for the public school systems. Many charter schools will not accept disabled, failing or problem children so they are left to the public schools and these are the kids that cost the most money.

It is sad what is happening to the pubic school systems in America. There are other ways to solve the problem with poor performing schools. Taking away their best students is not the answer.

Charter schools using and diverting public funds are an affront to the notion of a secular state.

That also has been an age-old struggle, one which the Obama Administration sadly went over to the Dark Side.

public schools have. They should have to reach same standards, have same proportion of challenged students etc.

A bunch of anti-government free-market fundamentalism. Building an entire new privatized schooling system is supposed to be more effective than just properly supporting public schooling because... reasons?

done a real good job supporting on schools, educations either. we have harmed them, jumping on a fuckin bus, that from what i see is incorrect anyway.

Whoever could have seen that coming?

To accomplish this, they first had to discredit public education so the assault on teachers began. A manufactured crisis in education was initiated by the Ronald Reagan commissioned "A Nation At Risk".
What was never mentioned was that 95% of Americans were public school educated and we lead the world in virtually everything. Agriculture, technology, manufacturing, and GDP. We were the world's only real superpower because the USSR was only focused militarily. Their technology was a joke and China was still more of a third world nation than it is today.
Rich Republicans took their cue and wanted another tax kickback for sending their own kids to private schools and the idea of vouchers was born.
Most Americans bought into this manufactured crisis falling right into the Republican trap and began discussing education "reform" right along with them. This path eventually lead to charter schools, "schools for profit", and adopted the name "Charter Schools" which lead people to believe they were actually some kind of legitimate form of education. (You will actually find out that most charter schools don't perform as well as their neighboring public schools).
After 30 years of this nonsense, we are where we are today. Their next goal is Benjamin Franklin's Post Office.
Watch what happens when they accomplish that.

The primary purpose of charter schools is to allow scumbag profiteers to tap into the golden goose egg of tax payer dollars that go toward education.

That charters schools cut into teacher's unions is an added benefit.

BTW, the power of teachers unions relative to democratic politics is waning, charter schools or not. Overall, yes, more liberals, progressive and democrats, but there is are a bizarre number of "conservatives" in the teaching ranks, today.

Transferring wealth from teachers to capital.

depending on which charter school, other purposes are to prevent children from learning that the Bible is not 100% true, that evolution is a fact, to prevent children from being exposed to "those" (blacks etc) people, and to make money.

... they picked up on charters as a way to get revenge on their teachers. But I'm a high school dropout, what do I know?

I've also thought my fellow Boomers hated their mothers so much, that they decided to enact as much oppressive legislation as possible to get back at them.

I think these things when I contemplate the selfishness and self-centeredness of so many of my generation. Obviously, these are biased and incomplete prejudices. But so much hatred etches so many of our discussions and decisions these days, I have to wonder where it came from. Spoiled brats pouting is one possible explanation. I single out my generation because it is the one I know best, and it could be said to have paved the way for the ones that came after. Or rather, failed to pave the way, and instead created as many potholes as possible.

-- Mal

Of course, as aunion member and a public school teacher having spent the last 2 decades + on the front lines with students in our classrooms, I'm biased.

rw radio is the major liar/seller of privatization efforts and charter schools all over the country- and why charter schools are 'needed'.

more than 1/4 of those 1000+ radio stations (about 270 0f limbaugh's 600), most of the loudest, depend heavily on the sports mascots of 90 major universities for community credibility and ad revenue.

students and faculty at those universities could destroy rw radio by demanding they stop renting their mascots to those stations to help them sell the anti-public ed propaganda. that includes attacks on teachers and unions, reducing school funding and obstructing efforts to lower student debt. not to mention everything else those KKK stations sell.

from republicanradio.org:

Here are 90 universities/colleges that help Rush Limbaugh attack public education and teachers while spreading global warming denial, racism, misogyny, and lies.

the many sub-par schools. It is depressing that public education is seen as a potential revenue stream by the private investors. Some things should not be privatized.

And they've instituted the testing to make schools in economically depressed areas seem even worse and use that to justify closing them to put up more charters.

And I agree that it really is a larger PR plan to kill the teachers' unions because they've been such strong Democratic Party supporters.

Our legislators could give more funding to the public schools and less funding to the military or drug testing welfare recipients or providing more tax breaks for the 1%.

An added bonus for hedge funders who pretend to care about the oppressed.

and to make a few people millionaires

Then certain Democrats adopted their wonderful idea.

I love it....kids better behaved, more respectful, and better educated than kids in our public school system....sorry to the dissidents on this thread but I strongly support charter schools..

All of the downsides of teaching were selected out of your school. I enjoy teaching when the students are receptive and orderly.

Just like there are good public schools and bad public schools. Results usually reflect the socioeconomic status of the parents. People with more money support their children's education better.

On a national level, only 17% of charters do a better job than the local public schools. 39% do worse.

--well-behaved student body. But it damned well is nothing to be proud of.

At least the school district where I live was desegregated by order of the SCOTUS, but how that there are charter schools and schools of choice, they're completley re-segregated. By design?

Teachers Unions are a very very large contributor to the Democratic Party. k and r

I posted a couple of studies on how much they suck the other day. Wish I could find it.