Has the education debate become racial?

These are just my casual observations but it seems that a lot of pro-reformers are black and anti-reformers are white?
I haven't seen any polling on it though.

The majority of whites loved Fenty-Rhee
Majority of blacks not-so-much

That's just stupid shit stirring, one that does a disservice to all sides in this debate.

You already have the profiteers stirring up inter-city activists and convincing them that private/charter/vouchers/etc. alternatives are the only solution when the real problem is that education spending per student most certainly is effectively biased based on race.

is not addressed, we'll only be talking around the issue and nothing will be accomplished.

that is the problem. As soon as you politicize something, it ceases to have substance.

Check the bios of the prominent... ahem... "reformers".

Examples: Rhee, Obama, Duncan, Guggenheim ( director/producer of "Superman"), Jonathan Alter.

Preppies all; never taught in ....OR EVEN BEEN STUDENTS IN American Public Schools. ( I don't consider Rhee's mini-stint in Teach for America as real teaching.).

Yet fancy themselves as "experts".

People who have the funds move to districts that have good schools leaving the poor with no options but poor schools and poor education -we call that public eduction and justice for all

The ones who want change want improvements in the poorer distrust that currently have no access to good schools -they want a better life for kiss in poverty and think it starts with an access to good education -they are less concerned with how good schools get created just that they do

Is certainly not the way to improve schools.

And that's what the push for charter schools by the political class is all about, giving corporations access to funds that hitherto have gone to education.

LOCALLY managed and operated by LOCAL COMMUNITY MEMBERS - you know, parents, teachers, admins?

10% are managed by those "for profit companies"

10% are managed by non-profit management companies.

Local I mean..

I spent a dozen years dealing with the school system and its local control as a very hands on parent while my daughter was going through school, invariably the ones who had actual control, the most power, were the ones I thought least interested in the good of the children and most interested in promoting themselves in some manner.

It would amaze me if things have changed for the better in the last dozen years.

You keep going on about "corporate takeover" whenever charter public schools are mentioned, yet you neglect to mention that those "corporate managed schools" are less than 80% of all charter public schools (and only ten percent are those "for-profits".)

And why aren't most? Because the teachers don't NEED one - they have a partnership with the organization that doesn't require that type relationship.

Note - this is only true of the small independent charters. Those managed by the larger corporations (which I'm basically opposed) probably would need unions. It would be up to the teachers to vote one in if they think they need it, though.

Race was there from the beginning, in Ocean Hill/Brownsville. You could see the shape it would take from the very beginning.

Even in those communities where it isn't "talked about".

It's always been racial/socio-economic. White-flight accelerated suburban sprawl & "starved" inner city schools of funding, which forced a self-fulfilling prophesy front & center. Media helped, and still does. In media lingo, "urban schools" means "black kids go there, so don't waste any tax money on them".

As whites fled the cities, to get away from integrating schools, their incomes pretty much made sure that their kids' schools would not be "as" integrated, and of course affluent black & Hispanics found their way to the suburbs, so more "storefront Jesus" & "private" academies sprang up to keep the pigmentation at school as pale as possible.

The ironic thing is that the KIDS are not afraid of integration and most (probably) kids today have friends of ALL pigmentation/nationality..and don't even care about what their parents/grandparents obsess about.

Community activists and school boards in areas that are predominately poor (which also tend to be predominately racial minorities)are desperate for quality education funds, and since the tax base can't provide it, corporate donorship needs to. Even if it's non-profit corporation, it's based on money provided to the community by outside forces with only a minimal interest in passing all the children.
Corporations need metrics and standard education practices to justify any action they take. So to get the money, you need to tow the corporate line and show "bang for the buck". Of course, the money people are going to support and hire those "reformers" who look like successful members of the community that's being sponsored to handle the management of their investment. How else can their requirements be enforced?


The money people run the education show. Not the people who actually have to live in the community and want their children to learn and grow. Now, your kid has to hit the right qualifiers at pre-specified exit criteria points to pass on to the next level, which apparently includes qualification for college. And he or she has to do it within a specific time period; if there's not sufficient "maturity" by 12 or 13, the child is "at risk" of failure.
If your kid or school doesn't have the correct results to pass Education, LLC's QA processes prior to the child's "Deployment into the working world", they get tossed in the reject heap.

Race is only window dressing in the process.

Haele
(Edited due to keyboard issues)

you mean those TEN PERCENT of charters that are managed by a forprofit corporation?

Or maybe you think that Oprah is only "in it for the money". Or Bill Gates maybe? They sure need that money . . .

According to the Center for Public Education, for-profit EMOs run 16 percent of all charter schools. Undoubtedly the reason why the number isn't higher is because many states prohibit it.
http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=lvIXIiN0JwE&b=5868097&ct=8089273

For-profit EMOs are also a growth industry that is rapidly expanding. These corporations are actively lobbying lawmakers to change laws to allow them to expand more.

Studies show charter schools do no better, and in some aspects worse than public schools, so the question is at what number should we start to be concerned? When for-profits are managing 40% of them, 60%, 90%?

These so-called conscious capitalists are donating money on the condition they get to call the shots. The reality is they believe that only for-profit corporations can solve our nation's ills. I don't happen to subscribe to that libertarian slant. If they were really all that conscious, they should donate money without strings.

Here's what the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools has:

Freestanding 3,838 77.8%
EMO 492 10.0%
CMO 573 11.6%


Ah - I think I see the problem - your source counts "online schools" - NAPCS talking about brick and mortar.



edit - alliance not association.

And there are only 50 "online schools" nationwide. So how are you reconciling a 6% difference based on that? Even if that were so, what difference does it make if they are online or not? Well the difference is that almost all online schools are managed by for-profits, so that probably explains why your obviously biased source leaves them out.

You still didn't answer the question. At what point should we be concerned about corporations taking over public schools? As far as I'm concerned, one school is too many.

A school district that can support adding a special needs Charter School - that means facility, administration, teachers, teaching resources - has enough money to have good enough public schools that they usually don't need investors.

I've both experienced "Non-Profit" Charter schools and observed the development of them. It doesn't matter if it's Bill Gates or Oprah, or the local VA and Reservist groups gathering together to set up a "Military School Charter" for at risk young men, there is still an Incorporation that is organized to handle the funding, donations, and to justify expenditures for the investors.
These organizations require metrics and standards that the Charter Schools have to live up to, and the majority aren't run by people that actually have education experience other than their own. So the students and teachers still have to deal with "entry and exit criteria", reporting, testing, and more testing to keep the investors happy. Hence, "Money People" end up running the Charter, just like they run the School District - not the teachers, not the parents, not those involved with the welfare of the students.

There are organizations that specialize in seeking out and "helping" communities set up these non-profit Charters.

Don't confuse the need to make investors happy with the "For Profit" designation. There are plenty of S-Corps, holding companies, and LLC's that are involved with "Non-Profit" organizations to handle the operational or investment requirements of those organizations, and they make plenty of money for their Boards and Shareholders...on sliding anywhere from 2 - 25% of handling and maintenance fees off the top of the donations to those "Non-Profits".

Charter Schools serve a purpose, but they aren't a replacement for traditional schooling - especially since they can discriminate when it comes to admissions and teaching methods, and traditional schools can't.

Haele

http://www.counterpunch.org/weil08252009.html

The article does a good job of explaining the tangled web that the for-profits are weaving.

:shrug:

to send their kids to a decent public school. It's easy for them to find a thousand reasons to ignore or excuse that our System is screwing over poor minority students.

It's a function of white privilege to look at a system that serves white kids fairly successfully and conclude that the system is just fine as it is, better not to mess with it.