Critical views of charter schools from around the nation
Yes, I am a charter school critic, and the charter school advocates who read this blog tend to view me (or pretend to view me) as some kind of weird, offbeat outlier voice.
Actually, that's not the case. There's a growing voice of resistance around the nation against the invasion of charter schools and privatization that's largely being pushed by opponents of public education.
Here's a description of charter schools from the blog Seattle Education 2010:
Here are some more onlinevoices critical of charter schools:
Education Notes Online (New York City)
NYC Educator (New York City)
Perimeter Primate (Oakland)
Schools Matter blog (contributors from various places; the blog owner is in Massachusetts)
Small Talk (Chicago) (This blog by Mike Klonsky is not as critical of charter schools as other voices, but it takes strong exception to many aspects of privatization and is sharply critical of Arne Duncan)
Solidaridad (Los Angeles)
SusanOhanian.org (Vermont)
And here are two books that are not all-out anti-charter school, but that raise and examine many questions about them:
The Charter School Dust-Up
Examining the Evidence on Enrollment and Achievement
By Martin Carnoy, Rebecca Jacobsen, Lawrence Mishel, and Richard Rothstein
Economic Policy Institute
Keeping the Promise?
The Debate Over Charter Schools
Edited by Leigh Dingerson, Barbara Miner, Bob Peterson, and Stephanie Walters
Rethinking Schools and the Center for Community Change
Here, too, is a recent commentary by Diane Ravitch on the Huffington Post voicing dismay about the direction the Obama administration and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are taking:
Diane Ravitch, by the way, is a former advocate of privatization who was an assistant Secretary of Education in the George H.W. Bush administration. Having watched the principles she once advocated being implemented on New York City schools, she has switched course and become a sharp critic of the forces of what's often called "school deform."
Actually, that's not the case. There's a growing voice of resistance around the nation against the invasion of charter schools and privatization that's largely being pushed by opponents of public education.
Here's a description of charter schools from the blog Seattle Education 2010:
What Is A Charter School?
The basic difference between a traditional public school and a charter school is that with a charter school there is complete control of the school by a private enterprise within a public school district. Although taxpayer-funded, charters operate without the same degree of public and district oversight of a standard public school. Most charter schools do not hire union teachers which means that they can demand the teacher work longer hours including weekends at the school site and pay less than union wages. Charter schools take the school district's allotment of money provided for each student within the public schools system and use it to develop their programs. In many systems, they receive that allotment without having to pay for other costs such as transportation for students to and from the school. Some states, such as Minnesota, actually allocate more than what is granted to public school students.
A charter school can expel any student that it doesn't believe fits within its standards or meets its level of expectation in terms of test scores. If the student is dropped off the rolls of the charter school, the money that was allotted for that student may or may not be returned to the district at the beginning of the next year. That is dependent upon the contract that is established by each district.
Here are some more onlinevoices critical of charter schools:
Education Notes Online (New York City)
NYC Educator (New York City)
Perimeter Primate (Oakland)
Schools Matter blog (contributors from various places; the blog owner is in Massachusetts)
Small Talk (Chicago) (This blog by Mike Klonsky is not as critical of charter schools as other voices, but it takes strong exception to many aspects of privatization and is sharply critical of Arne Duncan)
Solidaridad (Los Angeles)
SusanOhanian.org (Vermont)
And here are two books that are not all-out anti-charter school, but that raise and examine many questions about them:
The Charter School Dust-Up
Examining the Evidence on Enrollment and Achievement
By Martin Carnoy, Rebecca Jacobsen, Lawrence Mishel, and Richard Rothstein
Economic Policy Institute
Keeping the Promise?
The Debate Over Charter Schools
Edited by Leigh Dingerson, Barbara Miner, Bob Peterson, and Stephanie Walters
Rethinking Schools and the Center for Community Change
Here, too, is a recent commentary by Diane Ravitch on the Huffington Post voicing dismay about the direction the Obama administration and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are taking:
... what is the Obama administration now doing? Its $4.3 billion "Race to the Top" fund will supposedly promote "innovation." But this money will be used to promote privatization of public education and insist that states use these same pathetic tests to decide which teachers are doing a good job. With the lure of all that money hanging out there to the states, the administration is requiring that they remove all restrictions on the number of privately-managed charter schools that receive public dollars and that they use test results to evaluate teachers.
This is not change that teachers can believe in. These are exactly the same reforms that President George W. Bush and his Secretary Margaret Spellings would have promoted if they had had a sympathetic Congress. ...
Now that President Obama and Secretary Arne Duncan have become the standard-bearer for the privatization and testing agenda, we hear nothing more about ditching NCLB, except perhaps changing its name. The fundamental features of NCLB remain intact regardless of what they call it.
The real winners here are the edu-entrepreneurs who are running President Obama's so-called "Race to the Top" fund and distributing the billions to other edu-entrepreneurs, who will manage the thousands of new charter schools and make mega-bucks selling test-prep programs to the schools.
Diane Ravitch, by the way, is a former advocate of privatization who was an assistant Secretary of Education in the George H.W. Bush administration. Having watched the principles she once advocated being implemented on New York City schools, she has switched course and become a sharp critic of the forces of what's often called "school deform."
129 Comments:
You might want to add to your list of blogs that are critical of charter schools, http://saveseattleschools.blogspot.com/2009/08/put-them-on-notice.html
" Any chance for the anti-charter voices to take a sabbatical from this website and give others a chance for some airtime?"
That would be great except that we always get clobbered by Caroline at every opportunity.
I posted a few years ago on another blog how wonderful it was that the parents at my son's charter school are so involved in volunteering and she practically bit my head off trying to turn it into something negative. Whenever any parent says anything positive about their child's charter school from an insider perspective, Caroline goes on the attack.
Give me a break.
It's called discussion, "notafan." You respond when you disagree with me or have observations in response to my comments, so why is it a bad thing if I do the same thing?
I understand that you don't want the propaganda challenged, but sheesh, there's millions of dollars' worth of PR firepower behind the charter propaganda -- surely you guys can handle a few small, powerless (unpaid) voices questioning the bounteously funded hype.
The problem is, Caroline, that you seem to be very dismissive of someone's personal story, caring more about making it into a political issue. Sorry, but all I hear is you railing about the horrors of charter schools. I have not heard any of the "massive pro-charter propaganda" that you speak of. Tell me, have you ever set foot in my son's classroom? Been to a parent meeting at our school? Met my son's reading specialist?
It's not propaganda, it is a personal story from an insider. Our regular public school we'd been assigned to and tried out was a dismal failure for my son. He was bullied on the playground. The teacher repeatedly ignored our complaints. no one seemed to notice that his needs were not being met.
I could go on and on. I am grateful to have had another choice, as private school was not a financial option for us.
Also, I do not think you are a "powerless voice" as you say. You have a blog and a prominent newspaper column so you have power and you wield it.
The powerless voices are the ones of the kids and families who go to schools such as Edison. A school you have publicly suggested that you should start a campaign to close. Who speaks for them and their interests?
If I can admit that, yes, some charter school are not working, can you also admit that some charter schools are successful instead of attacking ANY school that falls into that category?
By the way, here is a link to a charter school that seems to be working:
http://www.greatschools.net/modperl/browse_school/az/1560
Sorry-
Here's the link again: http://tinyurl.com/muq5pf
Who speaks for the charter schools' interests? How much time you got? A partial list:
-- The U.S. Dept. of Education, both under Obama and under Bush (both Arne Duncan and Margaret Spellings avidly promote/d charter schools).
-- Political leaders such as New York City's billionaire mayor, Michael Bloomberg, who has taken over the nation's largest school district and is working hard to turn every possible school into charters -- bestowing charters with resources taken from struggling public schools. And Gov. Schwarzenegger, L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa, Sacramento Mayor Johnson, and on and on.
-- The other richest dudes around, such as Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Don Fisher and the rest of the gang.
-- The major media, from the N.Y. Times and the Wall Street Journal on down.
-- Behind-the-scenes powers such as the Federal City Council in Washington, D.C., a group of the city's most powerful businesspeople who were reportedly behind bringing in Michelle Rhee to head the schools and turn THAT district into a two-tiered haven for charters.
-- The major right-wing think tanks, such as the Hoover Institution, the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation et al.
Sure, the students at those schools do benefit from all these forces mobilized on their behalf -- despite the fact that charter schools do no better than public schools even with the extra resources and support they get. It's the rest of public education that loses, and the students in public schools.
And, as I've said many times, personal stories from happy parents at charter schools kind of miss the point. The issue is that charter schools harm public schools, so it's the students at other schools who lose, along with the entire public education system.
An individual special-education student having a good experience at a charter school is an unusual situation, too, because it's undeniable that overall, charter schools significantly underserve special education students, and other high-need students such as English-language learners.
I serve on the board of an organization that has been on the receiving end of some of Caroline's comments. They weren't even remotely factual or accurate. Her posts occasionally add value to this website, but she is more often dominant and highly disrespectful, with an acute anti-charter obsession. That's not "discussion." Trust me - we know where you stand. You have never made the case that charters harm public schools. Charter schools ARE public schools, providing much needed innovation and competition to districts, and choice for families faced with limited options (and unable to send their children to private and parochial schools like 30% of SF families.... including many district teachers and leaders - what an interesting phenomena!).
SFUSD and OUSD lost huge #s of students and failed students (including special ed. students) for years, long before charters existed. Now, there are several thriving public charter schools in high-need neighborhoods in those two cities. Thankfully, funders from across the political spectrum, have an opportunity and incentive to invest in education. Let's hope they continue to do so (and demand results and accountability).
By the way, Perimeter Primate is hilarious.
Regardless of whether I personally make the case that charter schools harm other schools, other voices are making that case effectively.
The organization Rethinking Schools described some of the problems in its book "Keeping the Promise? The Debate Over Charter Schools":
"The elixir of an individualized bailout from a struggling system has serious side effects. ... It can create a painful wedge in many communities, especially among African-Americans. It can weaken the political will for a collective solution to the problems in public education; and it can promote the deterioration of traditional schools. As highly motivated and engaged families pull their children from traditional public schools, urban districts have fewer resources – both financial and human – to address their many problems. The worse the schools get, the more appealing the escape to charters and private schools, all of which feeds into the conservative dream of replacing public education with a free-market system of everyone for themselves, the common good be damned."
That makes a pretty clear case.
And as I already reposted on this blog entry, the blog Seattle Education 2010 addresses how charter schools harm public schools:
"Charter schools take the school district's allotment of money provided for each student within the public schools system and use it to develop their programs. In many systems, they receive that allotment without having to pay for other costs such as transportation for students to and from the school. Some states, such as Minnesota, actually allocate more than what is granted to public school students.
A charter school can expel any student that it doesn't believe fits within its standards or meets its level of expectation in terms of test scores. If the student is dropped off the rolls of the charter school, the money that was allotted for that student may or may not be returned to the district at the beginning of the next year."
Since some posters here seem to want to make it all about me, that's the reason I created this very post. It lists a number of the impassioned bloggers around the country who are speaking up for embattled public schools reeling under the attack by charter schools.
You are the one that makes it about you.
I belive the poster was speaking about his or her experience as a parent.
I'm not exactly sure why you are so obsessed, but you are and it really seems to rub many people the wrong way.
I'm making a POINT of not making it about me by quoting other voices rather than giving my own opinion in my own words. So that comment isn't really reality-based.
I would really like to see a thoughtful charter advocate respond to the Rethinking Schools quote. Is there anyone willing to not talk about me or my characteristics at all and just respond to the substance of that quote?
Again, this is the quote I mean:
The elixir of an individualized bailout from a struggling system has serious side effects. ... It can create a painful wedge in many communities, especially among African-Americans. It can weaken the political will for a collective solution to the problems in public education; and it can promote the deterioration of traditional schools. As highly motivated and engaged families pull their children from traditional public schools, urban districts have fewer resources – both financial and human – to address their many problems. The worse the schools get, the more appealing the escape to charters and private schools, all of which feeds into the conservative dream of replacing public education with a free-market system of everyone for themselves, the common good be damned."
Although there is a voice in my head saying, "Do not engage," here are a few thoughts:
As a journalist (!), you really should push yourself to get up to speed in the following areas: 1. charter school finance 2. charter schools and special ed. 3. charter schools and teacher contracts. Your understanding of these three critical areas is highly, highly limited and mostly inaccurate. You should not rely on teacher union blogs (and, yes, Perimeter Primate really is hilarious). District and unions are understandably threatened by quality competition from charters. Keeping the Promise is very much worth reading and offers a balanced view of the successes, promise and challenges of the charter movement. There are also sections of the book that point out the grass-roots/community efforts that have resulted in many successful charters and the enormous and often illegal resistance that charters deal with from districts and counties.
1.) Charter schools are financed by ADA $s. Like district schools, they are also eligible for Title I and other categorical funding. Like district schools, they pursue grant opportunities and fundraise among their community (that's no different from Lowell, SOTA, Clarendon, etc., which, ironically, have many charter-like autonomies and characteristics). Families vote with their feet. That's why some district schools (i.e., Vis Valley) are severely underenrolled and others are bursting at the seams. Certain district schools are deteriorating regardless of the existence of charters.
2.) No one forces teachers to work at charters, parochial or independent schools where contracts may call for a different calendar and/or longer workday or different expectations for teachers (for example, more professional development, greater commitment to collaborative planning). Most district teachers I know despise their union; they see the union as protecting mediocrity, stifling reform and generally irrelevent (definitely read "The Rubber Room" in last week's New Yorker).
3.) You often state that charters can simply expel special ed.students and students who test poorly or who have behavior issues. This is just not true and you should make it your business to learn more about charters and special ed. There are many thoughtful district and charter folks working together to strengthen special ed. in all public schools. Some charters have a great deal of success with special ed. students; others struggle, often due to limited resources and lack of support from their district.
Re: the paragraph from Rethinking Schools. Not really sure what to add beyond what I have already said. You might want to talk with the African-American families who send their kids to the KIPP schools in Bayview, Western Addition and to the Making Waves charter in Richmond (where district schools were abject failures for decades). Secondly, families have been fleeing district schools long before charters arrived on the scene. At least charters are public schools. I have always found it interesting the some of the most vocal anti-charter voices in the district, including board members, opted out of district schools for private education. San Francisco also has the highest % of district employees who choose independent school education (and charters) in the nation. They exercise their right to choose,just like charter families. Charters are a growing part of the public education scene. Certainly not perfect, but also not harming public education. Competition is not the same as "harm."
Over the years, you have insulted and demeaned those who advocate for charters and send their children to charters and driven many parents away from this website. That strikes me as contrary to the spirit of the internet. My hunch is that you're not going anywhere, despite some encouragement to do just that.
Thanks for the comments, Anon, even if they did keep on bashing me -- at least they had some substance besides JUST bashing me. I'd still like to see a charter advocate give a thoughtful response to the quote from Rethinking Schools.
I considered responding to some of the specific points, but really that would just be restating points I've already made, often repeatedly, so I won't.
There's just one exception: I know many SFUSD teachers, of course, since I volunteer in my kids' schools and am generally around a lot. I don't think I know ANY who despise (or even have negative views of) their union, unless they've all carefully concealed that from me.
Also, I'm sure there are teachers who actively choose to teach at charter schools, but everyone I know personally who teaches or has taught at a charter school took that job as a fallback because he or she couldn't get jobs in district schools. So that's just my personal anecdotal experience.
That post does demonstrate the strong antipathy against teachers' unions among charter advocates. Since some liberal/progressive charter advocates try to claim that antipathy doesn't exist, the post should help shake them out of their denial.
Thank you, anon 9:40am.
I thought your post was very informative and thoughtful.
Anon, revisiting, I question this claim:
"San Francisco also has the highest % of district employees who choose independent school education (and charters) in the nation."
What's your source for this (especially the claim that SF has the highest % of district employees choosing charters)? SF does indeed have a high percentage of the OVERALL population choosing private. I question whether there is such a comparison of district employees.
If so, is the comparison SFUSD district employees to other districts' employees? All districts nationwide? Selected districts? Other comparable urban districts' employees?
"Also, I'm sure there are teachers who actively choose to teach at charter schools, but everyone I know personally who teaches or has taught at a charter school took that job as a fallback because he or she couldn't get jobs in district schools. So that's just my personal anecdotal experience."
Gee, Caroline, can you please cite your sources for this claim?
I think you are being a bit insulting to those teachers.
There are many amazing teachers at my son's charter school who are dedicated and passionate about their work who have been there for over 10 years. Many tell us they actively sought out the school because they believed strongly in it's overall philosophy. It's obvious to me that they could have gotten a teaching job anywhere.
Revisiting:
1.) Sources include an article in the (wait for it) Examiner a few years ago plus several recent conversations with high-level district folks and principals whose children attend independent schools ("It's embarrassing, but the choices are too good to pass up.") I assume it is compared to other urban districts. It has been widely reported that current and former school board members have opted for independent schools, including fierce anti-charter voices. Why is it OK for them to exercise choice while preventing the creation of public options?
2.) Unions: Charter schools have a significant % of teachers who are union members. See Green Dot Schools and the California Charter Schools Association for examples and info. The charter school movement would be much more favorable to unions if unions were open to: Revamping or at least tinkering with the lock-step compensation system that basically only rewards seniority and is based on a 100 year old model of hiring women with few career choices; they would also be more favorable if unions allowed more control over hiring (no consolidated teachers), more meaningful performance reviews, and the ability to terminate incompetent teachers. Lastly, charters would be more open to unions if they allowed more flexibility in work schedules. Until progress is made in those areas, charters will have some well-founded hesitancy about union engagement.
3.) As a former teacher, I often cautioned students to be wary and cautious re: primary sources. Journalism students are also taught to recognize and interpret bias in sources. The Seattle newsletter is an example of a source that is highly biased (and factually way off base in many areas). Some of the comments are incredibly childish (i.e., Eli Broad - I am confident that SFUSD would be thrilled to have Broad or Gates $s). One example is the question of accountability: I don't have time to go through "Charter 101" but it is important to note that charters go through a rigorous approval process (SFUSD denies most charter proposals), a rigorous accreditation and re-accreditation process and WASC reviews. They are overseen, often more closely than regular district schools, by their district or county (and in a few cases, the state CDE). If they do not fulfill their charter, they can immediately have their charter revoked by their authorizer (district or county). This happened in SF with the Outdoor Wilderness school, which should have never been granted a charter (Dan Kelly supported that one). No district school has that kind of scrutiny. Lastly, like all non-profits, independent schools, colleges and universities, charters are accountable to their own boards which oversee finances and program. One quick aside: Some of the finest charters in the state (Pacific Collegiate School and Making Waves Charter) were actually denied by their district (their counties recognized the need for high-quality public choices).
4.) Not sure what else to add about the paragraph you have posted a few times. In the perfect world, we would have one free public school system (pre-K though higher ed.) with plenty of choices and options for kids with a wide range of skills, needs, talents and interests. Our world is imperfect, and families opt out of the public system for choices they deem better for the kids. In SF, families clamor for Lowell (at least charters are based on lottery, not admissions tests) and SOTA, leaving high schools such as Mission and Thurgood Marshall to the less engaged parents mentioned in the paragraph. The not-so-dirty secret is that here in SF we have a small subset of district schools that operate a lot like what charters are often mistakenly accused of: Creaming the kids of more engaged, savvy parents.
My comment about charter school teachers is, as I made clear, anecdotal. based on my own friends who are teachers. That doesn't mean there aren't teachers who choose charter schools because they're passionate about charter schools, but those aren't the charter school teachers I know. To be fair, I'm unlikely to be friends with someone who is enthusiastic about charter schools for their own sake, though it actually has been known to happen.
Some further discussion:
Anonymous: **Sources include an article in the (wait for it) Examiner a few years ago plus several recent conversations with high-level district folks and principals whose children attend independent schools ("It's embarrassing, but the choices are too good to pass up.")**
My response: There is a controversial study comparing percentages of teachers who send kids to private schools to percentages of the general public who send kids to private schools. As far as I know, it doesn't compare region to region. The study, by Denis Doyle of the Hudson Institute, is widely touted by far-right, pro-privatization organizations, and debunked by public school advocate Gerald Bracey.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_6952/is_n2_v77/ai_n28680938/
Obviously, anecdotes are anecdotes and conversations with district employees aren't the same as statistics. Also, all of that is about private schools, not charters, for what it's worth.
Anonymous: **It has been widely reported that current and former school board members have opted for independent schools, including fierce anti-charter voices.**
My response: That's oversimplified. In both cases, each had a kid with a specific issue who attended a private school for a period of his/her K-12 schooling. It's not like the board members airily went "la la la, private schools are better!" -- they were making a difficult decision for a struggling child. (Anyone who makes an issue of this kind of difficult situation is dooming their own parenting karma, in my opinion -- your kid will become a teachers' union activist or something that similarly horrifies you, despite your best efforts.)
Anonymous: **Why is it OK for them to exercise choice while preventing the creation of public options?**
My response: This is the same argument made for vouchers, so I assume you support them too. The arguments are lengthy and forceful. It's an ongoing debate.
Yes, I know some charters have sort-of unionized work forces. Green Dot's teachers have no job security at all, which kind of makes it pretty bogus to call them unionized -- it's in name only. I know not every single charter is virulently anti-union. On the other hand, a massive amount amount of teachers'-union bashing -- and bashing of public school teachers in general -- comes from the charter advocates.
The Seattle blog is legitimately stating an opinion. Terming it "bias" is just a way to disparage it. If it were pretending to be impartial while displaying favoritism to one viewpoint, that would be bias, but that's not the case. The reason I quoted it was not because I thought it was passing as impartial; it's because San Francisco charter advocates like to behave like I'm the only person in the world who would ever do something so strange as criticize charter schools, and I was demonstrating otherwise.
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From previous...
This next paragraph is so full of inaccuracies that I'll have to take a deep breath and plunge in:
Anonymous: **One example is the question of accountability: I don't have time to go through "Charter 101" but it is important to note that charters go through a rigorous approval process (SFUSD denies most charter proposals), a rigorous accreditation and re-accreditation process and WASC reviews. They are overseen, often more closely than regular district schools, by their district or county (and in a few cases, the state CDE). If they do not fulfill their charter, they can immediately have their charter revoked by their authorizer (district or county). This happened in SF with the Outdoor Wilderness school, which should have never been granted a charter (Dan Kelly supported that one). No district school has that kind of scrutiny.**
My response: If a district denies a charter applicant, the applicant can go to the county board of ed (not in SF, where the district and county BOE are the same, but everywhere else) and then to the state BOE. If the applicant does choose to do that, it's almost guaranteed to get its charter. The state BOE also grants $500,000 seed money to fund the application process to anyone who walks through the door and says "I want to start a charter school" -- my Labrador could get that grant. Local school boards know that applicants may do appeal their way up, of course, which makes them less likely to vote no. It's true that some applicants give up if the local BOE turns them down, but those that don't are likely to win their charter over the objection of the local school board.
Districts and counties do not have the wherewithal to give more than passing scrutiny to charters, except in unusual cases such as the Fresno district's investigation of alleged child abuse at the now-defunct KIPP school there.
The school you refer to in SFUSD was called Urban Pioneer. Prior to charterizing, it existed as a school-within-a-school (at McAteer) and did indeed have problems and issues. It approached SFUSD with its charter proposal when the BOE was weakened and reeling from its internationally high-profile battle with controversial, for-profit, New York-based Edison Schools over Edison's charter here. Urban Pioneer negotiated and made promises until dubious board members agreed to grant the charter. Post-charter, Urban Pioneer came under scrutiny, no surprise, after two students died by falling into a ravine on an unsupervised wilderness trip, due to clear negligence by the school administration. Yet the BOE was divided over whether to revoke the charter, and controversy was fierce and ugly, with the BOE majority voting not to revoke the charter. But then, with new scrutiny on Urban Pioneer, it came out that the school was also in financial shambles and teachers' paychecks were bouncing; and it was committing massive academic fraud, graduating students with far, far fewer than the required credits. Also, its test scores were rock-bottom (1-1 API), and the president of its board, a lawyer, was threatening to sue staffers if they spoke up, intimidating them into silence. After all these issues surfaced, the controversy grew even more heated, tearing our community apart. But eventually, the BOE voted to revoke the charter. Tere is STILL rage in the community over that (though almost entirely by misinformed charter advocates who are silenced when they get the full story).
Obviously, it wasn't as neat and E-Z as you depict, Anonymous. In fact, your account bears no resemblance whatsoever to reality. It's not clear where you got your information, but your source is unreliable.
It was watching our district struggle with these two horrific charter controversies back to back that turned me into a charter school critic.
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I'm not familiar with Making Waves, but I do know Pacific Collegiate. It's a segregationist charter that was created specifically to cloister its privileged student population away from the low-income Latino population of its district, like the "seg schools" of the South (private schools created after desegregation). That's why the Santa Cruz school district opposed its creation.
Regarding SOTA and Lowell, it's not a secret that they have admissions criteria -- that's an integral part of their design. They were created as specialty schools to meet the needs of certain types of students. Some education commentators believe that no public schools should have admissions criteria, and that's a viewpoint worth discussing, but these schools were created that way by design.
It's not the same as having a class of schools that inherently creams for more-motivated, higher-functioning students, while touting itself as a superior competitor to public schools, bashing public schools and their teachers, and draining away their resources.
Regarding Lowell and SOTA, while both schools have more applicants than openings, I'm not sure it's accurate to say that "parents clamor" for them. (By high school, the student's preference is the major factor, by the way.) Many families don't consider SOTA at all because they think the time spent on the arts limits other options ("Do I want to play the oboe three hours a day?"), and a number of applicants who are initially accepted at SOTA still wind up making other choices for the same reason. Similarly, most students who aren't "Lowell material" have no desire to go near the place -- and that's also true of many who, technically, are Lowell material. (My own son qualified for Lowell but refused to consider it.) So it's not really accurate to portray those schools as gated communities that are turning away the masses. It appears that you haven't followed SFUSD issues closely, so you wouldn't be aware that Lincoln and Washington have been wildly popular for the past decade or so -- they're both lottery schools, getting far more applicants than they can accept. Balboa and Galileo have been rapidly rising in achievement, prestige and popularity. So the notion that SOTA and Lowell are the schools everyone "clamors for," and that everyone who can't get in is stuck with the dregs, is not valid.
Anonymous at 3:06, sorry to be so forceful, and I do appreciate that you wrote a long, information-filled post without any personal attacks or jabs at me at all -- a rarity.
Urban Pioneer was the poster child for how a local Board of Ed can get pressured into approving a charter against its better judgment, and subsequently for how difficult and divisive it is to cancel a charter even in the most extreme cases. And, by the way, the predecessor of the California Charter Schools Assn. (then CANEC) sent people to speak against shutting down Urban Pioneer! It was like, was there ANYthing they viewed as legitimate grounds for revoking school's charter, ever, if not student deaths and all those other little problems?
And Pacific Collegiate is the poster child for a certain kind of charter, the ones set up for privileged kids specifically to isolate them from the challenges faced by a diverse district. This type of charter is one that thoughtful school board members know to be wary of, and in this case it was not subtle. The school has turned out to be exactly what the Santa Cruz board feared. SO it's an eye-roller when it constantly tops the national lists of "successful" schools, and basically the school is an embarrassment to thoughtful charter advocates.
Accusing a public school of segregation is pretty strong stuff - what evidence do you have to back it up?
Apart from innuendo do you have any evidence that Pacific Collegiate is not meeting its responsibilities as a public charter school? Do you have any evidence that the school discriminates in admission?
It's a widely discussed issue that some charter schools are created in a way that isolates their students from the diversity of the students in the surrounding district. No one can prove whether that was the primary intent, of course. But. I didn't invent that issue.
Whether or not my term "segregationist" is overly strong, the ISSUE is an ongoing concern with some types of charter schools, and that's the reason the Santa Cruz district rejected Pacific Collegiate's application for a charter. Surely a conscientious education observer can see that this would be a genuine issue.
Wikipedia's entry on Pacific Collegiate addresses the controversy, and links to local news coverage of the issue of lack of diversity. So you can go there to verify that it's a genuine issue.
Whether my terminology is appropriate isn't the relevant issue. The relevant issue is that an anonymous commenter here cited the fact that the Santa Cruz district rejected Pacific Collegiate's application as some kind of proof of bias against charters, and I'm responding with a clear explanation of why the Santa Cruz district would have quite valid reason to reject the application that even some charter achool advocates would acknowledge to be sound.
Here's a sentence from an October 2008 Santa Cruz Sentinel article giving background on Pacific Collegiate Charter School:
The school went on to garner national recognition for academic achievement that critics say is attributable to its gaping lack of ethnic and socioeconomic diversity.
http://www.scsextra.com/story.php?sid=80503
Admission to charter schools is by lottery. Opening up a school equally to all kids is a strange way of isolating them from diversity. Simply saying that the existence of charter schools harms other public schools doesn't make it true. There is no evidence that the existence of charter schools harms other public schools.
It's no secret that teachers' unions are trying to sabotage charter schools, so it's not surprising that you find plenty of anti-charter propaganda and plenty of pressure on local boards to limit charter schools.
http://gothamschools.org/2009/04/07/teachers-union-sent-scripted-questions-to-city-council-members/
Actually, it's a widely discussed concern that some charter schools have the effect of isolating their students away from the diversity of the greater community -- whether intentionally or not can't be proved, of course.
Here's how humorist/education advocate Sandra Tsing Loh describes it, and she's not even a charter critic overall:
“…one might encourage such class separation via canny choice of curriculum, venturing into the projects (or similar) and saying, "Hands up everyone whose number one priority for their teens is a daily Socratic dialogue, and close reading of The Aeniad. No one? Well, can’t say we didn’t ask ya! Bye now."
Many education insiders and commentators who are not pawns of teachers' unions believe that charter schools harm public schools. One notable example is Diane Ravitch, a former strong supporter of charter schools and other right-wing education reforms -- she's an education historian and NYU prof who was asst. secretary of education under George H.W. Bush. If you Google Ravitch and charter schools you'll find lots of her recent commentary.
It is true that teachers' unions tend to oppose charter schools. But local school boards also get immense pressure to approve charters from forces far more powerful than teachers' unions. The fact that in California, the state Board of Education is packed with charter insiders and advocates means that if a local school board rejects a charter and the would-be charter operators choose to pursue it, the state BOE will force the charter into the unwilling district anyway. That's exactly what happened with Pacific Collegiate, which has been in conflict with the Santa Cruz district ever since. And needless to say, an ongoing conflict DOES harm public education, bearing out my point.
Again, simply saying that charter schools harm other public schools does not make it true, particularly in the propagandized environment surrounding public education. And teachers' unions are not simply opposing charter schools, they are trying to sabotage them, even though at least one teachers' union runs a charter school, as the story from New York makes clear.
If the State Board were approving every application for a charter, without exercising any form of due diligence, you might have a case that district decisions were being trumped by politics. But what evidence is there that is happening?
And saying that Santa Cruz district holds sour grapes against Pacific doesn't necessarily speak against Pacific. Why doesn't Santa Cruz help with outreach to minority students to apply to Pacific, or why doesn't if try to replicate the excellence of Pacific within Santa Cruz? Maybe Santa Cruz needs better people on its board.
If the high achievement of Pacific Collegiate is largely based on its lack of less-privileged students of color, the Santa Cruz district can hardly be expected to try to replicate that characteristic. As to why the Santa Cruz district doesn't "help" Pacific Collegiate recruit more challenging students -- note that Pacific Collegiate isn't a district school. It seems obvious that that would be a dicey situation.
The "evidence" that the state BOE is very inclined to approve charters without much scrutiny is that it approves so many charters against the will of the district that the schools will be located in. (How many? That I can't say, but I read about them regularly.) The state BOE even approved the High Tech High chain in its own category with some kind of blanket preapproval -- its schools are automatically state charters, no application to districts needed.
My comments are my observations based on following the charter school world closely over the years. Asking "what evidence do you have?" is kind of a stumper -- they're my opinions, based on extensive information.
The fact is that the Anonymous who cited Urban Pioneer and Pacific Collegiate in making arguments in favor of charter schools singled out two schools that are touchy issues in the charter world, though Pacific Collegiate's academic stature is such that the the diversity issue takes a back seat. Still, the mainstream news coverage in Santa Cruz makes it clear that I'm accurate in pointing out that that's a dicey issue and a big, contentious asterisk on praise of Pacific Collegiate.
And the original point was to claim that the Santa Cruz district rejected Pacific Collegiate unfairly. I rebutted that by pointing out that the Santa Cruz board had a solid reason for rejecting the application, and its predictions that lack of diversity would be an issue have been resoundingly borne out. Further discussions are a digression.
What's the difference between "opposing" charter schools and "trying to sabotage" them? That's just loaded language, like disparaging an opinion by labeling it a "bias."
If we never did anything in public education that people were opposed to the schools would never have been integrated and children with disabilities would never have been admitted to mainstream classrooms.
Pacific's high achievement may not arise only because it enrolls select kids, it may be doing a better job teaching them. So the point is why doesn't the district spend time figuring out what Pacific does in the classroom that would work for all kids, instead of fighting the existence of the charter.
One government agency has a solid reason for rejecting a charter and another has a solid reason for granting it. American democracy in action.
1. Your first paragraph doesn't really compute, because undoubtedly the majority of people -- who are poorly informed and/or swayed by the bounteously funded PR promoting charter schools -- would undoubtedly say they approve charters, if asked. The press, our political leadership and the major "eduphilanthropists" (Gates, Broad, Fisher, Walton et al.) are all enthusiastic charter fans. So the notion that "people" oppose charters is not based in reality. I oppose charters precisely because I've followed them closely for many years and I know that the PR and hype are misleading.
2. Santa Cruz is not fighting the existence of the charter (as far as I can tell based on following the issues ongoing, though not super-closely). These are squabbles about facilities and the usual disruptions charters cause to school districts.
3. It's not invented or unique; it's a known, ongoing issue with charters that some function to isolate white, privileged students away from the diverse demographics of surrounding districts.
4. If failing to serve (for whatever reason) the more challenging students is the key to Pacific Collegiate's success, that's not something that's feasible for a school district to emulate.
Whatever arguments you want to make, Pacific Collegiate is legitimately controversial for a clear-cut reason. It's not a wise choice to cite as a successful charter school -- or as an example of a district being unkind to a poor, poor downtrodden charter school -- for that reason.
Children do not belong to school districts. The argument that creating educational opportunities in the form of charter schools causes problems for school districts might convince people who think the convenience of school districts is paramount but I doubt it's going to convince parents and kids.
Similarly, arguing that only the corrupt, the uninformed, or the politically conservative support charter schools flies in the face of the facts that plenty of liberals, including Barack Obama, support charter schools. If charter schools were agents of segregation, as you want to paint them to be, then you're claiming that Barack Obama does not know segregation when he sees it. Not to mention that research shows that most children in charter schools do as well or better than they did when they were in traditional schools, and that charter schools are open to children of all races and all economic levels. In fact, a recent RAND study showed that
"transferring students are moving to charter schools with racial compositions that do not differ dramatically from those of the TPSs they left behind."
Finally, if you claim that Pacific's success is somehow diminished because it fails to serve students with challenging needs, that applies equally to any school that serves more advantaged students. What exactly does that prove?
I encourage the small handful of folks who read this (and tolerate the anti-charter obsession) to check out: http://www.pacificcollegiate.com/ and download their diversity study. PCS has never discriminated in their admissions process. It would be against the law to do so. Admission is based on lottery (unlike Lowell and SOTA). Yes, there is controversy... similar to the controversy that surrounds some of our district schools that lack diversity. The school was founded by a group of parents dedicated to public education and quality choices. They could have opened a high-priced independent school, but instead (thankfully) chose the charter route. Though the student population mirrors the socio-economic demographics of the area, the leaders of the school are dissatisfied with the ethnic make-up. Ironically, they might be more diverse if they received district support re: facilities and transportation, which the district is required to do. The district (like many districts including SFUSD) denied their charter because they were understandably threatened by healthy competition and fearful of losing kids (and the ADA $ which follow them); they did what they had to do and came up with bogus and illegal reasons to decline their petition. PCS is currently working with the county on strategies to increase the ethnic diversity of the school and insure charter renewal, much to the benefit of the Santa Cruz community.
Diversity can be an enormous challenge for both district schools and some public charters (just check out the demographics of many SFUSD schools). Lowell (and SOTA) have a selective admissions process that screens out many low-achieving kids. PCS and similar San Francisco charters such as Gateway are open to everyone and conduct significant outreach efforts. It is widely acknowledged that there are gaping differences in demographics and achievement between public westside and eastside schools in SF. It is also widely known that several of our SF charters serve some of the most high-need kids in the city. Like most of your comments about charters, your PCS comment was inflammatory and highly inaccurate. In your lengthy, multiple-post anti-charter comments there were additional inaccuracies about charter oversight, charter school start-up grants and the very rigorous petition process. The state BOE currently oversees a total of eleven charters and state approval is very rare. Students/families are fortunate that there is an appeal process, given how threatened many districts are by the charter movement. I also made it quite clear that Urban Pioneers should have never been approved by our local board; a strong board would have denied it instantly. Lastly, re: the board members who opted out of SFUSD schools: I am sure it was a difficult decision that I am confident did not come easy, especially given the potential political repercussions. Good for them (and other district folks who opt for private and charter schools) for finding a better choice. Lots of parents have children who struggle, but don't have the resources or savvy to land in private schools. They deserve better choices, too, and these board members repeatedly (and with a high level of disrespect) voted against public school choices (very different than vouchers). Their personal choices should align with their very strident political stances on key issues. Why should districts, especially districts with schools that have failed students for decades, have a monopoly on public education?
How can you possibly say this about Pacific Collegiate? It's so flamingly false. Let me pick my jaw up off the floor and post the actual figures, but my god you charter folks are brazen! WTF??
(false claim: "...the student population mirrors the socio-economic demographics of the area..."
Facts:
Free/reduced lunch percentage
Pacific Collegiate ZERO
Santa Cruz district 32.8%
Santa Cruz County 47.1%
White students
Pacific Collegiate 72%
District 50.7%
County 40.0%
Latino students
Pacific Collegiate 5.3%
District 35.8%
County 52.0%
(African-American and Asian small numbers)
English-language learners
Pacific Collegiate 0.7%
District 13.4%
County 26.6%
I don't get it. Why would you make that claim?
Further: There's a whole series of straw-man arguments here.
My issue isn't that charter schools cause problems for school districts, or that school district needs are paramount. It's that overall charter schools do harm to the greater school community, meaning to the children in those communities.
I'm hardly the only voice making that argument, though admittedly the charter advocates have hugely funded PR operations helping them make their case.
I have never said that "only the corrupt, the uninformed, or the politically conservative support charter schools," so it's unfair and inaccurate to claim that I have.
Charter schools ARE statistically more segregated than public schools. I can't say what Barack Obama's take is on that or whether he's aware of it, but it's the case.
This isn't the point -- it addresses individual children. I'd say it's couched in deliberately misleading phrasing. "...research shows that most children in charter schools do as well or better than they did when they were in traditional schools..."
I've never said that an individual child will not do as well in a charter than in a traditional school. My point is the greater harm that charter schools do.
Of course charter schools are technically open to children of all races and economic levels, but overall they're more segregated than public schools.
I don't know if I'd say that Pacific's success is diminished by its demographics, just that it's a great big giant asterisk. And yes, that does apply to any school that serves more advantaged students. But my point was that that was why Santa Cruz board members saw Pacific as a problematic proposal.
The entire reason there are reams of items on Google about Pacific and diversity is that it's a big issue in the community that it serves a population that's far more privileged than that of the greater community. I have no idea why that is and haven't speculated.
Anon says: "Yes, there is controversy... similar to the controversy that surrounds some of our district schools that lack diversity." But it's not really similar, because that happens organically at most district schools based on their surrounding neighborhoods. Pacific Collegiate was perceived before it opened as a potential haven to isolate the privileged from the less-advantaged, and not because it served neighbors in an area where the privileged lived. And it became that haven.
It's so perfectly stereotypical of charter folks to blame the school district:
"Ironically, they might be ore diverse if they received district support re: facilities and transportation, which the district is required to do."
COntinued...
From previous...
The hostility against the school district and public education in general is of course what we see from charter advocates all the time, and that's part of my point.
This is really not true:
"It is also widely known that several of our SF charters serve some of the most high-need kids in the city." Our SF charters are reasonably diverse, but that particular comment isn't accurate.
MY PCS comment was inaccurate?! Who gave brazenly false alleged information about its demographics?
Anon (I guess now I know I'm talking to one Anon; it's hard to tell, of course) says: "I also made it quite clear that Urban Pioneers should have never been approved by our local board; a strong board would have denied it instantly."
Yes, but our board was badly weakened by having just fought a hard fight in the courts and the INTERNATIONAL media against your very own peeps in the form of the predatory for-profit Edison Schools.
Also, I assume I'm talking here to a paid charter advocate, so you would know that CANEC, your organization under its previous name, came to SF to speak AGAINST shutting down Urban Pioneer.
Also, Urban Pioneer, which was in A desperate financial crisis, hired a very high-priced damage-control specialist, former Chronicle editor Dave Hyams at Solem & Associates, to convince the Chron to print charges that SFUSD was mounting a "witch hunt" against UP and likening SFUSD to the Taliban. It would seem likely that CANEC paid for Solem's services. So what's your response to that, in the light of your representation after the fact that the charter world saw as a bad idea and only irresponsible SFUSD would have OK'd it?
I don't know how long it's going to take before I can get my jaw up off the floor. I'm really not used to being figuratively looked in the eye and given a series of falsehoods like this, so brazenly and directly. I guess it's refreshing and beats weaseling, I suppose.
I'm not sure where the INTERNATIONAL media comes in to this discussion.
Parents and children pick their charter schools, their charter schools do not pick them. Anon said, "Though the student population mirrors the socio-economic demographics of the area.." The "area" could mean the district or the neighborhood of the school. Is it true that enrollment at Pacific mirrors the demographics in the neighborhood of the school?
In any event, charter schools in urban settings tend to serve more minority students and more low income students than traditional schools. I'm not clear how you make charter schools into repositories of white flight out of that. I'm also not clear why you think that the "greater school community" is harmed by charter schools. The best evidence says that kids do better in their charter schools than they did before. Most people would think that it's a good thing when kids get to go to schools that are good fits for them and where they do well. Where exactly is the harm in all this?
If charter schools really were tools of segregation, the nation's civil rights watchdogs would be rising against them. Instead, some of the strongest support for charter schools comes from within the civil rights community.
I guess it could be that that particular Anon meant that Pacific Collegiate is located in an upscale neighborhood and reflects the demographics of the surrounding neighborhood. If that's not what he/she meant, that particular Anon is SUCH a brazen deceiver that it still shocks me a day later. And the misstatements about Urban Pioneer -- I still don't get it. What is the thinking behind posting such blatant falsehoods? Are they also being spread in places where no one is informed enough to challenge them?
I do not "make charter schools into repositories of white flight..." SOME charter schools appear to be created to isolate their students from the diversity of the greater community. I quoted Sandra Tsing Loh's amusing description of how that might happen, which bears out my point that this may be a characteristic of SOME charter school models.
The Santa Cruz board of ed was concerned that Pacific Collegiate might be one of those schools, and turned down its application for that reason.
This only came up because an Anon -- apparently the same truth-challenged Anon whose post I responded to yesterday -- originally portrayed the Santa Cruz BOE's rejection of Pacific Collegiate, some years ago, as some kind of unjust, baseless victimizing of a poor innocent charter applicant.
I and many others have written extensively about how charter schools harm other schools, other schools' students and public education overall. If you're new to this discussion, most recent Anon, justlook at the original post for many sources where you can learn more.
There is both support for and opposition to charter schools within the civil rights community.
Just saying that charter schools hurt other schools does not make it true, no matter how many times it is said. Similarly, a whole bunch of opponents of charter schools quoting each other does not necessarily say anything about charter schools.
Can you identify a charter school that was created specifically to isolate students from the diversity of the neighbor district? You say that the SC board rejected Pacific's application because they thought it's purpose "might" be segregationist. Do you really think the state board would approve a school if there was evidence that the purpose of the school was segregationist?
Many districts have schools where the population of students in one or more schools differs markedly from the population of the district. That is not a situation unique to charter schools and if anything it seems that a system that admits students by lottery would be a promising vehicle for creating diverse schools.
Diane Ravitch, by the way, says that there are excellent charter schools. So the challenge is to get more excellent charter schools the same as the challenge is to get more excellent traditional schools.
I was referring to the Santa Cruz neighborhood (Natural Bridges). I have spent time at the school and know the school and it's successes and challenges fairly well. They are quite transparent that lack of diversity is a challenge (see their diversity report). A different location and transportation support would most likely change the demographic mix. Feel free to put an asterisk next to their success, and also next to Lowell, SOTA, Tam High and the thousands of public schools around the country that are populated by high-achieving, more advantaged students. Districts come up with all kinds of reasons and rationales to decline charter petitions (see Making Waves in Richmond or Everest/Summit Prep in Redwood City). At the end of the day, what they are most afraid of is losing kids and the $ that follow those kids. The charters in Santa Cruz provide much-needed choice for families and healthy competition for what used to be a district monopoly on public education.
Competition is not harm. What really hurts public education is districts that operate failing schools for decades, where mediocrity is rewarded year after year. Here in SF, we have robust, thriving public charter schools in Bayview and the Western Addition where district schools failed kids for years. Ironically, Edison School, before it was Edison, Inc., was a dismal, abject failure. Now don't panic. I'm not a huge fan of Edison, Inc. and for-profit model, even though the school did very well with kids who the district failed for years and years.
No - I think there is more than one Anon who have mustered up the fortitude to engage with you. And, no, not a paid charter advocate. A parent, educator and believer in choice and competition. Instead of the innovation and choice that come with the charters, what do you propose? Accepting the status quo? p.s.: Did you really write, "WTF" and "your peeps?" Amazing.
Fascinating discussion here. Living at ground zero in the backyard of Pacific Collegiate, with two kids who drew losing lottery numbers several times, I feel qualified to comment.
The original Diversity Task Force report was shelved as soon as its authors rolled of the PCS board. The actionable recommendations that would have a real impact on raising diversity (dropping preferential admission for board members who largely originate from the nearby private school, weighting lottery applications for the socio-economically disadvantaged, etc.) were tabled. They do some outreach at community centers, but the annual $3,000/student appeal (followed by months of collections calls) and the caveat that students unable to manage a C average will be dismissed, coupled with the lack of a critical mass of students of diversity results in low numbers of Hispanic applicants.
There is some renewed focus on increasing diversity, largely because the COE has signaled that progress must be made and demonstrated as the charter comes up for renewal next year. They are out of compliance and they know it.
One of the Anons stated: "Pacific's high achievement may not arise only because it enrolls select kids, it may be doing a better job teaching them. So the point is why doesn't the district spend time figuring out what Pacific does in the classroom that would work for all kids, instead of fighting the existence of the charter."
Actually, a close examination of test scores filtered for subgroups, parent income and parent education show that comparable students in comprehensive schools like Santa Cruz High perform equally as well. It's who they've got, not how they teach.
Further, there is a disturbing rate of increasing attrition at the upper grade levels. The school is under-enrolled in the 11th & 12th grade, with no candidates on a waiting list to fill those slots. It raises an eyebrow when students in their Junior and Senior year flee a school community they've been with for four years. The loss rate is something like 10% in those grades -- might be higher.
As for the fairness of the lottery...the school was created by and for the Gateway private school families. The self-selected board has sustained, since its founding, a majority of private school parents whose children bypass the lottery. The lottery is only a recent development; the school was populated by the Gateway and UCSC faculty communities to such an extent that once the lottery came into play, statistically, they can never achieve the diversity mirroring their host district as required by law. Furthermore, the lottery is run in violation of ed code and they are facing litigation over that issue.
We're grateful in hindsight that our kids did not get in; many of their friends are there and I can say with confidence that our children are having a superior academic and cultural experience.
There is no requirement that enrollment at a charter school mirror the enrollment of its "host" district, just as there is no requirement that enrollment at a traditional public school mirror the enrollment of its host district.
It's not clear to me from SCO's comments how Pacific can have a lottery and at the same time "bypass" the lottery in favor of certain kids. If a charter is oversubscribed, admission by lottery is supposed to rule except for children of the school's founders and staff, siblings of students already in the school, and students wanting to exercise their choice option under NCLB.
Preference in admission outside the prescribed guidelines would be a serious matter, but SCO's comments mostly sound like sour grapes to me.
The PCS charter and the Ed Code require that the demographics of the school mirror the demographics of their host district.
From the PCS Charter:
CA Education Code 47605 (b) (5) (G)
"The means by which the school will achieve a racial and
ethnic balance among its pupils that is reflective of the
general population residing within the territorial
jurisdiction of the school district to which the charter
petition is submitted."
The defense here is that "those people" (meaning the ethnic and racially diverse) are not interested in the challenging program. My understanding of charter law is that new charters must demonstrate that they are founded to serve an underserved population not accommodated in the traditional public school. Given the stellar quality of the Academies and AP offering in the nearby high schools, I'm not sure how PCS is serving an underserved population. They certainly do NOT have a racially diverse school community, an economically diverse community, or a community diverse in learning ability. It would be enlightening to have a better understanding of how Ed Code defines "underserved".
Preferential admission for board members is allowed under the law, and in effect, those children bypass the lottery. The chartering authority has recommended that the school amend the charter to eliminate board preference. It has come before the PCS board on numerous occasions over the years and although it is the recommendation of the diversity task force, a majority of members has declined to eliminate their preferential admission.
Board members are selected by other board members in a closed process. Parents of the school have no role in nominating, voting for or ratifying board members. The parent community cannot remove a board member, either.
Board members largely come from outside the current parent community, including the appointed co-chairs of the parent volunteer organization.
While more students are admitted through the lottery now as the school opened additional space, board control is still maintained by an outside private school majority. It's a hard working group for sure, but it's exclusive.
No sour grapes. We are charter supporters, there is just more going on here with *this* charter and it has a very big impact on our small community.
California Education Code 47605(b)(5)(g) says that charter applications must address ...
"G) The means by which the school will achieve a racial and ethnic
balance among its pupils that is reflective of the general
population residing within the territorial jurisdiction of the school district to which the charter petition is submitted."
At the same time, California Code of Regulations 11967.5.1 says ...
"Recognizing the limitations on admissions to charter schools imposed by Education Code
section 47605(d), the means by which the school will achieve a racial and ethnic balance among
its pupils that is reflective of the general population residing within the territorial jurisdiction of the school district to which the charter petition is submitted, as required by Education Code section 47605(b)(5)(G), shall be presumed to have been met, absent specific information to the contrary."
So the school gets the benefit of the doubt. Note that the California Education code prohibits charter schools from taking account of applicant students' place of residence, so that puts charters in something close to a double-bind as far as mirroring the demographics of nearby districts. Aren't school regulations something?
I’ll try to be brief with just a few responses in this discussion.
"Can you identify a charter school that was created specifically to isolate students from the diversity of the neighbor district?"
No one would really be able to tell whether a school was created specifically for that purpose. I have heard enough discussion in the 12 years or so I’ve been following charter schools to believe that some charter schools are created specifically for that purpose.
"You say that the SC board rejected Pacific's application because they thought it's purpose "might" be segregationist. Do you really think the state board would approve a school if there was evidence that the purpose of the school was segregationist?"
Yes, absolutely. I think the state BOE is so strongly pro-charter that they approve pretty much any charter petition, almost no questions asked.
"Many districts have schools where the population of students in one or more schools differs markedly from the population of the district. That is not a situation unique to charter schools and if anything it seems that a system that admits students by lottery would be a promising vehicle for creating diverse schools."
This is true, of course. It happens organically for a number of reasons. But it’s a specific concern when it comes to new schools, including charter schools.
"Diane Ravitch, by the way, says that there are excellent charter schools."
So do I. But overall, she is increasingly wary, dubious and negative about charter schools, as am I.
In response to a long defense of charter schools in Santa Cruz, my only point is: I did not single out Pacific Collegiate to pounce on in this discussion. An anonymous poster claimed that the Santa Cruz Board of Ed had unfairly denied its charter application. I was responding to that inaccurate claim.
Obviously, I and many others disagree that charters do not do harm; we believe that they do. The money and power are on the side of the charter boosters, so their view predominates, and that’s the situation right now.
Regarding “robust” charter schools in Bayview and the Western Addition, yes, you mean the KIPP schools. The reasons for their success are complex and a whole different discussion.
It’s not true that Edison Charter Academy “did very well with kids who the district failed for years and years.” Edison famously “counsels out” problem students, dumping them back on district schools – this is a complaint shared by Edison’s client districts nationwide (a key reason that most of them are FORMER client districts).
There were a couple of reasons I speculated that there was one key anon posting here and he/she was a paid charter advocate:
1. No personal flames against me, which is incredibly novel in a discussion with anonymous charter advocates and made me speculate that it was a pro.
2. Boldly false statements made by someone who is clearly well-informed and thus must know that they are false. My inference is that only a paid spokesperson would be that shameless.
(I’m having a casual conversation – why can’t I use casual speech? It’s not a formal research paper.)
Thank you for the comments, Santa Cruz Observer. I’m sorry that this discussion is presumably being followed only by a tiny number of particularly passionate readers.
"absent specific information to the contrary"
They have that information and in their charter renewal five years ago were directed to address the inequity. Socio-economic status is an allowed preference. Residential zone data as applied in Berkeley has been upheld by the Court of Appeals.
They know what they need to do and there are those within the school and in oversight roles who are trying to balance the school population. Unfortunately, the will at the board-level is not there. This will be a legal issue when they seek charter renewal.
The lottery has been out of compliance since day one, an issue that has been raised in potential litigation. It could become a serious issue if the grand jury takes it up.
Caroline,
I am curious to know if you have followed the Western Sierra Collegiate Academy story. This is a charter school in Rocklin, modeled after PCS. It was denied by the Rocklin USD, denied on appeal by the Placer County COE and then failed to gain approval at the SBE appeal last May. In a stunning move, SBE board members broke for lunch, then reconvened, placed the appeal back on the agenda for the next day and passed it on the revote. RUSD has filed suit for violation of the Brown Act.
So, when you say the SBE supports charters, apparently that support knows no bounds. I believe in many aspects of the charter movement, but it has to be level field in terms of finance, law and practice.
Thoughts?
Caroline, believe it or not, many folks who send their kids to charter schools are well educated, knowledgeable and well spoken and not just out to "flame" you. I believe I know one of the people who has been posting anonymously and it is NOT a paid charter advocate; just a parent who happens to work in this field.
Sorry if you have trouble accepting this.
Caroline ... You have an odd way of arguing both sides of a question simultaneously -
like saying you can't know whether or not a charter school was created for a specific purpose, but you think some of them were - and saying you think you're up against a paid pro because he or she does not stoop to personal invective, but does tell lies.
SCO - Although few things about CA surprise me, I am indeed surprised that school district claims that the state board breaking for lunch violates some law.
Federal law does allow charters to weight the lottery in favor of some students in order to comply with state law, but I don't know how that specifically plays out in CA. The CA regs I've seen seem to give charters wide leeway. "Level in finance, law, and practice" is so vague and general as to be in the eye of the beholder.
Anonymous 01:54,
Sorry I was not clear. The WASC charter appeal was heard as noticed on the SBE agenda and failed. The SBE broke for lunch, spoke to the losing charter who brought to their attention that a second appeal would be heard past the facility application deadline. The SBE reconvened, place the item on the agenda for the next day, took a revote and approved the appeal. Many of the interested parties on both sides left after the appeal failed and were not present to speak to the issue on the revote.
Story is in the SacBee and elsewhere.
SCO, I've heard about the Western Sierra Collegiate Academy situation in passing but haven't followed the details. Interesting. My view of the state BOE is based on an aggregation of such accounts over the years.
1:35, I have friends who send their kids to charter schools. Obviously I'm well aware that many of them are educated, knowledgeable and well spoken. If we discuss it at all, we agree to disagree. But in online discussion, charter advocates have tended to do an extreme amount of personal namecalling, to the point that I'm really startled at the fact that none of that has occurred in this long discussion.
I don't see how these things are odd:
"... saying you can't know whether or not a charter school was created for a specific purpose, but you think some of them were ..."
This concern is a known and visible issue in the charter world -- note Sandra Tsing Loh's satirical take on it in an earlier post in this discussion. And I've run into the attitude in real life -- "what if we started a charter school for families who want their kids steered toward top colleges?" (this is a paraphrase of something someone new to the issue once said to me). But I have no way of knowing the motivations of the founders of Pacific Collegiate. That's not odd at all. And if it were odd, so what? It's still valid.
"... saying you think you're up against a paid pro because he or she does not stoop to personal invective, but does tell lies..."
That's my take, odd or not. The flamers and namecallers in my community are not really likely to engage in brazen lying. They're passionate about the cause, and socially unskilled in believing that flaming and namecalling are effective ways to make their case -- but they're sincere. By contrast, a pro is well aware that flaming and namecalling are ineffective and unprofessional, but being a paid mouthpiece rather than a sincere advocate, is more likely to be dispassionately calculating about whether a lie might make the point successfully.
That's my view. Even the people who have been really nasty in online discussions wouldn't just bloodlessly lie.
Caroline ...Is a "satirical take" evidence? I have no idea what your're talking about in the rest, particularly why flaming and name-calling are not forms of lying.
SCO ... It's not clear to my why you wanted your kids to attend Pacific if you don't like the board and you think the school is unfair to minorities - or were those conclusions you came to after the fact?.
"1:35, I have friends who send their kids to charter schools..."
Caroline, are you sure they are still friends with you?
I would think your constant unwavering criticism of charter schools would be a real deal breaker.
Anon 03:56,
We are supporters of charter schools followed the founding of Pacific Collegiate with interest. It took years of close experience before a full picture developed.
There are wonderful teachers at PCS (and some not so) and a challenging (although limited) curriculum. There are things still to be admired, but the gloss is off.
We're happy with our choice, but truly disappointed with how the school's leadership operates in the community.
Happily, I don't insist that my friends agree with my every single opinion to be my friends, and those friends obviously feel the same way -- my political opinion on what is, after all, an education policy issue is not a deal-breaker.
The satirical comment from Sandra Tsing Loh is evidence that this is a widely discussed issue, and THAT is my point.
Namecalling and flaming may not be any nicer than lying, but they're a different misdeed. The anon whom I assumed was a paid spokeman for the charter lobby was simply posting false accounts and misrepresenting them as fact. I still believe he or she is a paid spokesperson, because I really can't believe a volunteer parent advocate would behave that way.
I think it would be more effective and a better use of everyone's time to discuss the issues rather than continually asking me why I said this or that. SCO has made it pretty clear that I was representing the situation accurately, so why not discuss the situation?
Propaganda against charter schools may make charter school issues widely discussed, but that does not mean that there is merit to the propaganda. Just because someone thinks he or she got a bad deal from a charter school or doesn't like charter schools is not evidence that there is anything wrong with charter schools. And just because you say over and over and other people say over and over that charter schools are hurting other schools and other children doesn't make it true. So I wonder what issues you want to discuss?
I drove from California to Ohio last month, and got a good view of why (and how much) people like Wal-Mart in much of the country. But many informed people perceive that Wal-Mart has impact that goes far beyond the question of whether it meets people's shopping needs.
I think that's a good analogy for charter schools. (It's also apt because Wal-Mart money, through the Walton Family Foundation, is a huge funder of charter schools.)
Again, Caroline, are you SURE these folks are really your friends? Personally, I'd be a little peeved if my BFF was comparing my son's wonderful little charter school, which is part of the school district, to a Wal-Mart.
Just sayin'
Getting personal is not an effective way to make a point, Notafan.
Again, just saying that many people don't like WalMart does not necessarily say anything about WalMart. And here we go with the conspiracy theory - WalMart funds charter school so charter schools must be part of a WalMart plot to privatize public education.
Caroline frequently refers to these anonymous informed or perceptive people who point out problems with charter schools, Walmart, whatever - except they never say what the problems are.
It's definitely not true that nobody says what the problems are.
The original post to which these comments are appended gives a long string of resources, and some quotes, that address in lots of detail what the problems are with charter schools.
The point about Wal-Mart, in case it's sincerely being missed, is that it pleases its customers -- yet it famously has a negative impact on local businesses, downtowns and thus entire communities. Wal-Mart wipes out downtowns when it arrives in a locale. Obviously I'm not saying that charter schools are like Wal-Mart in other ways, but this one similarity is striking.
The answer, I guess, will be that I can't prove that Wal-Mart has a negative impact and wipes out downtowns. I can't prove there's a health-care crisis either, but the evidence is ample.
If you follow events concerning the President's efforts to reform health care, you observed a great deal of criticism of the President's plan - much of it unintelligibly extreme. You do the same thing with propaganda against charter schools - you throw a lot of nutty stuff out there and then say it all indicates that there are problems with charter schools.
WalMart pleases its customers, but other businesses don't like it because it takes away their business. Charter schools please their customers but people who work in traditional schools don't like them because students enroll in them. In both cases, the problem is people who support a status quo that favors their interests. But that's not what they say publicly - the businesses say that their real motive is to protect the downtown - the school people say they're all for the kids and their real motive is to protect public education. Uh, huh.
Even if that unkind and cynical view of public school educators were accurate (which I believe it's not), it still doesn't address the issue that Wal-Mart DOES destroy downtowns. Perhaps the downtown businesses don't give a crap about the downtown as a community but only about their own self-interests (also an unkind and cynical view), but that's immaterial to the fact that Wal-Mart is still destroying the downtown.
I understand the comparison (though offensive) of Wal-Mart to charter school chains like Edison, but many charter schools are stand-alone schools which are part of the district, like CACS or Gateway. Gateway is pretty comparable to Galileo or SOTA in terms of test scores and has been considered a California Distinguished School.
I don't think it's fair to lump all charter schools together just because you find the Edison model distasteful.
If downtowns are costly and irrelevant what is wrong with people taking their business elsewhere? Do you shop for the best bargain or do you shop to keep some business in place downtown? A survey of economists a year or two ago revealed that the majority believe that WalMart does more good than harm.
Back to the education world, a teachers' union official points out how propagandizing against charter schools has come back to haunt the propagandists, not to mention the teachers whose interests the propaganda was supposed to advance ...
http://docs.google.com/View?id=dg6g5cc4_15f7p8dvhr
My view is that all charter schools, including the small, non-chain and supposedly "progressive" ones, have the impact on the public schools that Wal-Mart does on downtowns -- not that charter schools are similar to Wal-Mart in other ways.
Well, obviously that's that teachers' union officer's own opinion on the political/PR question of how to deal with this situation. "Don't make waves" is not exactly a new sentiment, of course.
Do you have evidence that even one public school has closed because a charter school opened? That's the analogy to WalMart isn't it, that charter schools open and other schools close?
It's the famous "Do you have evidence?" again! Do I have evidence that there's a health care crisis? No; it's my informed opinion.
Also, it's not ONLY about public schools' closing. Charter schools also take away resources and support.
The well-meaning original founders of the charter school concept never meant for charters to proclaim themselves superior, bash public schools and teachers constantly, and attract bucketloads of private funding while public schools starved. That's what happened, though.
Sorry, that last post was Caroline, obviously.
I'm assuming you practice what you preach, right?
Therefore, you never, ever set foot in any chains ever including: Whole Foods, Starbucks, Macy's, Walgreens, Rite-Aid, etc..right?
Also, I'm assuming that you never buy raffle tickets to help raise funds for your friends kids' private schools, since that would also take away money from the publics, right?
I guess my point is that the real world is a little more complex than just this black and white idea that you have about bad vs. good schools. Some of us choose charter schools because the traditional public schools cannot or will not provide what we need for our child. Maybe the choice comes down to: charter vs private? Or it might come down to: charter vs we leave the city?
Sorry to get personal, but you yourself have admitted that you fought tooth and nail back in the day to get your child(ren) into one of the small number of schools that you deemed acceptable based on your family's needs. We charter parents, as I imagine parents who choose private and parochial schools probably also feel the same way.
I'm not trying to attack you, Caroline. I'm just trying to frame it from a frustrated parent's perspective.
Sigh.
Charter schools are public schools, how can they be taking support away from public schools? And what resources do they take away? It's a strange argument that says a child who moves from one public school to another is taking resources away from public schools.
There would be no point in starting a charter school if you didn't believe that you had something superior to offer and parents would not send their child to a charter school if they did not think they were getting something superior to what they were getting at another public school.
There may be advocates of charter schools who run down other public schools and other public school teachers, but those people are few and far between and certainly not representative of the majority of people who sponsor charter schools or run charter schools. Tilting at windmills seems like a big waste of time.
About 600 billion tax dollars are going into public schools this year. Does that sound like starvation to you?
I'm not preaching that parents should never send their kids to charter schools. I address the topic as an education policy issue.
I mean, I understand that it's still uncomfortable for charter school parents to hear that, and I'm sorry for that, but then that raises the question of whether I shouldn't speak up because it might make someone uncomfortable.
It's definitely not black and white. I've often quoted the Center for Education Reform on that issue (this material, by the way, has also been cited by Creative Arts Charter principal Liz Jaroslow, so it's not some noxious anti-charter rant):
"The elixir of an individualized bailout from a struggling system has serious side effects ... It can create a painful wedge in many communities, especially among African-Americans. It can weaken the political will for a collective solution to the problems in public education; and it can promote the deterioration of traditional schools. As highly motivated and engaged families pull their children from traditional public schools, urban districts have fewer resources — both financial and human — to address their many problems. The worse the schools get, the more appealing the escape to charters and private schools, all of which feeds into the conservative dream of replacing public education with a free-market system of everyone for themselves, the common good be damned."
I've never advocated being a maniacal purist in everyday life -- I agree that it's impossible. I think in this thread I mentioned shopping at Wal-Mart when we were traveling last month.
I do buy raffle tickets from private schools, and I usually buy those godawful chocolate bars from kids in front of the market for their parochial schools, too. As I said, I'm neither a maniacal purist nor a just plain maniac.
Actually, 8:14's claim (or strong implication) that public schools are not underfunded is an example, albeit a minor and relatively gentle one, of what I mean in terms of charter advocates' attacking and doing harm to public education. $600 billion is starvation if the schools are required to do $900 billion worth of tasks (or whatever number).
Oops, I was having a mental meltdown -- that's Rethinking Schools. I was obviously in a state of confusion referring to them as the Center for Education Reform, which is the charter industry's national lobby.
7:36 again here.
"The well-meaning original founders of the charter school concept never meant for charters to proclaim themselves superior, bash public schools and teachers constantly, and attract bucketloads of private funding while public schools starved. .."
Huh?!?
I honestly have never met any parents or educators at our charter school who bash traditional public schools. Parents may privately express frustration with the particular school they just transferred out of, though.
Our school does NOT get bucketloads of private funding and we struggle to deal with severe budget cuts, just like the rest of the schools in the district.
Also, just to add to that-
I personally have convinced many parents who were dead set on privates to consider giving public school a chance. I think there are a variety of great options in the district, including our school.
If charter schools increase the supply of good schools, it's a strange argument that says charter schools are hurting public education. In fact it's downright nonsensical and the paranoia behind Jaroslow's comments is amazing. NAACP and Barack Obama support charter schools - are they now part of the conservative plot to privatize public education?
7:36, of course individual parents in charter schools don't bash public schools en masse. But the charter voices overall do that, and they are powerful and well-funded. And not every charter school gets bucketloads of private money, but all you have to do is read a small amount of the coverage of where Bill Gates, Eli Broad, the Walton Family Foundation etc. are putting their education "philanthropy" to get a view of how much private money is pouring into the charter world.
8:28, I guess you're new to this discussion (welcome), because those points have already been addressed, but I'll repeat:
"If charter schools increase the supply of good schools, it's a strange argument that says charter schools are hurting public education."
Actually there are very sound reasons for saying that, and to simplify, I'm again using the example of Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart increases the options available to consumers and brings them lower prices than they were getting from local merchants. So does Wal-Mart help or hurt communities? I'll leave the question hanging.
To clarify, Liz Jaroslow is a charter school principal and did not make those comments. She has publicly cited the material from which that quote is an excerpt to acknowledge that there are complex questions around the impact of charters. Rethinking Schools, the source of the comments, is not an anti-charter organization but is taking a thoughtful look at the unintended consequences of what once appeared to be a wonderful progressive innovation that was hijacked by the right and is being used as a weapon against public education.
As widely discussed, I think that Barack Obama is particularly uninformed about public education, made a very poor choice in the resume-faking, privatization-pushing non-educator Arne Duncan as Ed Sec, and is listening to bad advice. If the NAACP supports charters I would assume it's looking at the short-term, small-picture situation and not at the larger impact as described by Rethinking Schools. There's very limited understanding of the complexities of these issues, and most people find them too boring to study closely.
It's an odd argument that says that it's a bad thing for individuals and foundations to put money into public education, at the same time saying that there is not enough money in public education.
The idea that charter schools are a "weapon of the right" against public education and that NAACP, Barack Obama, liberal and progressive politicians, the editorial boards of the nation's leading newspapers, the nation's civil rights watchdogs, and the parents who put their kids into charter schools have all had the wool pulled over their eyes is too fantastic to be believable. It fact, it sounds downright crazy.
^ I agree. It also seems a bit paranoid, like a conspiracy theory.
The purpose of the original post to which these comments are intended was to offer links to other voices who are also criticizing charter schools. Of course you can write them all of as paranoid and crazy -- they're just there for your edification, should you choose to do the research.
Well, since teachers' unions are also running charter schools, trying to make charter schools out to be part of a plot to hand over public education to right-wing businessmen does seem pretty far out. Though paranoid thinking does have a way of incorporating every fact into its worldview, so I'm sure your sources are going to say teachers' unions are part of the master plan.
Here's an example of a charter school having an impact on a neighboring public school: PCS. Opened less than 1 mile from the nearby high school of 1,000 students it is a 450+ school aimed at high achievers. It initially had a HUGE impact on enrollment in advanced, AP and world language courses. Eventually some of those offering dwindled at the regular school. PCS was launched with HUGE cash infusions from private investors and continues to receive very large donations annually from very deep pockets. Not so the neighboring school.
The good news is that fierce support from the community has allowed the neighboring public school to restore academic programs and it now surpasses PCS in many ways. But the blow was harsh. And yes, they routinely bash the public schools.
"The good news is that fierce support from the community has allowed the neighboring public school to restore academic programs and it now surpasses PCS in many ways."
Isn't the competition from the charter school ultimately a good thing?
I mean, now the regular public school has improved because it was forced to compete.
If parents are sending their children to PCS and PCS is getting contributions to support its programs, that's fierce community support for PCS, isn't it?
Guess you have to live in Santa Cruz to appreciate the reality of the impact of charter school vs the philosophical perspective of competition.
The kids in the regular high schools for much of the 10 years after PCS opened suffered as enrollment in college prep classes moved to PCS. Choices were limited as the school had to balance diminished ADA vs the need to education *all* students.
PCS has reached capacity and the bloom is off the rose. Students are returning to the regular high schools and through careful management of resources, class offerings have been largely restored. Was the competition good? Depends on when you went to high school!
PCS was started for and by private school parents. The start up funds were provided by the then president of the SBE, also a private school parent. The demographics are startlingly different from neighboring public schools in terms of parent income and parent education. Those students who once fed into the public schools were siphoned off to PCS.
So when you talk about a charter school having a negative impact on neighboring public schools, there are cases where that has been true. There are 10 other charters in the county that have NOT had the same impact because they were either started to provide alternatives for under-served students and/or draw a diverse student body. They co-exist harmoniously. PCS is a different animal -- by design.
It's interesting how this discussion (which of course is being followed only by a small number of people presumably alerting each other to it) came to be about Pacific Collegiate. I didn't bring up Pacific Collegiate, of course. A charter school advocate did, citing it as a school that was unjustly rejected by the local school board when it was proposed. That was an inaccurate way to tell the story, of course.
I'm still dying to know if the charter school advocate who brought up PCS was poorly informed or deliberately dishonest. If poorly informed, I'd love to know if his/her eyes have been opened. If dishonest -- well, I hope you get your comeuppance in a more public forum sometime if this is your normal behavior. That's sleazy and insulting.
"Isn't the competition from the charter school ultimately a good thing?
I mean, now the regular public school has improved because it was forced to compete."
The regular public school has "rebounded" because the community and the board were appalled by the resulting educational apartheid engendered by the opening of Pacific Collegiate. The regular public school *was* and is *now* an excellent school. But there were some rough seas when high achieving students and wealthy families were siphoned off.
Is that competition? Or is it poaching?
"If parents are sending their children to PCS and PCS is getting contributions to support its programs, that's fierce community support for PCS, isn't it?"
I don't know many public schools that get 7-figure start-up money from a single individual. The school runs a sophisticated annual giving and collections campaign that states clearly that they expect every parent to donate $3,000 per student, per year. Donors are listed *by name* and *by amount* in the annual report. In this public charter school, parents who don't or can't make the "ask" are publicly shamed.
Is that fierce community support?
Claiming that a charter school is "poaching" or "siphoning off" students from another public school makes sense only if you believe that children somehow belong to the other public school. I'm sorry, your complaints about PCS sound like sour grapes even though you deny that is your motive.
SCO, my information about Pacific Collegiate isn't THAT extensive -- who is that person, since it's clearly no secret?
"...The school runs a sophisticated annual giving and collections campaign that states clearly that they expect every parent to donate $3,000 per student, per year. Donors are listed *by name* and *by amount* in the annual report. In this public charter school, parents who don't or can't make the "ask" are publicly shamed."
That doesn't sound very typical of any district charter schools I'm familiar with. If this is really true, then it is understandable why folks in SC would be upset. It seems like an anomaly.
Most charter schools cannot and do not require families to make monetary donations. Ours only asks that families try to help out by volunteering in the classroom as much as we can and chipping in to help buy basic supplies for the teacher. I think most public schools do this nowadays by necessity.
Caroline, The start up money for PCS was provided by Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix and former president of the State Board of Education.
His children attended private school until they entered PCS with preferential admission (bypassing the lottery) because he served on the board 10 years prior when the school was founded.
To be clear, the $3,000 per child, per year "donation" is not mandatory. But there is a daily bulletin reminder, parents at each grade level make collections calls and the annual report publishes the names of all donors and their donation level. In a school of 450 students, it is very clear who gives and who does not and *how much*. That is not in the spirit of a free public education.
"Claiming that a charter school is "poaching" or "siphoning off" students from another public school makes sense only if you believe that children somehow belong to the other public school. I'm sorry, your complaints about PCS sound like sour grapes even though you deny that is your motive."
Guess it's all in how you look at it. Private school parents and staff with a very connected partner at the SBE opened a public charter school designed to serve the high achieving students from a limited demographic and geographic area who were feeding into the public school.
In the strictest, narrowest analysis, they created an alternative. In reality, the absolutely true effect was that a specific demographic -- white, high achieving students with educated families -- were siphoned out of the regular public schools.
Since then, PCS has sought repeatedly to recruit on the neighboring public school campuses.
I'm just not convinced that that is the spirit of the charter movement. But it was the intent and result of the opening of PCS.
I don't think that being aware of the truth and being alarmed by that is "sour grapes".
But children who are not affluent and children who are not white are eligible for admission to PCS on the same basis as other children. If a charter school is over-subscribed, admission has to be by lottery.
Your complaint seems to be that PCS has attracted a student body that is too white and too affluent for your taste. That is precisely what sour grapes means. If you think that the student body at PCS should be more diverse, why don't you work for that?
"If a charter school is over-subscribed, admission has to be by lottery"
True. After sibling, board and staff preferences, about 10% -15% percent of the school population turns over via the lottery each. About 7% of those applicants are of diverse ethnic groups, zero are socio-economically disadvantaged. Overall,the school is about 5% Hispanic vs 30% for their host district and over 50% for the county. The school has 3 English language learners. THREE (last year, two were children of UCSC professors from out of the country). The district runs about 15% ELL. The PCS position is that "those people" are not attracted to their program. Could be the $3,000 per child, don't you think?
"If you think that the student body at PCS should be more diverse, why don't you work for that?"
Have and continue to do so. Many are working directly with the chartering agency as the PCS charter comes up for renewal. The multiple diversity implementation plans have been shelved by their board, but the chartering agency is expecting to see some real movement on this issue as a condition of renewal.
Informed and proactive ≠ sour grapes. This is not good for the charter movement overall!
Charter schools, as public schools, may not charge tuition, so I don't see that PCS can require parents to to contribute $3000 per year. So if you're saying that the 3 grand is somehow deterring poor children from applying to PCS, why don't you lead a fundraising drive on their behalf? That seems a lot more constructive than chasing statistics around - that is, if you're sincerely interested in increasing diversity at PCS and not not just interested in knocking the school. And wouldn't that be the kind of progress that the state board is looking for?
Thanks, SCO -- of course I know who Reid Hastings is (that reminds me to mail back my Netflix), but I didn't know about his link with this school!
Some time ago I was in a casual conversation with some parents of pre-K aged children. One dad, emphasizing that he was very unfamiliar with education issues and hadn't thought this out, tossed out the idea of starting a charter for the kids in the group who were present -- all well-to-do white families. His idea was that it would steer them toward top colleges and not have to meet the needs of other students in our district, such as impoverished students, limited English speakers etc.
Well, he had prefaced his remarks with a disclaimer, and I know he didn't mean to be racist. His idea was partly that kids who had specific needs could be clustered at other schools to have those needs met more effectively. If I do say so, I was delicate and diplomatic in pointing out the issues with that idea, and he immediately agreed.
But it has long sounded to me like PCS is the embodiment of that father's idea.
The badgering of SCO with the "if you object to it, why don't you change it yourself?" line is similar to the one I sometimes get: "How can you criticize charters if you don't have a better idea for improving schools for low-income students?" (That line is obviously not germane in a discussion of PCS.)
Those are kind of default responses that are stand-ins for "I don't have any response of substance, so I'm just going to bluster."
Actually, the only one blustering here is you - nonstop against charter schools.
A number of charter schools have been founded by minority educators with the specific aim of serving minority children and in the belief that clustering them this way is the best way to meet their needs. The parents who send their children to those schools agree with that. According to you that's racist.
No, I never said it was racist to send your kid to a charter school.
You did call PCS segregationist.
Yes, I did call PCS segregationist. And now that we've heard from SCO on the subject, I am MORE convinced that it's a school parents choose to cloister their kids. So I guess I would say there's racism involved in choosing PCS -- conscious, subconscious, whatever. But I wouldn't say that about all or even most charters.
Many charter schools were established to serve minority children. Do you believe that, for example, black parents who send their children to all-black or almost all-black charter schools are racist, conscious, subconscious, or whatever, as you put it?
And by the way, when you were looking for a school for your own children, did you enroll them in one that served large proportions of poor minority children or did you enroll them in schools that serve largely children of middle-class professionals?
My kids have attended diverse urban public schools all the way through (my son is an '09 grad and my daughter is in 10th grade).
But that's really beside the point. The issue is STARTING a school that appears to be aimed at cloistering elite students away from more-challenged students.
I didn't bring up PCS; a charter advocate did. It was not the best PR to do that, I have to say. It's still unclear whether it was brought up in ignorance or in an attempt to deceive, assuming that I and others reading this would be unaware of the issues.
The discussion about PCS and its demographics has gone on far and wide; it's not like I'm trying to invent something to make an issue of. I wouldn't have heard of (since it's 70 miles from me) EXCEPT for that extensive discussion about its demographics.
More challenged students are eligible for admission to PCS on the same basis as other students, so claiming that PCS was started with the purpose of cloistering elite students away from other students does not seem realistic.
I count six districts in Santa Cruz county with white enrollment of at least 70 percent, four have white enrollments of at least 80 percent. There must be many schools within those districts serving the same kind of demographics as PCS. Let's not pretend that PCS is some kind of new animal here.
And you're still not answering the question of how PCS could be segregationist by serving white students but other charter schools that serve minority students are not segrgationist.
1. I'm not the only one saying this -- I am really more pointing out that it's being widely discussed, and has been throughout the history of the school.
2. Running a school that serves to cloister privileged white kids away from the unwashed riffraff is on a different moral/ethical level than running a school that enrolls primarily low-income African-American or Latino students.
It's kind of pointless to argue with me specifically, considering this is an ongoing discussion within the Santa Cruz school community, and I'm 70 miles away.
Oh, and there IS a moral/ethical/pragmatic difference between a relatively new charter school in a district/county that is heavily low-income minority but that targets privileged middle-class students and a school that serves its surrounding area, in a surrounding area that if organically not diverse.
It was a concern beforehand that PCS would serve that segregationist purpose, and that's apparently what happened. As I say, hair-splitting with me is pointless, though, as this is a Santa Cruz issue and I'm not even in Santa Cruz. Why not discuss it with community members there?
"Running a school that serves to cloister privileged white kids away from the unwashed riffraff is on a different moral/ethical level than running a school that enrolls primarily low-income African-American or Latino students."
_____________________________
"Unwashed riffraff"? This inflammatory language serves no constructive purpose.
Low-income Latino and African-American students are eligible for admission to PCS on the same basis as the privileged white kids. Complaining that a school is too white is racist purely and simply. You are in the impossible position of arguing that there is something wrong if a school serves mostly white kids but there is nothing wrong with a school that serves mostly black kids.
This is a widely discussed issue regarding PCS, so it's not like I'm trying to make an issue out of nothing.
There IS a moral difference -- it's willfully obtuse or morally blind to insist that there isn't.
However, that said, I didn't come looking for a way to pick on PCS. The subject came up because a charter advocate -- either misinformed or dishonest -- brought it up as an example of a charter school treated unjustly by the school district. I corrected the facts.
Let's get real here, an argument does not have merit simply because it is widely discussed.
There has been a lot of innuendo here that PCS was created to somehow shelter privileged white kids, but there is no evidence that the school was created with that purpose, as opposed to its stated purpose of providing an accelerated academic program.
If there were evidence that PCS is not announcing its presence to poor parents and minority parents, or is otherwise discouraging poor parents and minority parents from applying, then the insularity objections might have merit.
It's not really innuendo -- I'm saying explictly that the appearance is that PCS was created to shelter privileged white kids.
Of course you can argue that back and forth, but the demographics do tell their own story. Now that I know that Reid Hastings was behind the school, that charge has a lot more credibility.
"It's not really innuendo -- I'm saying explictly that the appearance is that PCS was created to shelter privileged white kids."
Claiming that the appearance is the truth is exactly innuendo. It makes just as much sense to say that PCS was created to give students an equal opportunity to experience an enriched curriculum.
Santa Cruzan speaking here: PCS was created by private school parents and teachers to give their kids a "cloistered" high school experience. They were afraid of public school leaders with a vision like this:
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_13482257
If you read the comments following this editorial, you'll get a sense of the feelings shared by the PCS community. Founding a charter was their best alternative in a land without vouchers.
Santa Cruz County is 50%+ Latino; the host district is @30% Latino. PCS's diversity numbers don't even register in the API directories they are so low.
Why, if the school is open admission is their enrollment so far off of their surrounding demographics?
1. The very clear expectation that all parents should donate $3,000/child/year. Their names and donation amounts are published in the annual report every year; monthly collections calls are made by classmates parents.
2. That the program is aimed at families who, with children the 6th grade when they apply for the 7th grade lottery, already know that they are college bound and understand the college prep/all AP course offerings of PCS.
3. That parents are required to sign a contract at the time of entry into the lottery that they will work for the school a certain number of hours.
4. The lottery is only open to about 40 students/year. The remaining openings are filled by preference given former and current board members students (about 10% of the student body at any given time), siblings and staff. Given that the school was initially populated by private school families, once the lottery came online, no amount of outreach is going to shift the demographics to emulate the surrounding community.
#5 Students must maintain a C average or they are asked to leave.
Why is #2 an issue? Because non-English speaking families with no family history of college don't generally have an understanding of the steps required for a college-prep only curriculum when their children are still in 6th grade. This is an issue that the public schools are working on closely and is the impetus behind the AVID program. PCS does not take this on, because they only want the self-identified college-bound, not all that are capable.
Why is #3 an issue? When your family is barely clinging to the poverty line and you are already working three jobs, the prospect of signing a contract for service -- and acknowledging that failure to meet your obligation means your child will be dismissed -- well, it's a real barrier.
These are just some of the principles at play.
It's interesting to see the comments puncturing Pagano's hot air.
You seem to somehow blame PCS and parents who send their children there that other parents have less money and less sophistication. And you talk as if PCS is tricking or intimidating poor parents and minority parents from sending their children to PCS.
The best way to increase diversity at PCS would be to advertise the school more widely.
It's certainly worth finding out why Hispanic parents aren't sending their kids to a high-quality college prep program. If the district is serious about diversifying PCS, maybe it should try some outreach to those parents.
The whole point of a charter school is that the district doesn't do its outreach -- the charter school is mostly autonomous. It's PCS that should be doing the recruiting.
You want it both ways. You criticize a charter school for not looking like the district and then say the district has no responsibility for enrollment at the charter school.
Anon, the whole point is that the district has no responsibility for enrollment at the charter school, among other aspects of school operations. That's the reason they started the charter school -- so it could run autonomously. Not only that, it competes with the district, by design.
Given those two facts, it doesn't make sense to claim that the district should "help" the charter school enroll more minorities. Even if that were a rational notion, it would constitute the school district pushing minorities out of the district and into the non-district charter school, which would obviously be wrong.
You're saying it's wrong for minorities to attend the charter school and wrong for minorities not to attend the charter school. I think this comes from your us against them thinking about charter schools and your failure to understand that children do not belong to school districts.
This is getting rather pointlessly circular. What I did was explain the controversy about PCS, in response to a charter advocate who cluelessly or dishonestly cited it as an example of a charter school treated unfairly by a school district.
Even if I thought PCS were pure as the driven snow (oops, unfortunate metaphor evoking whiteness), my point was that there's a controversy about a much-discussed concern. Convincing me, and anyone else reading this, that I'm wrong wouldn't change that point.
You seem to be saying that even if you're wrong you're right.
I'm right that controversy exists.
You are consistent in your broad-brush criticism and inability to consider other perspectives.
Hitler said controversial things too but that doesn't mean that what he said had merit.
Update:
On Tuesday, November 3rd, Principal Chris Mercer invites the PCS Community to a presentation on a proposal to create an additional preference in the upcoming PCS lottery. The PCS Board of Directors recently asked the PCS Diversity Oversight Committee to research and develop, on a one-year pilot project basis, a preference for ten percent of the available seats to go to students who could increase the socio-economic diversity of the student enrollment. PCS families and staff are invited to attend this presentation, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the C Pod, to learn more about the proposal which is expected to be taken up by the PCS Board of Directors at their meeting on November 18th.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out because federal law requires oversubscribed charter schools to admit students by lottery, although it does allow weighted lotteries for the purpose of complying with state law.
More about the plan to diversify Pacific Collegiate School:
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_13700108
Note that the 10% set aside is for seats in 7th grade only, after preferences for board members, staff & siblings, or about 6 seats total. The maximum student body is 480, so that plays out to 1.25% of the population going to the socioeconomically disadvantaged. After 6 years of this practice, should they decide to keep it beyond the one year trial (which handily falls just as they file their charter renewal), they'll be up to 7.5% disadvantaged, vs 46% in their surrounding community.
The comments on the PCS story are pretty telling. The sentiment essentially sums up the controversy:
http://www.topix.net/forum/source/santa-cruz-sentinel/T0225JC3GFU4PKPNE
The comments are all over the lot.
For those who follow these things:
PCS board fails to pass diversity proposal
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_13974652
วิทยุออนไลน์ ดูละครวิวาห์ว้าวุ่น หนังเกาหลี
Thx For share me a good article
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