charter schools to replace failing schools?

[DetroitPlanner]

How do we replace the failing paents?

[mwilbert]

Boarding schools, but people are unlikely to want to pay for that.

[R8RBOB]

How do we replace the failing paents?

You may have the word parents misspelled but I get your question. During my brief time in DPS, I talked to a number of teachers as I drove from the west side to the east side to the north end to the southwest and all the teachers had the same problems. Parents who don't spend the time that's needed to educated their children. I recalled I was in the office of a principal at a school on the east side and I saw a letter she intended to send to a mother banning from coming on school grounds unless she allowed her. It appears that this furious mom decided that she was going to beat up the assistant principal and the principal had to put her foot down. These teachers go through hell and these Republicans claiming that teachers are getting paid too much is a fucking lie. They don't get paid enough. Bad-ass kids, sub-standard working conditions, shaky school system and yet they still want to educate the children.

[firstandten]

Does anyone know what is to happen to the four DPS Career and Technical Centers: Breithaupt, Crockett, Golightly and Randolph, and in this new charter endorsement?

Career and Technical Centers [[once known as 'Vo-techs' - Murray-Wright HS was the first in Detroit) operate in many states and other city districts outside of Detroit [[and receive different funding somewhat).

Withstanding some problems they have been very successful with high completion rates for high school students - some CTC's providing articulation programs to area colleges. What is to become of them?

I heard that Mr Bobb wanted to do away with the schools and turn them into comprehensive high schools

That being said I think Mr. Bobb never really addressed the CTE schools or vocational education in general.

The CTE schools are one of the gems of the district. You actually have students come from outside the district to attend those schools.

I believe that vocational education is the future for many of Detroit students who aren't academically inclined but can get real world job skills.

Bobb in his zeal to re-make the district ignored maybe its number one selling point.

[R8RBOB]

DPS in my opinion didn't downsize when they should have.Not to mention the errors of judgement made by the folks in the board office.Therefore they ended up with Mr Bobb appointed by Gov Grandholm. And that story is still being played out.
As a Union school district employee, I don't fear for my job anymore as I know it's days are numbered. I do know that from what I have seen in the 10 years I have worked at the schools is alot of B.S..But I do listen when people speak. As for privatized custodial services, A third party said things just walk away. And a retired teacher who subbed in a charter school said she didn't think that that school should get away with what they were doing.
I might go out on the limb here saying this But charter schools are nothing but a racket.And for those who say "Hell any flunky can clean a school" Well I myself am not a flunky. I am familiar to the building, teachers, students, and their families.
I do not understand the fact that our elected officials say Yes to Schools yet hold funding over our heads.I myself being a parent almost became a parent of a charter school student, Yet she never graduated when she went back to public school..
I do think that there should be some common sense in the whole process of school funding Something that won't happen in the near future as I see it. The blame game will continue. And most likely the kids will suffer.

reddog, sorry to hear about your dilemma. You know the right-wing played this trick before. Saying that the financial crisis of 2008 was the result of minorities getting loans that they couldn't pay back. Now they are saying that union employees like yourself are putting states in debt with your high salaries and Cadillac benefits. [[funny how everyone is broke these days) Somehow there is always someone to blame very low on the totem pole.

[maxx]

Charter schools replacing DPS? What a great idea! Because we all know that the way to attract great teachers and administrators is to pay them less than the median wage. And a system with loads of little schools, each with its own principal and v. principal, is a far smarter way to spend education bucks.

[oldredfordette]

Don't know about Michigan, but public charters in many inter city areas in other places have teachers and staff that are paid more than unionized teachers in the public school system. Don't know about their benefits though, but the salary is better and increases based on performance [[just like all private sector jobs). But really it's about the students right? How are the students doing? Well, typically better, but never just the same or worse than the public schools system. From what I can see, a plan like this for Detroit's schools may just work.

I have to also say, the public charter schools in my area are just stunning. Beautiful new buildings that could rival new academic structures on big college campuses. Where they get all the money, I don't know.

Got any actual numbers and locations for these magic charter schools? Because nothing I have read or seen suggests anything close to your assertion.

[NorthEndere]

How are the students doing? Well, typically better, but never just the same or worse than the public schools system.

"Never just the same or worse"? I'm honestly not sure where you got that little nugget from. I can't find it the information, currently, but when taken as a whole in 2003, DPS actually did better on the MEAP test than the city charters.

I'm not a fan of the idea of charter schools, myself. When America has given up on something as basic and important as public schooling, which is pretty much the bedrock of every successful developed nation the world over, we really have a problem. But, I can at least see the argument based on competition. I can not, however, see where people get away with thinking that charters are an improvement, or enough of an improvement, to justify the social costs of phasing out public education, especially when information and the facts usually points to quite the opposite.

I don't mind if folks are for charters because of some libertarian belief in choice, but this idea of them even beginning to approach an academic panacea isn't founded in anything solid. Charters are a bandaid; when they do work they work because they selectively fill a niche. Let's see how a charter system that covers an entire impoverished district works when they don't get to pick and choose. I feel comfortable saying improvements [[if any) would be marginal at best.

There is a place for the idea of charters schools in a greater public school district; that place isn't as the primary educator of a communities school children. At the end of the day, the only real result of switching to a charter system would be that you'd be paying less taxes [[union-busting) to send your kids to failing schools. The outcome would largely be a change in financing, not a change in academic achievement.

The school system will get better when these communities get this: That there is a stunning difference between exisiting/subsiding and truly living, that they aren't just competing with kids and community beyond 8 Mile and Telegraph, but with kids in Beijing and Helsinki, and just generally that there is a real world outside their small dreams and hyper-provinicial focus. And, really, that last one could apply to most Americans, in general, who seem to be so introverted in how they view the world, today, that they have a serious and dangerous case of social myopia.

[mwilbert]

Charters are clearly not a panacea, but it is better to pay lower taxes to send kids to failing schools than to pay higher taxes to send kids to failing schools. At least then some parents will have a little more money to send their kids to other schools.

[casscorridor]

Robert Bobb, along with the Dept of Ed and a slew of foundations and corporate interests all share one goal-- making education into a marketplace. This is not about putting students first. It is about putting profits first.

Turning public schools into charter schools creates profits for a few people by taking public taxpayer money and putting in the hands of private corporations. The charter school owners/managers take a cut of the money, the private custodial service [[owners, not workers) will take a cut, and so on. Those multiple layers of profits come from less teacher pay [[and more hours of wokk) and less resources for teachers and students.

But lets focus strictly on the students, which is what the charter advocates say they are doing. They say they and doing what is best for the students. But really they are turning students into commodities to be "bought" and "sold" by the charters. Higher achieving students boost ratings and money for the charter so those are the ones they keep, and throw the rest away to other charters or to the failing and overcrowded DPS. They rate each student by constant testing from the earliest moments of their school life. They have GPAs even in elementary school, so they can "apply" to middle schools then later to high schools and colleges. Those who don't get into the top middle schools won't get into the top high schools or colleges either. So essentialy a class system is created and student's entire life is determined in elementary school.

What happened to equal opportunity? These are just kids and we are treating them like workers in the job market. It's all about your stats, which determin your placement in society. Those who can't pass the test are placed in a lower tier. Your worth in society is determined by a GPA, which is just a cumulation of tests made by beauracrats. And this is in elementary school!

Instead of each student getting the attention they deserve to gain success we are reducing them to commodities that are only worth as much as their test scores. If they can't succeed in the pre-determined model, they get pushed aside. We are basing all future success in ones life off what one did in elementary school in schools that don't offer the individual support neccesary for student success. If you don't get into this middle school, you won't get into this high school and you wont get into this college. Therefore all you will ever be is a unskilled worker. The class system is now built into education system and children are placed into a class at the earliest years.

This determinist model seems like something out of a dystopian science fiction novel. But it is reality and is very compatible with other attacks on our free society and democracy such as the Emergency Financial Manager bill. We are on a collision course towards a hyper-corporatist society in which ones worth is their GPA or resume and where ones vote is equal to ones net worth.

Ps sorry for the spelling errors im on my mobile.

[Zacha341]

Well stated CC... what remains of DPS will largely be a reservoir of the low-achievers [[so called) and of course DPS will continue to score lower per the model you suggest.

Robert Bobb, along with the Dept of Ed and a slew of foundations and corporate interests all share one goal-- making education into a marketplace. This is not about putting students first. It is about putting profits first.

Turning public schools into charter schools creates profits for a few people by taking public taxpayer money and putting in the hands of private corporations. The charter school owners/managers take a cut of the money, the private custodial service [[owners, not workers) will take a cut, and so on....

...But lets focus strictly on the students, which is what the charter advocates say they are doing. They say they and doing what is best for the students. But really they are turning students into commodities to be "bought" and "sold" by the charters. Higher achieving students boost ratings and money for the charter so those are the ones they keep, and throw the rest away to other charters or to the failing and overcrowded DPS.

[firstandten]

Boarding schools, but people are unlikely to want to pay for that.

If we could somehow fund an operation like that, I really believe that is a way to go especially in our inner cities.

[trstar]

Robert Bobb, along with the Dept of Ed and a slew of foundations and corporate interests all share one goal-- making education into a marketplace. This is not about putting students first. It is about putting profits first.

Turning public schools into charter schools creates profits for a few people by taking public taxpayer money and putting in the hands of private corporations. The charter school owners/managers take a cut of the money, the private custodial service [[owners, not workers) will take a cut, and so on. Those multiple layers of profits come from less teacher pay [[and more hours of wokk) and less resources for teachers and students.

But lets focus strictly on the students, which is what the charter advocates say they are doing. They say they and doing what is best for the students. But really they are turning students into commodities to be "bought" and "sold" by the charters. Higher achieving students boost ratings and money for the charter so those are the ones they keep, and throw the rest away to other charters or to the failing and overcrowded DPS. They rate each student by constant testing from the earliest moments of their school life. They have GPAs even in elementary school, so they can "apply" to middle schools then later to high schools and colleges. Those who don't get into the top middle schools won't get into the top high schools or colleges either. So essentialy a class system is created and student's entire life is determined in elementary school.

What happened to equal opportunity? These are just kids and we are treating them like workers in the job market. It's all about your stats, which determine your placement in society. Those who can't pass the test are placed in a lower tier. Your worth in society is determined by a GPA, which is just a cumulation of tests made by bureaucrats. And this is in elementary school!

Instead of each student getting the attention they deserve to gain success we are reducing them to commodities that are only worth as much as their test scores. If they can't succeed in the pre-determined model, they get pushed aside. We are basing all future success in ones life off what one did in elementary school in schools that don't offer the individual support neccesary for student success. If you don't get into this middle school, you won't get into this high school and you wont get into this college. Therefore all you will ever be is a unskilled worker. The class system is now built into education system and children are placed into a class at the earliest years.

This determinist model seems like something out of a dystopian science fiction novel. But it is reality and is very compatible with other attacks on our free society and democracy such as the Emergency Financial Manager bill. We are on a collision course towards a hyper-corporatist society in which ones worth is their GPA or resume and where ones vote is equal to ones net worth.

I agree with your thoughts.

[reddog289]

Well written post Cass

[kraig]

Why is DPS more expensive than running a Charter?

I will give you a hint: The word has six letters and it starts with a U and ends in a S.

That's odd, I thought accredited had more than six letters, started with an A and ended with a D. As in accredited teachers. Most charter schools have an advantage of being very selective with their student body. Even then there test scores aren't above the DP Schools, therefore, it will be interesting to see if the Charter Schools will accept all of the same students that DPS does and how well will they perform if they do.

[iheartthed]

NYT chimes in: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/ed...omepage&src=me