12 charter schools to get 50 million in grants from federal government.

[madfloridian]

This is a first, I understand.

I know that Teach for America, whose teachers get 5 weeks training before taking jobs of laid off experienced teachers...will get 50 million from the government for being part of Americorps. Yes, they say they are non-profit, but districts must pay them a lot of money to recruit teachers for them. The districts could hire teachers locally, and it would not cost them a penny of recruitment money.

We learned that Geoffrey Canada's Harlem Children Zone charter schools will get 200 million to build 20 more schools across the country.

In 1997, Geoffrey Canada founded Harlem Children's Zone, a comprehensive system of programs and charter schools designed to help Harlem children succeed. Children enter the program as infants and graduate college-bound. In just over 10 years, Canada revolutionized a broken education system in a community where poverty and drop out rates ran high. The program's incredible success has made Canada one of the nation's leading advocates in education reform. Canada is profiled in Davis Guggenheim's education documentary, "Waiting For 'Superman.' "

Now, the federal government has announced Canada's program will be reproduced in 20 communities across America.

President Obama has requested $200 million in his fiscal 2011 budget to help implement the 21 projects that are being planned this year, along with $10 million for additional planning grants.

And we learn that 12 charter management companies will get millions from the federal government as grants. These are publicly funded, but privately run. They do not have to keep children who do not perform well, they can send them back to public schools....and the public schools must keep them.

When a public school student leaves to go to a charter school much or all of the money allotted for that student goes to the charter schools. It seldom is sent back to the public schools if the student doesn't make the grade. It is in effect defunding public education.

U.S. Department of Ed. to Give Out Grants to 12 Charter Networks

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced today that the department will allocate $50 million in grants to top-notch charter management organizations to help them expand their reach. This is the first time the feds have specifically sought to help good charters replicate their efforts.

Here are the 12 charter schools and the amounts they will get.

*Achievement First: Will get $1.67 million to create 14 new schools and expand two schools in Connecticut, New York, and Rhode Island

*Aspire: Will get $5.58 million to create 15 new schools in California.

*Foundation for a Greater Opportunity: Will get nearly $1.5 million for one new school and 3 expanded schools in New York City.

*IDEA: Will get $8.73 million to get 22 new schools up-and-running in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.

*KIPP Foundation: Will get $14.5 million for 21 new schools and 11 expanded schools in a bunch of states including Arkansas, Colorado, Washington, DC, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas. That's on top of KIPP's whopping $50 million Investing in Innovation grant.

*LEARN: Will get $1.02 million to create 3 new schools and expand 2 schools in Chicago.

*Mastery: Will get $5.13 milion for 15 new schools in Philly and Camden, N.J.

*Noble: Will get $3.2 million to expand 5 schools and create 6 new schools in Chicago.

*Project YES: Will get $2.7 million for 6 new schools and 2 expanded schools in Houston.

*Propel: Will get $1.14 million for 4 new schools and 1 expanded school in Pittsburgh

*Success: Will get nearly $2 million for 13 new schools and 3 expanded schools in New York City

*Uncommon: Will get $2.6 million for 7 new schools and 2 expanded schools in New York and New Jersey.

I think Education Nation opened some eyes in a Florida County. Watching the charter schools praised for their success really got to a local school board member and a local reporter. They both knew full well why the charters score so well.

They send the underperforming students back to the public schools. Both were very outspoken this week.

NBC series causes upset toward local charters. "Class Warfare, McKeel Academy edition"

A school board member pointed out the obvious at a meeting. He held up a letter received by a parent from a charter school.

“Your child does not meet the criteria to be a McKeel student,” O’Reilly read.

If public schools were to reject students based on their academic performance, then they could be A schools, too, O’Reilly said.

“We must take every child that comes through that door whether we like it or not,” O’Reilly said. ‘‘That is a public school paid by taxpayers’ dollars, and I like to remind Mr. Maready of that.”

And the reporter went another step and showed the real meaning of what the charter school was doing.

Seems that NBC's series empowered the elites in charter school management to gloat just a little bit more than usual.

The writer blasts him.

Let me translate that answer into big boy speak: "You’re damn right we dump our difficult kids. In great numbers. And we’ll do it again. That’s our culture of achievement. And then we’ll brag about how different we are from traditional schools. Oh, and the magnet schools do it, so there."

How many dumped kids are we talking about? And who are they? Well, check out this sheet produced by the School District. Pay particular attention to the table at the top outlining transfer figures for the three McKeel schools. In McKeel Academy, the junior-senior high in Lakeland with 1,042 students, 130 students left for regular Polk School District schools in the 2009-2010 school year. That’s 12.5 percent of its enrollment. South McKeel Academy, a K-7, rid itself of 77 kids, about 7 percent of its enrollment. That’s in a mostly elementary school, where kids are generally easier to deal with and American schools generally do pretty well.

Maybe their parents got a letter like the one Frank read at the School Board Meeting, stating, “Your child does not meet the criteria to be a McKeel student.”

A charter schools sends back 12.5% of its students for the public schools to deal with. I do not call that success.

[LiberalFighter]

1. I am going to suggest that charter schools intentionally overbook.

For the sole purpose of stealing taxpayer money which will not be used for students enrolled the full year.

[Hannah Bell]

11. +100

[Angry Dragon]

2. I have read many threads on DU about education

and I am at a loss to understand why Obama and duncan are approaching education in this country in this matter.

I look at it as dumbing down the youth of this country and in the process
paying corporations and admins a large amount of money to teach students how
to learn towards a standard test instead of actually learning how to think

I am saddened by this process they call progressive education

[Jakes Progress]

3. I'm going on a current assumption

That arne is an out-and-out neocon and that Obama is either an elitist who thinks that discrimination is fine, or too busy with other stuff to pay any real attention to what his basketball buddy is doing as long as his handlers tell him this is good politics, or he is just not bright enough to really know what this stuff means.

I would be glad to entertain other options but given what I know to be true about education and about this brand of "school reform", I am pretty much left with these.

[madrchsod]

6. his wife went to the first public magnet school in chicago...

last year 9,000 students applied for 450 freshman class openings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitney_Young_Magnet_High_School


the school reform in chicago is based on corruption and deceit.

when it comes to public education the democrats and republican leaders are on the same page. bust the unions and privatize.



welcome to america-separate and unequal

[TBF]

16. Obama's children go to one of the best private schools in DC -

not charter or public. In the future private schools will continue to educate elite, charters will educate "middle class" potential elites (gotta keep that "American Dream" alive), and public school kids get what's left over - service jobs or military.

[madfloridian]

7. One thing to remember....DLC has pushed this policy for years.

They have whole how to articles about charter schools. Al From even wrote about it in 2000.

Al From called for charters in 2000

[Jakes Progress]

4. Okay, so maybe

Obama really has no means of control or persuasion over the bad old republicans and blue dog assholes so that he had to settle for a half-assed, watered down, kinda-good health reform bill that rewards insurance corporations and big pharma.

And maybe the bush wars fiasco has led to such a boiling mess that we sort of have to keep sending our soldiers and money over there to keep killing other people.

And maybe the wall street and banking interests have such a strangle hold on Washington that they could blackmail their way into the ponzi scheme that we got for an economic plan.

And maybe there's some really smart long range, super secret reason for the administration to turn on it's base and trash progressive thought.

But . . .

This sell out of American education is not being forced on a helpless president. Not even bush thought he could get away with implementing ronald reagan's education dream on this scale. This falls on Obama. This union-bashing, teacher-trashing, children-abandoning, corporate wet kiss, neocon dream of a program could never get pushed through without Obama's imprimatur. Prior to his support, Democrats would have rallied around our children's future and shut down any chance of this educational nightmare even getting a start.

No two ways. The selling of the American education system is a legacy that belongs to Obama. No one pushed him. He wasn't backed into a corner. It's his.

[erodriguez]

5. You are right

Obama owns this education policy. It is the reason I won't be voting for him in 2012. Just about everything else, he has done a middling to ok job.

I will not vote for any politician who undermines our public schools with these silver bullet strategies.

[Reader Rabbit]

8. Corporate-Educational Complex

It's the Military-Industrial Complex of the 21st century—just the same ol' money-grubbers diversifying their portfolios.

It's ironic that so many people blather on about how the U. S. is a Christian nation, when we're perpetually worshiping at the altar of Mammon.

[madfloridian]

9. Interesting observation.

The Educational Industrial complex.

Nice post.

[thereismore]

10. Not a fucking dime to charter schools. nt

[cjbgreen]

12. charter schools and TFA

I think it is interesting that very little attention has been given to a recent decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2010/09/27/08-16661.pdf
We conclude that Appellants have established injury in
fact. In adopting NCLB, Congress decided that teachers with
“full State certification” are, in the aggregate, better teachers
than those without such certification. We recognize that it is
debatable whether Congress was correct in deciding that
teachers with “full State certification” are in fact better than
teachers without such certification. This is particularly debat-
able if intern teachers enrolled in programs such as Teach for
America do not have “full State certification.” But that is not
for us to decide. We are bound to accept Congress’ determi-
nation that students taught by a disproportionate number of
teachers without “full State certification” have been injured in
fact.
It will be interesting to track how this impacts charters.

[madfloridian]

13. Interesting. Love to see how that plays out.

I had not seen that ruling. That really should make folks question the hiring of "teachers" with 5 weeks training.

:hi:

We had to renew every 5 years when I was teaching. All teachers I knew about were certified...and it is only recently I have heard how easily schools accept less qualifed teachers.

It took time in inservice training or college course hours to renew, and it had to be appropriate training.

[Bozita]

18. TFAers were considered "highly qualified" when merely making "satisfactory progress" towards certifi

It was posted here in GD and it sank without a comment.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=9217526

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/school_law/2010/09/feder...

Court Curbs U.S. Rule on Alternative Certification
By Mark Walsh on September 27, 2010 4:33 PM | 5 Comments | Recommend

A federal appeals court reversed itself Monday and struck down a federal regulation that permits teachers working towards alternative certification to be considered "highly qualified" under the No Child Left Behind Act even if they are merely making "satisfactory progress" towards certification.

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, in San Francisco, had ruled in July 2009 against a group of California activists who argued the federal regulation permitted a disproportionate number of teaching "interns" to teach in California schools with large proportions of minority and low-income students.The court said the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the suit and and ordered the suit dismissed.

Today, however, the panel reversed itself and held that the plaintiffs, which include California ACORN, Californians for Justice, and minority parents and children, did have legal standing to challenge the federal interpretation. And the panel went on to rule that the U.S. Department of Education's 2004 regulations interpreting the "highly qualified teacher" provisions of NCLB go too far in relaxing the definition.

"We conclude that the Secretary's regulation impermissibly expands the definition of 'highly qualified teacher' contained in by including in that definition an alternative-route teacher who merely 'demonstrates satisfactory progress toward' the requisite 'full State certification,'" U.S. Circuit Judge William A. Fletcher wrote for a 2-1 majority in Renee v. Duncan. (Fletcher was in dissent in the panel's 2009 decision.)

At issue are teachers with what California defines as "intern" credentials, who are on a path to completing alternative certification but have not yet achieved it. The lawsuit argues that 41 percent of teaching interns in California teach in the 25 percent of schools with the highest concentrations of minority students.

more...

[thereismore]

14. Injured. Nice word. Now what will be done about it I wonder. nt

[Bozita]

15. Gotta wonder how much of that $$$ will be allocated for PR/advertising

[gratuitous]

17. Okay, now I'm confused

Because I have been reliably assured that "throwing money" at the problems of education is no way to fix our schools, or classrooms or teachers or administrators or anything. But apparently, throwing money at charter schools will fix something. What exactly that is I'm not entirely sure, but I've heard it has to do with pockets and holes, so it's probably all good.

[madfloridian]

20. You are not confused at all. They ARE throwing money at charters.

And not at public education. Because throwing money at public education doesn't work. Silly person.

}(

[Overseas]

19. K&R! //nt

[defendandprotect]

21. This is absolutely criminal -- why aren't lawyers fighting against this????

PLUS, it's insane --

[Starry Messenger]

22. I think I might scream.

I can't think of any intelligent response to this.

[AnneD]

23. I thought you knew these folks were 5 week wonders......

I know I mentioned it in one of my responses. My school is one of those "Apollo" schools. We are a hybrid but they got rid of many of our experienced for these fresh out of school TFA. They also have tutors, which we desperately needed. They will put a mint into this school to prove it works. But once the cameras are off I am sure the funding will dry up. If public schools got a fraction of this money -they would not only match but exceed. I work like a sled dog with somebody's butt in my face-but I get paid well and I am near retirement, so I will stay as long as I can. I would hate to be a new teacher coming into this mess once the money leaves.