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The privatization of public schools in Boston
By adamg on Tue, 12/14/2010 - 6:51am
On Blue Mass. Group, Jamaicaplainiac worries about plans to turn over closed public schools to charters:
Charter schools in Massachusetts have almost no accountability to the public. They are governed by self-appointing boards and are reviewed by the (decidedly pro-charter school) Board of Ed only once every five years.
So who are they accountable to? By and large, the corporations who fund the grants that allow charter schools to exist. Many of these corporations have seats on the aforementioned self-appointing governing board.
So what this is about is not just union busting. It's an attack on the very idea of government controlling the services it provides for the public good. What we'll end up with in Boston is a corporate-controlled, publicly funded school system.
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Comments
Nail in the coffin?
Agendas are everywhere.
The author doesn't cite any sources so I don't know how he comes to his/her opinion that the schools aren't accountable.
I don't believe the charter schools are the "nail in the coffin" of public schools, but I sure do believe they are the nail in the coffin of the NEA .... EDIT: MTA
Sources
One probable source for the allegations (e.g. "that if you lengthen the school day and weed out the students with special needs and English Language Learners, you can get marginally better standardized test scores than regular public schools and yet fail to graduate the majority of students who walk through your door") made by the blogger may be found here (pdf): Charter School Success or Selective Out-Migration of Low Achievers. It's interesting reading.
I was thinking of the same thing Sock Puppet.
There was also an article a few years back with similar stats regarding "dropout" rates at charters. This report basicaly says that only 40% of students that start in the 9th grade are there in the 12th grade. Then the number of those going to colleges needs to be reflected in that number.
Not a Good Measure
Number going to college has become this ridiculous and absurd benchmark for schools.
The problem is that many of those kids are not in a position to make much of that college education, or even complete it. It is simply an egomeasure for administrators to pat themselves on the back - they sent kids to college! Woohoo! Of course, they don't have to pay the tuition and fees and loans that means kids will rack up while they discover that maybe they got pushed there for reasons that had nothing to do with their own satisfaction in life or economic viability down the road. How come there are never statistics for trade training programs and apprenticeships? Those can be as difficult to land and as lucrative as a degree - they just don't satisfy the ego like COLLEGE!
Maybe they should instead interview students 5 years out and say "were you appropriately channeled for what you want to do with your life? Can you support yourself now?"
True but.......
A school system should still have about x% of their seniors go on to further their education at a good college.
College is still a good thing but I see what you are saying. I think we need more trade training programs for those who would excel at them.
But my point had to do more with what these charter schools use as their benchmark for seniors. If 99% of seniors go to colleges, but only 40% of those freshman at the same school are there in four years, the amount of students going to college might be under 40%.
Wow
I have to tell you, may times I always leaned with reservations on what you say (even though I don't usually outright disagree with you), but this one I agree very heartedly. The pressure and desire to send kids to college, for a high school to measure itself by "precent of student who go on to university" is a damaging measure to society.
In the 1970's and earlier, when a person goes to college, that person is there because that person is motivated enough to learn that subject matter that is provided only in college (or very wealthy). Of course when they graduate, they go on to live well-off lives. It is passion and intelligence that get people to accomplish things, not just because the person went to college.
Today, too many see college as just the "next step of life" and goes in with no direction and takes a major that provide little practical skill nor have the true passion to really make something from it. Too many are just channeled to go when their desires requires nothing to do with college. Of course, those who want to follow their passion are looked with shame (I knew some friends who go to a vocational high school, they are disrespected a lot for want to follow a trade rather than college, I hold great respect for them want to follow what they want with direction, it is unfortunately so many look at them with condescension.
There's more than one path. It is a tragedy when people are told "they can do anything they like, but go that way." Then people start measuring the percentage of people who goes that way. Then used it as a measure of accomplishment.. and then start hiking tuition at incremental amount over 2 and a half decades with great offering of loans.
This kind of bring to my mind of the student riots in England right now. Still not sure what to think about that.
typical Democrats
God forbid anything force change at the BPS. Does anything matter to these people besides the paycheck?
Is this a refutation?
To me the whole thing is pretty confusing. Do Charters even work? What's so good about them? Convince me.
Edward Brooke in Roslindale
I believe the Edward Brooke K-8 in Roslindale is a good example of a charter school that works well. The admission system is a lottery, so they are not skimming only the brightest kids out of the public schools which is a common complaint about charter schools. Now kids might not be able to handle the academic load which the school puts on them, but I don't think that's all the issue being discussed here in terms of charter schools v. public money. Competition often leads to innovation and improvement- the most basic counter-argument for some charter schools is does the BPS 'even work'? The original article is a lot of hot air about how this is a corporate take-over of the education system. I really don't care if someone is profiting off of my kid's education as long as he and his classmates are getting the best free education available.
I'm a liberal and I'm not
I'm a liberal and I'm not opposed to charter schools, if they're held to the same oversight standards as public schools. Currently, they're not. I've yet to hear a good reason why not, other than "blah blah blah government blah blah blah."
I think it's pretty valid to be concerned about private companies handed large chunks of the public's money with zero oversight. It doesn't matter which party does it; that almost never ends well.
Does education matter to you?
The only reason these companies exist is profit. It's profit that comes from performing some function: "education". Agreed? That means they are able to accomplish "education" for a cost less than what the public is willing to pay. Well, that's just stupid to pay it then, right?
Why should we pay for a company to profit on a public service? Why wouldn't we just pay the cost and do it ourselves at the same price without handing out the extra as profit to some corporation that isn't interested in achieving the same goal as us? They only achieve our goal, "education", as a means to an ends, profit.
I'm not getting into how or why they can do it for less. All I'm saying is that the ideal should be to pay a fair value for "education" and keep the rest of our public money for other purposes. By default, this is not the goal of charter schools.
Ideals are irrelevant to a real world problem
Please answer your question- 'why wouldn't we just pay the cost and do it ourselves at the same price without handing out the extra as profit to some corporation?'
Seriously, by 'we' do you mean the citizens of Boston? Great- so we have elected a mayor who has appointed a school superintendent and school council to run the schools. If they haven't done what you have suggested, doesn't that mean 'we' have already failed to deliver what you have so blithely spelled out? What are you suggesting in concrete terms? A total revamp of how the BPS works in terms of funding, resource allocation, etc...? To simply rail against profits is to miss the real point of the debate- is this going to benefit the kids in the BPS or not?
There are many, many examples of how private enterprises have replaced public institutions successfully. In Denmark, most fire department services are provided by a private firm which saves the tax payers money at no cost to public safety. There are also many examples of privatization of public services being a boondoggle. To simply declare one approach to be invalid is a good way to ensure changes are limited. I don't think limited changes are going to solve the problems of the BPS.
Do you have a kid in the BPS?
Ideals are never irrelevant to the real world
Ideas in and of themselves will not provide a complete solution to real world problems (see also: Bush Administration), but they can and should be like a guardrail on a highway that keeps you from going off a cliff should your "real world solutions" end up tangling with real world conditions.
Yet, his point still stands.
Yet, his point still stands. If for-profit works better in educating students, then we should use it. It may not be ideal as having a system with people who works for the idea of producing an educated population, but I much rather have people come out educated as best they can be by people motived by a mix of profit and ideals than somehow less educated by people who somehow just can't.
And the overarching point still stands
The for-profit system hasn't made a lick of difference in educating students. The BPS is among the Top 30 most improved school systems in the world, and charters had nothing to do with it. This system DOES have people who work toward the ideal of producing an educated population, often at great cost to themselves. The schools' harshest critics often tend to be those outside its reach or those with no children in it at all. JP families whose kids are in the district's stronger schools and in the academies and so-called testing schools are getting one of the best educations in the country -- and are products of a system that works. Making that system work across all existing schools should be the goal, not shortchanging kids in underperforming schools by selling their education to the highest bidder.
A few things to point out
1. BPS being the Top 30 most improved school requires context. Unlike saying "BPS is amongst the Top 30 in the country" or something along those lines, most improved could mean improving from being a D school to C school or being a B school to a B+. The former went up one grade letter, thus improving more, but it doesn't mean it is preferable to a B+ school.
2. Your overarching point still doesn't defeat his point. Perhaps a for-profit works better. I still haven't seen any study between for-profit and the current system. Without that comparison, you are only assuming that selling education to the highest bidder is shortchanging kids. Perhaps we are shortchanging if we aren't doing it.
Non-profit charters
I agree that for-profit charters area bad thing. But, there are a handful of non-profit charters in the state now--my wife works for one of them in Roslindale. It's great! They're in the top 5 schools in the state for 7th & 8th grade MCAS scores, and they serve the population of BPS (which in general is unbelievably low-scoring), spending fewer dollars per student than BPS. Longer school day, longer school year, school-structured discipline system, and no teacher tenure make for a totally different scholastic experience than you'd get in a public school.
But I can absolutely see where adding a profit incentive to education is a horrible idea. Thing is, there's no end of non-profits lining up for charters in MA, so why not kill two birds with one stone and give preference to charters that aren't going to make someone a lot of money?
Why does profit matter
Why should there be a preference to non-profits?
Shouldn't the evaluation criteria be focused on the quality of the program and the value provided for the money?
If a for-profit business puts together a better program, why should the evaluation rules put it at a disadvantage in competing for the opportunity to run a charter school?
But that's the thing...
For-profits NEVER put together a better program. They routinely value the bottom line and the books over quality of education, to the detriment of students involved. That's why they're banned in MA. Non-profit charters, however, are just lovely.
That's just an assumption.
That's just an assumption.
schools are so much better
schools are so much better off run by the government on a non-profit basis. Like the Probation Department. Profit be damned, they get the best people working for them. Yep - Massport, the Registry - models of non-profit efficiency. If only computers could be made by government workers, I bet they'd really work good. That damn greedy Apple sure produces junk.
Alternatively
schools are so much better off run by companies on a profit basis. Like Enron. Education be damned, they get the greediest people working for them. Yep - Lehman Brothers, GM - models of profit-driven efficiency. If only jails could be run by corporate executives, I bet they'd really work good. That damn useless NASA sure fails at science.
Really?
Your wife doesn’t mind working harder for about half the money?
Nope
She and I have had this conversation once or twice, yes :-)
BPS really is that bad. As in, tens of thousands of dollars a year worth of bad. Given the option of a functioning disciplinary & administrative system, teacher support, and longer days, vs. a shorter day & year, 40% higher pay, and an utterly dysfunctional work environment, she opted for a charter.
Scroll on down
Plenty of us who have education and related credentials work year-round for about half the pay of BPS.
Misinformation on for-profit companies and Mass charter schools
Regardless of your position for/against charter schools, there is a lot of misinformation that regularly gets churned up about them.
For example: that a company is profiting off the government by running a charter school (i.e., Kaz's comment, "Why should we pay for a company to profit on a public service?").
Reality: for-profit companies are forbidden from being awarded a charter for a public school in Massachusetts (as are private/parochial schools). See the Mass Department of Education's Q/A sheet. (Contracts for various parts of day-to-day management of the school can be awarded later by the charter school to non-profit or for-profit companies, but to some lesser extent that is already done by existing school districts.)
'cuz cost efficient public business does not occur anywhere
Even with a 10% profit margin, a corporate-run school will almost always outperform a public school in the same neighborhood with the same type of students. The reason is that whoever manages the for-profit school can tie teacher compensation to student performance and cost savings. You may get "teaching to the standardized test" kind of teaching but this is better than half of the teaching now occuring in urban public schools. Very little performance-based compensation is allowed under union contracts in public schools and it is also next-to-impossible to fire bad teachers because of the unions.
I call bullshit on this
Those same "performance-based" measurements are implemented in corporate America as well, to little avail. Skaters know how to do just enough and overachievers have no motivation in a corporate schooling system because there's no room for upward mobility. The only thing corporatizing the schools would do is make everyone at-will employees so the corporation can dump a whole lot of them -- regardless of quality and, usually, by seniority -- when the company has a bad quarter. Screw that.
Is there any upward mobility in BPS?
What's the motivation for overachievers in BPS? The great tragedy of teaching in a large, urban school district is that the best teacher in a school is treated exactly the same as the worst teacher. The rewards for twenty years of excellent service are the same step salary, same pension, and very often the same classroom in which you've been toiling alongside the guy who jets out of school every day at 2:25.
somebody say AMEN!
You've hit a major nail on the head. The current system not only makes it almost impossible to get rid of bad teachers, it makes it difficult to reward good teachers. Stamina is rewarded, but not quality and there is virtually no means of incorporating student or parent feedback--positive or negative--which is absurd.
Typical? Troll much?
So EM Painter, by "these people" do you mean the teachers and administration of the BPS schools?
I can say from personal experience, with the people I've met, that their first concern is the kids in their care.
I believe that there needs to be plenty of change in the BPS system, but jumping into the discussion with derogatory comments isn't going to help solve any problems.
Get Real - You People Must Be In the BPS Teachers Union
BPS is an unmitigated disaster, with the exception of BLS and BLA.
Corporations running schools?! First of all, that is a lie that is not corroborated by any fact. Assuming for the sake of argument that it were true - I don't care if Fidelity opens a charter school and makes the kids do 401(k) fund accounting in the summer if they can get kids good educations.
The current system is set up for and benefited solely by adults at the expense of children who generally come from families with little means and choice (else they would go to school elsewhere, in all likelihood). The author of the post that caused this thread and everyone else who posted talking about corporatism and unaccountability make me SICK and those people should be ashamed of themselves. Do you people have children in BPS? Do you even live in Boston?
The Mayor was spot-on today. Close chronically under-performing schools and lease the space to proven charters. Give principals control over teacher (i.e., the ability to unilaterally fire them at will) and start paying people on the results they deliver in the classroom, not the amount of phony-baloney masters degrees and teaching certificates they earned from dopey for-profit colleges and other local teacher "raise shops" (cambridge college, lesley, etc.).
Finally, sub-divide the busing zones to 7-9 different areas so kids can actually walk to school with their neighborhood friends. Then you will see parent participation skyrocket. (How can a working mother in Roxbury make it to the Hyde Park education complex without totally upending their schedule? It's stupidity)
Did anyone notice in the Mayor's speech today that for ever $1 BPS spends on busing it spends 5 cents on school supplies? How can any of you support the status quo or stand in the way of reform? Shame on you.
I'm not pro union.
and I do have a child in the BPS.. Hmmm, I even had the option to go elsewhere (private $chool, catholic, etc.) and I chose to stay.
I don't think ANYONE here yet has unilaterally defended the BPS, and I for one was astounded by the "lottery system" that almost didn't provide my family with a realistic option. We LUCKED OUT by ending up on the waiting list for a good school within a mile of our home. I know two families that have moved to the suburbs and one with plans to, that's what the BPS Lottery System does to families who have the means to relocate.
Yes it's a political hot potato, and yes the BPS needs lot's of changes, but this is a discussion... It's obvious that ANY ideas that come up are worth considering, and I think that anyone who sees this simply as Selfish Unions vs. Profiteering Corporations vs. Incompetent Politicians is fooling themselves.
the teachers don't want to work
The charters have shown how to do better with the same population as the public schools. You can tweak it here and there, but basically it's the same kids. They do it basically by working harder, having tougher management and getting rid of teachers who don't work out. Their example is a lever to force the BPS to change.
I've been to Blue Mass, and if any of those people send their kids to the BPS I'd be very surprised. This is just an effort to attack the negotiations over a new contract for the Boston Teachers' Union. Why? because they don't want to work as hard or be as accountable as the charter school teachers. That's really what it comes down to.
Is it really the same population though?
That report sockpuppet linked to showed that less than 40% of freshman that start out at charter schools end up enrolling as seniors. And that doesn't even count those kids who have special needs and whose parents probably couldn't send their kids to these charter schools.
And are charter school teachers really life savers or are they just starting out teaching and want to put something on a resume so they can get a higher paying job in the future as either a teacher in the public sector or as an administrator? At my childrens public schools, there are a lot of young teachers who have experience at charter schools but then made the jump to the public schools in good school systems where many good teachers end up going because of the pay (although boston public schools pays very well)
It be fair, the school I came
To be fair, the school I came out, a public high school, each freshman year started with over 400 students, but only 300-ish graduate each year. Of course, this is mostly speculation as it doesn't seem to be that openly discussed. Public schools may have chronic dropout rates that can skew the college rate.
It seems there are records for public school dropout rates.
And they are usually the correlate with with these other stats. (Wellesley High School has lower dropout rates, higher test scores, higher MCAS Scores, higher percentage of kids going to college and higher paid teachers etc., than Springfield Commerce High School does)
Some older stats for dropout rates.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/art...
But basically in 2009 the dropout rates for MA high schools was about 3%. Here are some random schools for comparison:
Wellesley- .3%
Brookline- 1%
Lowell- 4.4%
Brighton- 9.8%
Charlestown- 17.5%
Community Academy- 27%
Fenway High- 1%
Boston Latin 0%
Boston Adult Academy- 43.2%
O'Bryant- 1.2%
Yeah, totally not the same population
(Of students or teachers.)
The charter schools can do better on the same budget, but they attract younger and often more creative staff who aren't interested in working in some nondescript public school but are interested in working in some cool project school that's experimenting with implementing X, Y, and Z in their curriculum. While there are a lot of fabulous folks working in public schools, there are also a lot of people who want guaranteed salary increases, generous pensions, and a union that makes it impossible to get fired unless you steal money or have sex with someone.
(And before anyone says that public schools aren't cushy jobs, BPS is a pretty cushy job relative to other things in our field. I work for a private-but-largely-government-funded agency that works closely with BPS and is staffed by educators/SLP/OT/PT/psych/etc. with the same credentials as they have. We don't get frequent raises or the kinds of benefits they do, we don't have a union, we can and do get fired when we're not performing our hardest. Thanks to public records, I know that the people at BPS who have the same qualifications as we do make twice as much or more than we do. And we work all year round.)
The student population also isn't the same, as Pete alluded to. I work with a number of families who barely manage to get their kid signed up for BPS and this is often after a social services employee pleads BPS to waive the proof-of-residency requirement because there's no way the family understands what paperwork is needed and how to get it. There's no way families with this kind of mental illness and/or cognitive limitations are looking into charter schools, and there are a lot more of these families than one might think.
Then there are the families who are a bit higher functioning, but don't have a whole lot of education, and they actually choose the poorer-performing schools. These families often insist on a school that has four-year-olds sitting in desks and doing pencil-and-paper work all day and has cut recess and gym from the budget. They talk about how there's no way they would choose that other newfangled school that does art projects and field trips and cultural celebrations, because they want their kid to get an education, not waste time playing around all day. These families aren't choosing charter schools. One parent insisted to me that the charter school work wouldn't count since it's not an "official" Boston Public School, and the child would get held back if they moved or switched to regular school.
You have to define "cushy" though too to be fair.
Id rather be a history teacher at Boston English than a preschool teacher in Newton.
Classroom management is never "cushy" though, especially in a system like Boston. And how much education you have doesn't matter either. You can have a PHD from Harvard and Yale, that doesn't mean you can control a 7th grade classroom in Boston or Weston for that matter. (I'm not saying you think that though either eeka, but it should be pointed out)
Oh, for sure
The people specifically I was thinking of aren't in a classroom, or at least not all day. Was thinking of teachers who lead IEP teams, administer screenings, etc., along with specialists who see individual kids in 30-minute blocks. Oh, and support staff; a lot of the phone-answerers at BPS make more than I do.
(The really ironic thing is that a lot of the teachers who end up in admin-ish positions are there because they pissed too many people off when they were teaching in a classroom and dealing with the same people every day, but the unions protect them from being totally booted, so they move them to positions where they can't piss people off as easily.)
Of "cushiness"
I taught CCD (Sunday school) in Roslindale for four years- 1 hour and 10 minutes a week. Just doing that practically burnt me out- and as a result I've never been able to look at teaching as a cushy gig. BPS always seems to be looking for new recruits, but how many of our local college grads are lining up at the door? Will cracking down on benefits or whatever help the city to recruit and retain talent?
Supply and demand, though
Sure, teaching and therapisting are not for everyone, but special ed schools, residential programs, head start, early intervention, community health centers, and adult programs manage to hire and retain people paying usually in the 30s or low 40s annually, and these jobs are all year-round and don't have the union perks. So clearly lots and lots of people with education and related credentials are willing to work for a lot less in less snazzy conditions.
I mean, ideally, all of us should be paid a lot more, considering how important our jobs are and how hard we work compared to people in a lot of other fields. But as long as there are such issues with budgets, it doesn't make sense that one of the publicly funded employers of teachers/clinicians is paying much much higher than all the rest of the places that employ our types.
How many?
How many kids in BPS do you think fall into this category? Is it 20%? 80%? I can't figure it out. It doesn't feel that way, but they're getting all kinds of pressure not to close the schools, not to stop the bussing. Sometimes I think people just want their kids to go away and don't think about what happens to them while they're at school.
Hard to say
I'm never in a regular ed classroom or anything, so I'm not the person to ask. Anyway, I don't think there are easy-to-find statistics on this. The closest thing would probably be families with frequent/repeated DCF involvement, but that would still be an underreporting of the number of severely dysfunctional families there are. Same with people using DMH/DDS services; there are a lot of people out there with significant disabilities who don't use any services.
Free lunch statistics for charters
The free lunch numbers are pretty much the same. The special needs and ELL are figured differently betw charters and regular publics.
I think there is a question about the incentive to get kids out of special needs programs when those teachers are much more expensive. If the regular publics didn't get more money for special ed, would 20% of the regular BPS population be special ed? Would the total special ed budget be as large as the teaching budget for regular ed (as it is now)?
EM Painter
Trust me when I say that educators in the public school systems do everything they can to get kids "off special ed" if you can even call it that. If they had a choice, the administrators would get as many kids off special ed as they can and just bump up their own salaries. Its not like that special ed money is helping the schools as a whole become better schools either. The money is going to pay for special buses, extra aides, and other things that don't really benefit the administration (in terms of putting a value on these things.)
But there are many parents who push for special services for their kids. Often times the school denies them when the kids actually do need the extra services. I don't think it some simple formula where the school system can just label one kid special needs and then get some lump sum payment from the budget because of it.
Income isn't the only measure of family functioning
Most of the families I work with are in the free or reduced lunch category. Within this category, we have a lot of parents who have graduated from high school, don't have major mental illness, are oriented to what is going on around them, have basic living and parenting skills, and actively try to make life better for their kids.
We also have parents who have any combination of major mental illness, intellectual disabilities, active substance abuse. People who are barely capable of taking care of their kids, so they still have custody of them, but their daily living skills and parenting skills are absolutely minimal. These parents don't understand the BPS school registration/lottery process, let alone know what a charter school is or trust anyone who tries to explain it. I'm talking about who keep their kids home and cooped up inside frequently because it's cold outside, or that school keeps giving their kid illnesses, or there are people spying on their family.
The second group of families doesn't end up in charter schools.
(Also, charter schools don't and can't take kids with moderate/severe/profound disabilities, like kids who are nonverbal and need to be fed and diapered. The charter school's special needs kids are only the basically normal kids who might have dyslexia or wear hearing aids. The special needs kids at charter schools are all working more-or-less at grade level and would be at least taking the MCAS if not passing it. The public schools' scores include kids who "failed" MCAS because they're, say, fourth graders who don't speak or point or hold a crayon.)
True, but...
This is true, but you should also remember that the top and bottom quintiles are the ones suffering from the most attrition. A lot of kids are using charter schools as springboards into exam schools, jumping ship once their test scores are high enough.
It's also not fair to assume that charters are turning away special-needs students--I've never seen any evidence of it beyond a blizzard of anecdata from people who apparently know it in their hearts to be true. Boston's charters are all public-lottery admission, and I have to think there would be some blowback if it came out that they were excluding or forcing out kids with special needs; it's illegal on its face, and there's a world of difference between "does not welcome kids with special needs" and "has high enough standards that many are not able to meet them."
Exam schools
Can they do that? I thought the exam schools in Boston only took kids in the 7th and 9th grade.
Ayup
And you have to take an ISEE exam the year before, so it's not like you can just snap your fingers and decide to send your kid to one of them.
That having been said, I'm sure there are plenty of charter, private and even parochial students at the exam schools. They're Boston residents and so have as much right to apply as the kids who've stuck it out through six or whatever years in BPS.
Given the statement and the objection
The objection can be demonstrated to be false.
If you cannot begin the exam high schools between Freshman and Senior year, then it appears impossible that any of the 60% of students leaving charter high schools between Freshmen and Senior years have left to go to exam schools.
Thus the 60% of students leaving charter high schools between Freshmen and Senior years have either left to go to private schools, been thrown back into the larger BPS pool, or have dropped out of school entirely.
And, erik g, if you want information rather than anecdata, you might start by reading the study linked to above (rather than inventing your own baseless anecdote to add to the confusion).
Correct
That about sums it up. The only people on Blue Mass that could be against what the mayor is saying are (1) Boston Teachers Union members and (2) folks that do not educate their children in BPS.
Because public schools are
Because public schools are doing so damn well.
The same people who want 'accountability' in charter schools don't want the accountability of the MCAS test. This is just another teacher's union shill.
Wow
We really drew out all of the anons punching the clock for the for-profit education companies, huh? Here's the deal: When the Government Accounting Office runs out of cases in which for-profit "educators" encourage students to commit student-aid fraud and stop lying about tuition costs and the amount of money they claim students will make after graduation, we'll embrace the for-profit system with open arms. While the for-profit system exists solely to benefit the profiteers at Phoenix, Everest and Kaplan, however, we'll advise you and your employees who troll blogs and Web sites on their dime to stay the hell away from our kids.
What about the Brooke?
I get it- you don't like for-profit charter schools. What about non-profit charter schools like the Brooke in Roslindale? Is that all fraud as well? Please be specific.
I think the BPS would benefit by some, limited competition to see how other approaches to improving the education of the children of our city might work. I don't buy, as you seem to, that the BPS is an all-knowing, all-wise organization which is both beyond reproach but also can't withstand any competition because it is so fragile. If the budget keeps going up yearly while student enrollment drops and while there continue to be widespread problems in the BPS in terms of student achievement, where is the accountability that something isn't functioning right?
Huh?!
How do Phoenix and the rest even creep into this subject? They have NOTHING to do with charter schools in Boston. Zero. In fact, they are much to do with the problem.
Anyone who knows an honest public teacher should also know the only way they can up their pay is to take classes from those joker schools and earn certifications and masters degrees. That's how the BPS Teachers Union contract works - teacher can be terrible in the classroom but jack up pay with joker degrees and accreditations. It is a scam. See earlier point re: cambridge college.
So JP South - while you rail against something you don't understand, the folks you defend milk the system for a bigger pay check at the for-profits at the expense of instead trying to be the best class room teachers they can be - because they don't get any extra cash for doing that.
They don't jack up their pay that much.
And public school teachers are required by law to have a masters degree within 5 years (with extensions granted). The extra pay for having a masters in a top school system is about 3-4K a year. And most of those good school systems aren't going to hire you without a masters degree anyway.
And Cambridge and Lesley have expensive programs so you really aren't going to those schools if you want to jack up your pay. They might be easy to get into, but they aren't cheap.
What does jack up their pay
is raises every year, and huge "stipends" for god forbid doing any work outside of the 50% of the days of the year that they're paid to work. One of the people I work with from BPS was talking about how the huge sums they get paid for doing evaluations and IEP meetings during the extended school year program (summer). Supply and demand -- they clearly don't have to pay this extra money to get people who are willing to do this, because most psychologists and speech therapists et al work all year round with no extra pay just because it's beach weather. I went to these evals and IEPs on my end without being paid anything above my normal rate. If these union folks won't go to them without extra pay, there are plenty of others of us who are perfectly willing.
Again, I know a lot of great public school educators who spend a lot of their own time and money working on things, but there's also a lot of money being wasted in the public school system and too many educators who are just in it to collect a paycheck at this point.
My wife is a teacher.
not in boston, but doesn't get paid for IEPs or evaluations or any of that stuff. Maybe she should transfer....:)
And vacations are expensive during those 68 days she has off!
No, not for all of them...
Technically, BPS's clock stops during the summer, so if someone requests a core evaluation in May, they don't look at the packet until September, and they're still considered to be compliant with regards to providing the evals and eligibility results within 45 days. But sometimes a case will be made that a kid really needs to be evaluated and start services before then, or a kid is already in sped and is eligible for year-round services. In that case, they hire their people to work extra hours at a much-higher rate to do the evals and the IEP meeting. They do the hiring out of anyone who's interested in doing this, rather than by the person who is usually assigned based on geography and age/needs of the child.
Charter Schools don't want accountability with MCAS?
Where is this true? (seriously, can you post some examples?)
My experience is limited, but the charter school I'm familiar with is proud to post their MCAS results on their web page.
Exactly.
Exactly. For better or worse, MCAS results are how schools are quantifying their results in Massachusetts, and charters are doing their best to come out ahead on test scores. To a fault, actually--when you quantify results (and therefore funding) by pegging everything to a single standardized test score, you encourage schools (especially ones who are encouraged to strike out and try new things, like charters) to min-max their way to the highest possible MCAS results. This is sometimes to the detriment of all else--try finding a charter school with excellent test scores and a halfway-decent phys-ed program and music and art classes. None of the latter are determining the success of the schools, so they're largely getting swept under the rug.
This, incidentally, is why the opposition to corporate-run schools is so intense: if you introduce profit as a motive, then suddenly you'll have schools min-maxing profit rather than performance, while making sure they teach their student just well enough to keep from getting shut down. You see this in private industry all the time, and the idea of it becoming the dominant ethos in education is the most horrifying thought I've ever had.
You misunderstand their motivation.
There may be charter schools out there that only care about MCAS score and profit margins, but that's not my experience. Is there a school you have in mind that is motivated that way?
Thinking of them as "Corporate-run" schools is clouding your assessment of them, and doing them a disservice.
My experience may be limited, but I know the person who started a school, hired the staff and continues to be there to make sure they succeed. Do you know what they consider success? Making sure all the kids they get from the BPS lottery system will succeed in college.
As for money, they do get the same amount that the BPS spends per student in the local district, but to cover the art programs, sports teams, longer days and longer school year, they raise money.
This is all to help the disadvantaged in Boston see their kids do better in the future that they did, with the possibility of being the first of their family to get into college and be there with the skills that will let them excel.
If you haven't seen this, look around. There are charter schools out there that will surprise you.
One thing to point out and consider
Between all the debate between for-proft charters, non-profit charters, and regular schools, we also need to take in mind of the student too. Even the best system can fail if the student do not wish to learn or just being lazy. Just something to consider also. I mean a kid with parents who works from 9 am to 9 pm with little push to do their homework is going to be different from parents from a wealthy background and sent their kid to BC High.