Deep Impact
Tonight the School Board will be hearing about the second charter school application to come down the pipeline during these upcoming difficult financial times. Renaissance Leadership Academy, although there’s not a whole lot in it about cultivating future leaders for their K-8 population, will be presenting their application tonight. It will not be voted on tonight though. But also being presented is information about how the proposed State level budget cuts will be affecting the Alameda Unified School District as a whole. From the Alameda Journal:
…Overall, the district will lose about $4 million under the governor’s plan, which also calls for immediate suspension of the law that ensures basic public school funding.
“This is going to be felt all around,” Cazares said Friday. “It looks pretty dire for us. And I’d say at this point cuts are inevitable.”
…
Much of the loss in Alameda, or about $2.7 million, stems from the elimination of a Cost of Living Adjustment in the 2008-09 education budget. The remaining $1.3 million would come from this year’s budget — money that has been already allocated for salaries and other expenses.
The governor’s proposal means Alameda officials will be left scrambling to find money to pay the bills, especially to offset the expected increase in insurance and utility costs, Cazares said.
“Special education is also a program that’s not easily cut,” she said. “It’s something we will have to back-fill.”
…
Along with cutting $4.3 billion from the state education budget in 2008-09, Schwarzenegger wants to carve $360 million from schools in this year’s budget.
Special education statewide would lose $360 million, with the cost shifted to local school districts.
Schwarzenegger also called for cutting both before- and after-school programs by $60 million.
More information on what will be presented tonight can be found at Mike McMahon’s website.
The outlook is pretty grim for the schools in general, which means that we are probably going to be in for yet another round of, “what’s getting cut this year.” Of course the prospect of additional funds being siphoned away if the most recent charter school application is granted will not be helpful for the budgeting process. Remember, not only does the ADA money per child get funnelled to the school, but the school district is also liable for paying a portion of the rent for any facility that the school selects as its possible home. While we will all hear the rallying cry that financial impacts made by the opening of a charter school cannot be considered as a reason to deny the charter, the mere fact that we have to be reminded of this shows that the fiscal uncertainity is not something to be sneezed at.
In a Journal article about the proposed charter school application, one of the lead applicants asks: “If not now, when?” and goes on further to say that: “Our focus is on the children. We’re also about giving parents a choice.” But, I thought last year we were all about “neighborhood schools” particularly for the population that this charter school is looking to serve. This time, parental “choice” along with our unfortunate state budget situation will come at a serious cost to “neighborhood schools” as it did in the West End when not one, not two, but three neighborhood schools were shuttered and offered up on the altar of budget cuts. One of the tenets of Renaissance, much like that of NCLC/ACLC/Nea was to teach their children about how their individual decisions impact the community and the world that surrounds them. If Renaissance’s focus is truly on the children, then instead of asking, “if not now, when?” maybe they should be working with the school district to see where their considerable talents can be put to good use. Someone, I believe it was Barbara Mooney, once proposed during the NCLC conversation that maybe the charter school applicants, rather than start a new school drawing kids from here, there, and everywhere, instead turn a whole elementary school charter and apply their innovative programs there. Perhaps one of the schools, like Washington, that has seen a decrease in enrollment unlike other elementaries in Alameda. If it is indeed the program that is successful and not the individual child, then veteran educators that will be secured by Renassiance or NCLC should be able to succeed no matter what their population looks like.
And while, the Alameda Sun characterized concerns brought up by NCLC detractors as a “doomsday sceanrio“ the unfortunate combination of circumstances doesn’t leave us very far off from:
…programs and services for children will have to be cut; class sizes will increase, at least in grades 4-12; health, counseling and other services for students will continue to decline; arts, music and athletic programs will be reduced further; teacher and staff compensation will continue to fall relative to nearby districts so that AUSD’s ability to attract and retain great teachers and staff will continue to weaken; the chances of teacher and staff layoffs will rise; and the probability of more school closures/consolidations will increase…
The focus in on THEIR children. If their kids deserve better than what they now get at AUSD, then one assumes all the kids in the district deserve better, so how come it’s o.k. for them to get what they want if it comes at the detriment to the much larger remaining populace?
I want my MTV!!
Comment by Mark I — January 22, 2008 @ 10:20 am
You’re #1 Mark I. “Better” is the enemy of “good enough” and “good enough” is what they should all get, right
Comment by Jack Richard — January 22, 2008 @ 12:11 pm
The Board and public school charter opponents talk about all
the money AUSD stands to lose but don’t talk about the overhead that will be saved from not teaching some 300 or more students. In the case of NCLC up to 10-15 new teachers will not need to be hired. In benefits and salary, that’s a savings to the district of about $700,000-1,000,000.
With overcrowding at some schools like Bay Farm and Ruby Bridges and other schools at specific grade levels, not having to build new classrooms to solve these overcrowding problems would obviously save another substantial amount of money for the district. In addition, any facilities that Renaissance, NCLC or other public charter schools might leases from AUSD will bring substantial funds into the district, and any services (special ed, custodial, etc.) that Renaissance, NCLC or other public charter schools buy from the district will also bring money to AUSD.
Of course, this doesn’t address any of the substantial unnecessary overhead due to administrative/bureaucratic costs and or inefficient fiscal policies (a lot of people work in the district offices. Does AUSD really need a full-time communications and community relations officer?)
The public is being bullied into thinking that the school district is inherently entitled to their children’s educational money. The reality is that the state and nation have recognized that parents should have a right to choice within public education and so established public charter schools.
How much money will AUSD lose if NCLC starts? Not one penny because they cannot lose something they do not own in the first place. Let them earn our children’s educational money. Let families choose to send their children to traditional schools instead of charter schools. It is against the law to compel any child to attend Renaissance, NCLC or any other public charter school. The district’s traditional schools can’t make that claim.
If Mark I likes everything about his traditional public school then by all means stay. If not he and we all have the legal and moral right to either start or enroll our children at a public charter school such as NCLC or Renaissance Leadership Academy. Do not be fooled by “the sky is falling” rhetoric”. This is a diy/grass roots exercise that challenges the top heavy bureaucratic governing of education on high. It is parents, students and educators governing their own educational experience. That’s what America is–or should be–all about.
Comment by poguemahone — January 22, 2008 @ 1:00 pm
Lauren Do, get your facts right, Re: “Washington, that has seen a decrease in enrollment” The last info I got was that Washington is full. Believe me, the district has been approached with scenarios such as you have laid out and is not interested in even a discussion. The districts financial woes have not been created by nor will they be the result of public charter schools.
Comment by poguemahone — January 22, 2008 @ 1:30 pm
According to this report it is not “full” and using a medium 5 year expected growth rate it will continue to decline along with Haight and Earhart.
No one is implying that the district’s budget problems are a result of charter schools, but the question is if the mission of a school is to “focus on the children,” what happens to the thousands of other children whose education is at stake by exacerbating the budget problems by pulling out children from different schools and different grade levels, not providing the “cost savings” heralded by not having to educate those kids. Unless the charter schools are considering pulling their entire population from one school and each of their grade levels from one class, then child X missing from classroom 1 doesn’t mean that classroom 1 stops functioning and then becomes a non-cost, it just means that classroom 1 still has to function but with less funds.
Comment by Lauren Do — January 22, 2008 @ 1:53 pm
I read over the application and the founders have little to no experience in public schools. Almost all of their experience is in the local Catholic schools.
Comment by Alameda NayTiff — January 22, 2008 @ 2:24 pm
Alameda NayTiff,
Some of the best schools in the state are public, some are private, some Catholic. So what is your point? Educators at Catholic institutions are inherently inferior?
Comment by poguemahone — January 22, 2008 @ 2:39 pm
Running a public school is not the same as running a private Catholic school. The curriculum isn’t the same and neither are the students. The board needs to be certain that the applicants are qualified to run a secular public school with students from all religions or from households with no religion whatsoever. Hopefully this is a concern that the applicants can address.
Comment by Alameda NayTiff — January 22, 2008 @ 3:03 pm
Alameda NayTiff,
A public charter school is not the same animal as a traditional public school nor a Catholic school. Of course they should be certain that the applicants are qualified. Isn’t that stating the obvious?
Between you and me they really do not have to do that. If they do not like the charter they can conveniently list any number of biased, unsubstantiated number of things to deny, even stopping at thirteen of them for the hell of it.
Many educators within the Catholic schools are not Catholic by the way and non-Catholics send their kids to these schools also. I’m certain the people at Renaissance are smart enough that when they do have a charter, they will not to jeopardize it by the inclusion of religion as I think you are inferring.
Comment by poguemahone — January 22, 2008 @ 3:36 pm
Lauren Do,
That report was done sometime prior to November ‘07 probably last year and it is my understanding that after much shuffling of children and educators across the district at the beginning of the school year (due in part to the reliance of such “crystal ball gazing” as are the reality of such unreliable reports) Washington is presently at or very near capacity.
With or without public charter schools the district is always in a position of juggling students in relation to predictions and are forced to make adjustments by moving those students and teachers in order to accommodate the actual numbers, as was the case this school year. Didn’t the district’s original numbers initially expect a huge influx due to Bayport? Then what happened? 400 or so kids and their families were evicted from Alameda housing and the numbers at Bayport didn’t fully materialize. What do you do with your reports under such circumstances? Line bird cages?
Charter schools are public schools. When a child leaves for a charter school the money follows that child. Like district public schools, they are funded according to enrollment (also called average daily attendance, or ADA), and receive funding from the district and the state according to the number of students attending. A public charter school(s) do not exacerbating the budget problems and in fact can save education dollars. Fiscally, charter schools have demonstrated efficiency. For example, ABC’s “Prime Time Live” ran a story on Yvonne Chan, the energetic principal of a San Fernando Valley’s Vaughn Next Century Charter School. The local school district, one of the largest and most bureaucratic in the nation, typically took a year to buy computers for its classrooms. Ms. Chan thought that was ridiculous. It took her charter school six days to purchase computers, and for less money. As a result, the Los Angeles Unified School District revised its purchasing system. Overall, in its first year of operation, Vaughn Next Century generated, through operational changes and efficiencies, a $1 million plus surplus, which it used to expand facilities to benefit both students and staff.
Comment by poguemahone — January 22, 2008 @ 3:53 pm
#10
“Charter schools are public schools. When a child leaves for a charter school the money follows that child. Like district public schools, they are funded according to enrollment (also called average daily attendance, or ADA), and receive funding from the district and the state according to the number of students attending. A public charter school(s) do not exacerbating the budget problems and in fact can save education dollars.”
The math doesn’t quite work out that way. There are underlying administrative and structural costs in running a school district. Those costs need to be incurred regardless of the number of students. There is an economy of scale that takes place. If the school district fails, the charter schools associated with it will get pulled into the same vortex.
Comment by Alameda NayTiff — January 22, 2008 @ 4:31 pm
Re: #8 The curriculum at local Catholic schools follows all the state gudelines. Catholic school teachers have the same California credential as public school teachers. They have a longer day to add a religion class. They administer standardized tests in the fall and use them to determine what each student has really retained over the summer.
Comment by irish — January 22, 2008 @ 4:32 pm
#12
But they do not have the same mission
” Our Mission Statement
Saint Philip Neri Catholic Elementary School, serving Kindergarten through Eighth grade, is an educational ministry of Saint Philip Neri Parish. Founded in 1959 on the principles of the Roman Catholic Church, we welcome families of all faiths who respect the values and teachings of Jesus Christ. A challenging, faith-centered curriculum supports and prepares our students for academic excellence, spiritual growth and dedication to service. Faculty, staff and parents are co-educators developing respectful, responsible, and reverent life-long learners.”
http://www.spnalameda.org/school/index.htm
The question is are the founders capable of translating this into a public and secular environment? The board needs to conduct a reasonable inquiry as to their ability to do so. I really do have an open mind on this, but I do expect the board to do due diligence before handing over the money.
Comment by Alameda NayTiff — January 22, 2008 @ 5:41 pm
Alameda NayTiff,
School districts across the nation deal with fluctuating numbers of students and have been for decades and will be for decades to come regardless of public charter schools . A declining or increased numbers of student population is no excuse for such “hands in the air” rhetoric as, “The math doesn’t quite work out that way. There are underlying administrative and structural costs in running a school district.”
Shouldn’t you all be chastising people who choose not to have children since they are denying the district potential funds? What about families that leave Alameda for various reasons? Should we run them out with pitch forks? Bottom line the district can not use money as a factor in regards to assessing public charter schools. It isn’t valid, and as I have stated here and prior it is a weak argument to begin with.
Comment by poguemahone — January 22, 2008 @ 5:45 pm
#13 “The board conduct a reasonable inquiry as to their ability…..” Thats a good one. I almost feel of my chair laughing.
Comment by poguemahone — January 22, 2008 @ 5:52 pm
#14
I am opposed to charter schools; however, current state law allows for charter schools as long as they meet — and continue to meet — certain criteria and standards. Economic harm to the district that creates them is not one of the criteria for rejecting a charter school. Since this is the law, I have to respect it, though I would support a change in the law. Regardless, parents and the community at-large need to understand that the creation of the charter school could create problems for other students in the district. If the public schools in Alameda decline, the harm will be felt by all, including those who enroll their children in the charter schools.
Comment by Alameda NayTiff — January 22, 2008 @ 6:52 pm
Would you send your child to a new charter school if you believed that her education at that school would be worse than at her current school? If not, then why would you expect a parent to support the creation of that charter school if she believed that her own child’s education would suffer because of it?
Comment by Alameda NayTiff — January 22, 2008 @ 7:07 pm
# 17
That’s ridiculous. We didn’t get to vote for or against Alameda Charter schools. Those who think Charter schools can do a better job ought to be able to vote with their kid’s feet. Why should one parent’s expectations take precedent over another’s when tax money and state law are neutral? This isn’t about education suffering, it’s about the freedom of parents to seek the best for their kids.
By the way, does Alameda get the Alameda reduced per-kid funding for the Oakland kids who migrate here to attend school, or is Alameda reimbursed at Oakland’s rate? And, if losing kids in a school district is so bad, why is Oakland willing to give up theirs to Alameda? Mike??
Comment by Jack Richard — January 22, 2008 @ 8:02 pm
#17 I love questions/statements like this. Though I do not believe it, if I listened to the conventional wisdom of Alameda I would have never sent my child to the “prison like, decrepit, failing, horrible, worst school in Alameda, with all those minorities.” (these are just a flavor of the comments our family have endured over the years) known as Washington, but our child is there and has thrived there despite a myriad of issues that have nothing to do with the caliber of teaching going on. But that is a whole other story.
In any case where have all of you been to rally around our school since so many of you have seen it as deficient in some way? Where has the district been in being proactive about educating the public to the fact that Washington is a actually a good school so that upwards of 40%+ of my neighbors kids stop going to private schools and we can have a more involved community as a school since then they would actually live in Alameda!? Why doesn’t the district expose the sham that standardized testing is and that it unfairly paints schools like ours as failing. Where has the school board and community as a whole been for decades in regards to West end schools? Any parent that thinks the creation of a charter school would cause her own child’s education to suffer does not have the facts or does not want to hear them.
Comment by poguemahone — January 22, 2008 @ 8:28 pm
#19 Bravo. My sentiments exactly. We have battled for years the misconceptions and prejudices, with little help from the district or community. And now that we have seen what a few dedicated teachers and parents can achieve (Washington has some of the best in the district) we’d like to expand and be allowed more freedom to help any child that needs a less structured environment with more choices. As far as implementing a charter like NCLC at Washington, been there, hit too many walls. NCLC even had to return a $400,000 grant because the district wouldn’t allow them into any of the existing schools. We are in desperate need of changes and right now, after years of trying to make that happen at the existing public schools, public charter schools are the only cohesive group coming forward with some viable, immediate options for those that the traditional system is not working.
Comment by jkw — January 22, 2008 @ 9:54 pm
#19 none of the charter opponents here on this blog seem to be making statements about prison like environments at your district school. In fact I took the past comments Barbara Mooney made about it being a well known fact that Washington is the school you wouldn’t want your child to go to, as being a somewhat sarcastic swipe at folks like those in the East end complaining about not getting into their precious district school, as opposed to being a straight out literal condemnation of Washington as a bad place one would stay away from.
I have been trying to have an extended discussion with a Washington teacher whom I know, to get a first hand account to help me know more, but it hasn’t happened.
I do know a former Washington family who has never had a complaint, but maybe they don’t have very high standards.
Most of us who care about the public schools are dealing with keeping our heads above water in our own districts, and we may not have intimate knowledge of problems local to other districts, unless maybe it’s Edison where parents…well you know, they’re outspoken.
Actually, I feel those of us expressing concerns about the negative financial hit are taking the worst case conditions across the district into specific account with regard to how the budget hit would play out. So in that respect we do have Washington very much in our sites.
I think your last line is subjective and unfounded. Statistically, elementary charters don’t rate significantly better than public schools, so why should we be anxious to shoulder the negative financial fallout?
Your figures in #3 for projected savings on teacher salaries are simplistic and I think suspect. The loss of students doesn’t translate neatly into packages of reduced demand for classrooms. More likely we would experience class size reductions scattered about such that we would not be able to reduce the costs as you project. You also suggest savings by not hiring new teachers, but what you should be referring to is lay-offs, shouldn’t you? Additionally, we have other plant costs which don’t shrink in perfect proportions to fluctuations in student population.
Finally, I missed the presentation portion tonight, but under questioning by the board the petition for RLA seemed extremely vague, including not making provisions for the negative impact of the state deficit on ADA.
Comment by Mark I — January 22, 2008 @ 10:23 pm
This is a free country! Let people vote with their wallet/feet and if they think a charter school is their best interest so be it!
AUSD has NO business trying to stop this. Or perhaps they do … trying to stave off competition so as to avoid unfavorable comparisons/questions.
Comment by Trisha — January 22, 2008 @ 10:28 pm
Anyone can and will make statistics say what ever they want in order to support their argument. I have seen statistics that say the exact opposite of “Statistically, elementary charters don’t rate significantly better than public schools” I’ll still stick to what I said in #3 regardless of your rhetoric, and or your “It’s more complicated than that argument.”
Perhaps once the public charter schools are up and running; and no manner of misinformation, bullying, or game playing by the district, is going to stop them, the district could continue to just fill all those seats with kids from outside the district. It hasn’t been a problem for the district at my school, but then you all might have to honestly address the moral and social questions you seem to be trying to hold my feet to.
Comment by poguemahone — January 22, 2008 @ 10:53 pm
I do not have children, but I feel badly for the situation that’s happening with California schools. The worst part about this whole thing is that many of the factors that determine the budgets for education are beyond the control of the school system.
There are several things that are happening and will be happening all at once. First the state is losing billions from the housing implosion. Secondly, the little trick that the Fed pulled off yesterday- that 0.75 cut- does two things: It brings inflation, and secondly makes the dollar become absolutely worthless. That doesn’t seem like a big deal until you see that there are MANY countries that buy our treasuries. They essentially buy our debt. When the dollar becomes worthless, buying treasuries becomes way less appetizing for countries like China, India, and Europe. These countries have a rapidly developing middle class of their own and therefor need less to do with our finances anyway, and especially if the Fed wants to inflate away the dollar and crank up the presses.
With the ability to fuel national,state, and consumer debt taken away, you get smaller budgets. Smaller budgets mean more cuts to state programs.This can ultimately lead to future cuts in education, which is tragic because in the end it is the kids that pay the price.
I’m not sure what the solution is going to be for all of this. But One thing that I think is fair enough to say is that people are going to have to pull together and think creatively and outside the box. Perhaps ask your kids what they want. Talk to other parents openly about what their child’s experiences are at ‘X’ school. Do some research. Get involved with your community. Perhaps look at ways to raise money within the community. All just tips of the iceberg.
Good luck to all you parents and I hope that a financial solution is found so that all your kids have an equal opportunity to a good education.
Comment by edvard — January 23, 2008 @ 8:00 am
The only real solution, and at best it’s YEARS away, is to return school funding to local control. With the exception of parcel taxes, Sacramento decides every district’s funding. Taxes go to Sactown, and then filter back to the various districts, funding a large and useless bureaucracy in the middle. Prop 13 of course adds to the problem, but the real issue is control.
In such a Balkanized political environment as CA’s that will require Augean efforts, but it is the only answer.
Comment by dave — January 23, 2008 @ 8:35 am
#25 Could not have been said better. My kids though do not have years to wait nor I years to battle windmills.
Comment by poguemahone — January 23, 2008 @ 9:17 am
# 25
Balkanized? You bet: Democrats, Democrat Progressives, Democrat Greens, Democrat Socialists, Democrat Liberals and Democrat Republicans all vying for more control and more of your money. Take more than Hercules to clean this Augean stable.
Comment by Jack Richard — January 23, 2008 @ 12:13 pm
#23.I think we have to rely on some kind of scientific measurements or it’s your anecdote versus mine. I think it is BS to say you don’t accept my stats because you don’t like them and have seen others which contradict them, but then you don’t site yours.
I am relying on various links posted here by Mike McMahon, Nay Tiff and others to articles which state that on average charters are not wildly successful. If sets of statistics are in conflict then you have to analyze them and compare how they were derived and by whom in order to ferret out what truth may exist.
Maybe dave 25 is right about local control, but establishing charter schools does nothing to advance that solution. Charters after all are a state mechanism, though they can be administered from the state, county or local level, but the rules and funding in all three cases flow from the state.
#22 “it’s a free country…” You think? We are free to complain, but I ain’t got no “free” lunch yet. People want social programs and charter schools out the ying yang, plus great public schools too, but then they bitch about taxes. State taxes, parcel taxes, any taxes. You can’t have it both ways.
We have a hugely inflated sense of entitlement and we complain constantly about the goods not being delivered. But how many of us actually put feet to the pavement to try to implement changes?
Right now we need a serious grass roots revolt to preserve Prop 98 and protect it from the Terminator’s budget cuts, but instead we could spend all that energy squabbling amongst ourselves over charters schools. We desperately need Prop. 13 reform and as mentioned there is the legal challenge to unequal funding. Hopefully details on the latter can be posted soon.
Again, I think the idea of public schools competing head to head in the “free market place” with private schools is a red herring. Private schools start at about $9000 and go up to $20,000 tuition. Give AUSD that kind of funding and then see how well it competes. No problem.
#27 let me guess, Hercules was a libertarian?
Comment by Mark I — January 23, 2008 @ 2:14 pm
#22
“This is a free country! Let people vote with their wallet/feet and if they think a charter school is their best interest so be it!”
Education isn’t free. Parents are free to pay the full cost of their childrens’ education by sending them to a private school of their choice. The public schools are funded by everyone — the majority of whom do not have children in the public schools.
You would think that parents would be grateful that their neighbors are willing to pay for their childrens’ education. Sometimes I begin to think that those who claim that education is the responsibility of the family and not the government are right. My neighbors aren’t paying for my family’s health insurance, so why should I pay for their childrens’ education?
Comment by Alameda NayTiff — January 23, 2008 @ 5:32 pm
Jack, if you look at the history of what party has been in control during the years of our national debt history you will see that it is the Republican party that that loses the assets of our national treasury. While the Dems may be responsible for bigger spending on attempts to improve education, healthcare, roads and bridges, workers rights etc; the amount they spend improving life for the masses pales in comparison to the spending of the republicans. The ‘black hole’ of Republican spending usually leaves our country with a very tarnished international reputation and much higher debt.
You can track it from the days of Nixon when the debt first hit and the resulting fear led to Federal wage and hiring freezes - remember that? Go ahead track the debt changes by year since then and see who puts the country in a worse position. I know it seems almost counter-intuitive to you, but if you have the time check it out. You may come to realize that doing good for the citizens does well for the country
I do agree we need to “clean the stable.”
The problem with local control is the unequal resources achievable in the different cities and counties. The problem with our ‘reformed’ system is the unequal resources provided to the different cities and counties………If we need to pay a bureaucracy to middleman our money to provide balanced resources, why aren’t we screaming that they have not been doing their job. The present state of the State is only to make our problems more challenging.
Comment by Dave 'steaming pile' Kirwin — January 23, 2008 @ 5:42 pm
#28 Here is some BS so that you may ferret out what truth may exist.
The Performance of California Charter Schools (Margaret Raymond, CREDO/Hoover
Institution): May 2003
Findings: Charter schools at the elementary level outpace traditional elementary schools according to 1999-2001 data based on state Academic Performance Index (API) scores. (2002 data is not used
because the tests involved have changed). When charter elementary schools are compared only with elementary schools in districts with charters, their superior rate of growth is even higher. When compared to “local competitor” schools (schools in the same areas) there are no statistically significant
growth scores differences, but this is attributed to the fact that California charter schools serve higher proportions of low-performing students. Charter middle schools lagged significantly behind both traditional middle schools and “local competitors,” but there are too few schools in the sample to make it statistically sound. Charter high schools have growth scores nearly twice the rate of conventional high schools or “local competitors.” Finally, the authors found that teacher credentialinghas only a slight impact on API scores, while there is a significant correlation between API scores and school size, with smaller being better.
In 2006, 56 percent of New Mexico’s charter schools made AYP
compared to 45 percent of the conventional public schools statewide.
Charter schools improved 9 points from the 2004-2005 academic year.
With New Mexico’s tradition of poor academic performance, these results
illustrate the promise, over time, that charter schools are improving public
education.
Catching the Wave: Lessons from California’s Charter Schools (Nelson Smith, Progressive Policy Institute): July 2003
Findings: This study analyzes extant research on charter schools in California and finds that charters are performing as desired. The authors find that California’s charters are expanding learning opportunities especially for at-risk students, and are showing faster improvements on the state’s Academic Performance Index (API) than traditional public schools. In addition, they are producing innovations that are being adopted by many traditional school districts, though evidence of a charter competition-induced “ripple effect” appears inconsistent, with some districts changing and others
seemingly unaffected. The report ends by calling for an expansion of charters and lowering the restrictions on them.
In Massachusetts, almost 75 percent of charter schools outperformed their
host districts in English and math on the 2006 state assessment test, with
average proficiency rates that were almost 8 percentage points higher than
neighboring district schools.
Charter School Operations and Performance: Evidence from California (RAND Corporation):June 2003
Findings: California’s charter schools produce levels of reading and math achievement on par with thestate’s conventional public schools, despite employing teachers with fewer credentials, suffering from pronounced facilities shortages, and receiving less money per pupil. In addition, the authors find that charters that started from scratch outperform traditional public schools; conversion charters perform on par with traditional public schools; and charters with a home-based learning component lag behind
traditional public schools. This third point is qualified, however, because it is very likely that students schooled at home often have disabilities for which the study could not control. Demographically, charter enrollment is roughly equivalent to traditional schools, with larger African-American, smaller Hispanic, and proportionately equal white populations attending charters.
During the 2005-2006 school year, 2 out of 3 New York City charter
school students in grades 3-8 met or exceeded grade level standards on the
state math exam. Charter school students scored 13 percent higher than
public school students within the same districts. Fifty-six percent of
students at 35 New York City public charter schools were proficient in
reading and 66 percent were proficient in math, compared with 48 percent
proficiency in reading, and 53 percent proficiency on the state math exam,
achieved by students in grades 3-8 attending traditional public schools
located in the same districts as the city’s charter schools.
Apples to Apples: An Evaluation of Charter Schools Serving General Student Populations (Jay Greene, Greg Forster and Marcus Winters, Manhattan Institute): July 2003
Findings: This study compares charter schools with the traditional public schools most likely to have similar student populations. The authors hope to improve on studies that frequently look only at raw achievement data without accounting for student populations. Nationally, they found that charter schools serving “general student populations” (meaning schools not targeted to specific groups) outperformed the geographically-nearest traditional public schools by about three percentile points in math and two points in reading. In addition, charter students in Texas and Florida significantly outpaced the nearest traditional public schools – by seven to eight percentile points in Texas and six
points in Florida. A large percentage of the nation’s charters – those targeting specific groups of students – were excluded from this analysis in order to compare schools with populations similar to traditional public schools.
Charter students in the District of Columbia now account for 26 percent
of all public school students, the highest in the nation. The 65 charter
schools are also scoring higher in reading and math. Fifty-four percent of
D.C. charter students are proficient in math, a full 10 percent higher than
conventional schools. In reading, 45 percent of charter students are
proficient compared to 39 percent of students in conventional public
schools.
State University Authorized Charter Schools’ Achievement on the 2003 State English
Language Arts Examination (Charter Schools Institute, State University of New York): June 2003
Findings: Results of the 2003 English Language Arts (ELA) exam in New York show charter schools authorized by the State University of New York (SUNY) are making significantly greater fourth and eighth grade language arts progress than are traditional New York public schools. Taken together with the other charter schools in New York – those authorized by the Board of Regents and the Department of Education – 14 out of 15 charters showed grater improvement between 2002 and 2003 than New York’s traditional public schools. The report also reveals that the improvements aren’t just taking place at the top, as more charter students exceeded state standards and fewer performed at “Level 1” (serious academic deficiencies).
In 2006, Georgia charter schools made AYP at an unprecedented rate. As
in 2004 and 2005, Georgia charter schools made AYP at a higher rate
than traditional public schools, but in 2006 the gap between charter
schools and traditional schools increased substantially. In 2006, 87.8
percent of Georgia charter schools made AYP compared to 78.7 percent
of traditional public schools.
The State of Charter Schools in Colorado 2001-02 (Colorado Department of Education): March 2003
Findings: The state’s annual report on charter schools suggests that when controlling for race and reduced-price lunch eligibility, Colorado’s charters do slightly better than the state’s traditional public schools in reading, writing, math and science. Colorado’s charters tend to serve fewer minorities and poor kids, but also have a high percentage of schools that specifically target at-risk students. Finally, a finding that especially stands out is that a significantly higher percentage of charters than traditional public schools received accountability ratings of “excellent” (20 percent vs. 7 percent), though a slightly
higher percentage were also “unsatisfactory” (7 percent vs. 2 percent).
Michigan’s charter public schools exceed the average scores of their host
districts on 23 of 27 state assessment tests in 2006, once again improving
on their performance from the previous year. In addition, the number of
schools “beating the odds” climbed from 25 last year to 40 this year. These
primarily urban schools meet a state formula requiring at least 60%
proficiency in math and English language arts, with at least half of the
students qualifying for free-and-reduced lunch.
Veteran Charter Schools Outperform Non-Charters on API (Michael Agostini, Charter Schools Development Center): March 2003
Findings: This analysis of base 2002 API scores shows that California charters that have been in existence for five or more years outperformed non-charter public schools and younger charters. Charters in existence for five or more years had an average API score of 708, versus 689 for all publics and 667 for all active charter schools. (The goal for a school is a score of 800.) The report does not measure longitudinal growth (how well individual students progress over time), but when compared to
other California studies this one reinforces the notion that the longer a child is in a charter school, the more progress he or she makes.
Illinois Charter School Annual Report (Illinois State Board of Education): January 2003
Findings: As in the two previous years, in 2003 the Illinois State Board of Education found that a majority of the state’s charters are doing better than similar schools in their home district, but not all are exceeding district scores. The greatest change occurred in Chicago, where seven of the city’s charter schools recorded better average scores on the Illinois Scholastic Achievement Test (ISAT) than did other district schools, while only three charters scored below the district average. However, although children in charters come in performing at lower levels of achievement on the Prairie State Achievement
Exam (PSAE), because the state’s test does not yet measure growth from year to year, its results cannot be used to make absolute comparisons. Illinois’ charters and traditional public schools in their districts serve roughly equal minority and low-income populations.
Reaching Children Most in Need
It has been suggested by some researchers in their analysis of government data that the
degree of poverty in charter schools is less than conventional public schools in comparable neighborhoods. Using the free and reduced lunch program to guide their poverty conclusions, researchers and critics have issued reports and statements that suggest charter school achievement is actually lower than other public schools because their scores, when adjusted for a lower poverty rate, are less than what they would expect from children with more advantages. But according to the CER survey, while 54 percent of all charter school students qualify for free and reduced lunch, 37 percent of all charters do not participate for a variety of administrative, financial and political reasons, not because they do not qualify. Thus the prime indicator used by statisticians to determine poverty and thus compare achievement of like students is deeply flawed. For the first time, CER offers evidence that should put to rest the notion that charter students are less poor – and achieving less – than other public schools. As shown in myriad achievement statistics, despite being poorer, these students are achieving.
Why Charter Schools Do Not Participate in Free/Reduced Lunch
School does not have the facilities 42 percent
Chose not to apply because of bureaucratic difficulties 23 percent
School feeds students with own resources 10 percent
Not enough eligible students 6 percent
Other reason (cyber school, half day schedule, etc.) 26 percent
Comment by poguemahone — January 23, 2008 @ 5:47 pm
#31
We can go back and forth and cite various studies about the benefits of charter schools versus traditional public schools, but in the end it won’t make much difference. If parents want what is best for their children, then they should be willing to sacrifice and pay for the education that they believe is best. The rest of us have dug deep in our pockets to support those who choose public schools, but this blog discussion has impressed upon me that the taxes we pay do not seem to be appreciated.
The family has the primary responsibility for education — the community can help, but it is up to the family to make the needed sacrifices to benefit the children. There are plenty of jobs that require little to no education for those who only make it through grade school. Not everyone is going to be a success and the economy depends on those with little education to staff many low-wage positions. If parents want better for their children, then they should look to their own financial resources rather than those of their neighbors.
Comment by Alameda NayTiff — January 23, 2008 @ 6:52 pm
#32 I am just sick of these unfounded assertions and or conclusions. Parents have the legal right to participate in a public charter school. “The family has the primary responsibility for education-” What are you talking about? In this country you are GUARANTEED a public education regardless if you even have a “family”. The State of California and the Federal government obviously do not feel that any parent that does so is infringing on their neighbors tax dollar or they would have never created laws establishing public charter schools. I challenge any of you to come up with SPECIFIC verifiable unbiased instances in which a public charter school(s) directly created financial hardship within the district the operate.
Comment by poguemahone — January 23, 2008 @ 7:48 pm
#32 I am just sick of these unfounded assertions and or conclusions. Parents have the legal right to participate in a public charter school. “The family has the primary responsibility for education-” What are you talking about? In this country you are GUARANTEED a public education regardless if you even have a “family”. The State of California and the Federal government obviously do not feel that any parent that does so is infringing on their neighbors tax dollar or they would have never created laws establishing public charter schools. I challenge any of you to come up with SPECIFIC verifiable unbiased instances in which a public charter school(s) directly created financial hardship within the district they operate.
Comment by poguemahone — January 23, 2008 @ 7:49 pm
# 30
Dave “steaming pile” let’s keep this at the state level. National debt as a percent of GDP declined from Truman through Carter. The rise during Reagan had legitimate national security and domestic reasons (we could argue this) but there’s enough grist in California without trucking in the Feds.
But you puzzle me. If all the Demo spending in this state is improving education, healthcare, roads and bridges, why in Hercules’ name do you want to “clean the stable”? Surely you don’t want to terminate the last vestige of the “black hole” republican spending. Who would you blame the mess on then?
Comment by Jack Richard — January 23, 2008 @ 8:32 pm
Alameda Naytiff
I agree with you when you say that if the parents want to insure that their children have a good education they participate. Weather that means every day with home work and being at the school as much as possible, or actually spending the extra money to place your child in a school that you believe will give them the very best education.
poguemahone; This country may guarantee you a public education but that does not mean it will be very good, you need to be responsible for yourself and your children, don’t depend on the gov. as it has failed us time and again.
I pulled my sons out of A.U.S.D. when they were in kindergarten because I did not believe this district could give them the education that I wanted them to have. I worked two jobs and I have no regrets, plus I never had to have this discussion.
Comment by john piziali — January 23, 2008 @ 8:41 pm
Well I haven’t had my say for a while so here I go…
Re #3 poguemahone
You have no idea what you are talking about for funding…
The teachers will be spread all over the district so it will not necessarily work to cut the full extend of teachers so we absorb that cost and then there is the over-site we need to eat and the facility we need to supply and the district employee that needs to attend their board meetings and all the money we raise through school propositions that we have to give them part of and so on and so on…
A bunch of republicans figured out how to use charters to get around the vouchers nobody wanted…if you don’t like Cal-trans can you pick another, how about Jan Sutter’s brilliant idea and you opt into what police department you like, don’t like DMV pick an alternative and if that doesn’t suit your need then start your own all with public money of course. It doesn’t work for anyother public entity, we only screw the schools. We have a system, we could all be spending all of our energy to improve it or we can keep up running something that increases the divide between the haves and have-nots at sonic speed.
Re #6 & 12 Alameda NayTiff
You are right on!!! AS USUAL
Not only will there kids wear khaki pants and white shirts but children will not be admitted until the parent signs a participation contract. 2 of the teachers got up and spoke about parents they had when they taught at Catholic Schools who were crying because they couldn’t afford a private education and wanted one. Well as all the charter fans keep forgetting the world isn’t fair.
I also remember 3 years ago when St. Joe’s fell apart and people were moving their kids to Phillip Neri faster than you can say Hail Mary. So please understand I come from the no system is perfect logic.
Not only is the curriculum different but our very wise founding fathers had some very important words about the mixing of the two….
The state plagues the traditional system with TONS of rules and costly regulations. They don’t do that for charter schools and then want to compare them equally. Charter fans find this out and shake their heads with a oh well attitude and then don’t care.
Re #18 Jack Richard
I am all for parents seeking the best for their kids, I am not much for sacrificing my kid for them to get it.
The district has to take many of the kids from other districts due to state laws and they work in reverse too.
Re #21 Mark I (your last comment on #28 is the truth no one wants to speak)
This man understands me…that is exactly what I meant. I went to tons of those meetings about all Edison. Last year one of the women (from Edison) told me she would move to Orinda before her kid would set foot on the Washington campus. My reply was “We would all be better off if you move now” Washington is a great school with some great teachers and parents. If I didn’t have to drive to yet another school and to prove a point I would happily send my daughter there. Franklin has a great community but it is no utopia.
Re #22 Trisha
You vote at the poles and then follow the rules. You want vouchers then vote for someone who will pass the law. I personally didn’t pay enough attention to how my elected officials voted on this issue and you bet I will now. For instance I will work tirelessly to keep Jack O’Connell out of the governor’s seat.
When everyone stops with the blaming of teachers and administration and starts blaming prop 13 and all the things that took our control away. When we realize that the difference in the schools in Alameda are due to its community (and unfounded misconceptions) and not the staff we can then work to find ways to engage the whole community. Please don’t think I am blaming diverse minorities or low-income families for all the problems. Many of things that happen in families who don’t bring positive impact to the schools are beyond their control. There are on the flip side families that could do better with the resources they have and choose not to. Helping everyone to their situations personal best will bring greatness and choice to everyone in the one system we have.
Comment by Barbara M — January 23, 2008 @ 8:43 pm
# Jack - C’mon - don’t you read my posts? The developers and their friends that they have put in office, of course!
Comment by Dave "Can't you smell that smell?" Kirwin — January 23, 2008 @ 9:40 pm
#37 “A bunch of republicans figured out how to use charters to get around the vouchers nobody wanted” What knee jerk obtuse BS that is! All of the parents (including myself) that I know who are behind a charter are progresives (liberals!) and all your babble about eating oversite and attending of board meetings, and the sky is falling is baseless.
I for one do not, have not, will not support vouchers nor do I think any of the local proponents of charter schools do and I do not recall Trisha ever saying she is supporting them. I and any and all of the parents I know have never blamed the teachers. Some of us have friends and family members who teach or have taught in traditional public schools. My two best friends teach at public schools and they fully support a parents right to public charter schools. Why is it so wrong not to buy into the traditional school model? Obviously we do not and for a myriad of reasons and we have the legal right to create and or participate in a public charter model if we so choose.
Comment by poguemahone — January 23, 2008 @ 9:41 pm
Wow! Looky here and go figure. O’Connell attended all traditional public schools as a kid. He even attended two public State universities, taught in traditional public schools, sat on a public school board and yet he supports public charter schools and he isn‘t a republican! Baffling to say the least.
Jack T. O’Connell (born October 8, 1951) He is currently serving as the California State Superintendent of Public Instruction, having been elected to the post in November 2002 with 61% of the vote. O’Connell previously served on the Santa Barbara County School Board. He later went to serve in the California State Assembly as a Democrat representing the Central Coast-based 35th District from 1982 to 1994. He then won election from the 18th District to the California State Senate where he served from 1994 to 2002.
He is was re-elected to his post in the Primary election on June 6, 2006.
O’Connell was born in 1951 in Glen Cove, New York. In 1958, his family moved to Southern California, where he attended local public schools. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from California State University, Fullerton and earned his secondary teaching credential from California State University, Long Beach in 1975. He returned to his high school alma mater to teach for several years and later served on the Santa Barbara County School Board.
Comment by poguemahone — January 23, 2008 @ 10:15 pm
#35 Jack - This State alone now has over $250,000,000,000 of re-development payments to make. Do you think that amount will go down or up? Duh! Remember these Re-Dev bonds never had a trial at the ballot box, but the public is, and will need to continue to make sacrifices to repay them.
I’ll guess the only commissions chosen to vote on redevelopment bonds were filled by people who got financial support by developers and their friends. Our state has some easily abused Re-dev laws that need to be changed. These bad laws only exist because the crusty stuff never got flushed from the stable. That is one of the many reasons I want to start cleaning out the bureaucratic mess.
Why pay for education in Alameda when we can all chip in $10 grand each for a new theatre complex?
OK, maybe that IS unfair to say and it exaggerates the re-dev problem. It is better to say that the quarter Trillion+ State Re-dev repayments owed divided by the 38 million population of the state leaves us only with a re-dev debt averaging $6,600 per person in CA.
Jack – I never got a chance to vote on a single one of those re-dev bonds. Does it make you feel proud to be an Alamedan knowing that we contributed a higher per capita re-dev debt on the theater project alone than the statewide average? Boy we really got over on them – the ‘system’ that is, huh? Start adding in all the other Re-Dev projects in our city and we maybe have diverted more future tax dollars per capita than any other community in the whole State!– WOW - What a score!
Comment by Dave "sniff this" Kirwin — January 23, 2008 @ 10:32 pm
STOP THE LIES! “we can keep up running something that increases the divide between the haves and have-nots at sonic speed.”- Barbara M
“Student achievement among educationally and economically disadvantaged students in California public charter schools is improving faster than in non-charter public schools, according to the studies from the Hoover Institute at Stanford University (2003), and the School of Education at California State University, Los Angeles.”- California Department of Education
Last Reviewed: Thursday, October 18, 2007
Comment by poguemahone — January 23, 2008 @ 11:48 pm
re 37
NOBODY wants vouchers?
That’s news to me. I sure want em, and I know many who do.
I think you have a point on charters as an alternative to vouchers, though I’m not so sure of your “bunch of Republicans” line. I’m no Republican & I want them, and most pro-voucher folks I know are not R’s either.
Why does “nobody” want vouchers?
Comment by dave — January 24, 2008 @ 6:18 am
This thread is amazing. Maybe some of you should have your kids read exactly what you’re writing for the sake of their educations. They’d have a hard time telling some of the discussions here apart from some of the arguments out on the playground.
Comment by edvard — January 24, 2008 @ 7:49 am
# 44 Well what do you expect edvard? This is our playground and most if not all of us are products of public schools.
Comment by Jack Richard — January 24, 2008 @ 8:22 am
the # 36 This business about a “guaranteed” education is a little misleading. “In the United States, every child is entitled to a free K-12 public education regardless of race, nationality, native language, gender, or immigration status, and is free to enjoy an education without the fear of unlawful discrimination or fear of deportation.”
It may seem like splitting hairs, but when something is guaranteed it assures the fulfillment of a condition. If an education were guaranteed, most of us would still be in school. Whereas entitling an education merely means furnishing the grounds for claiming something. In the case of education, the state must furnish the entitlements but doesn’t guarantee the outcome from the use of those entitlements.
And therein lies the problem, in my opinion, with US schools. If roads and bridges are part of the infrastructure of this country, why isn’t the education of our children considered part of the underlying foundation or basic framework (i.e., part of the infrastructure) of the nation? The federal government contributes somewhere around 9% of K-12 funding and leaves the rest of the costs up to the states. The US Constitution is mute on this matter and therefore reserves education as one of those powers delegated to the States or to the people under the 10th Amendment.
There was an expedient need to keep education locally controlled during colonial times. Religion and literacy were logically interconnected back then because religious dissenters played a significant role in the country’s founding. The 1st Amendment Free Exercise Clause reflects the closeness of religion and literacy and frees religion from federal legislation. Schools were a part of religion because many churches had schools teaching their faith. This tradition moved on through the decades but over time the schools became less tied to religion.
This arrangement may have worked before the earth recently became economically flat but it’s not working now. Even though per-pupil spending in the US ranks near the top we rank 24th out of the 29 developed countries in math, 18th in science and 15th in reading. Per-pupil spending in the US is high when looking at the spending statistically. Tying school funding to local school district wealth ensures that the per-pupil spending statistic is a guarantee for failure and that guarantee is being fulfilled across the country. The result is a disadvantaged population unable to compete in the new world economy.
The Federal government should triple K-12 funding and place contingencies on the states receiving those funds. One of those contingencies should be equalizing per-pupil funding throughout the nation. Another should be to eliminate state education standards and slowly instill federal standards.
Comment by Jack Richard — January 24, 2008 @ 11:26 am
CA schools have been shredded by that style & degree of centralization. Federalization would simply duplicate our problem in other states, to say nothing of increasing the federal debt (which you seem to be against in #35).
Comment by dave — January 24, 2008 @ 11:43 am
I happen to be a public school product myself Jack, But I think you all need to look at the problem from it’s roots. Dave was right on one level, which is that laws like Prop 13 effectively steals money from public funds. What’s worse is that the longer a person stays in their house, the less tax dollars the state gets. That’s destructive.
But the bigger picture in itself is funding, which as also pointed out is controlled by the state. The state- as we all know- is in a budget crisis from previously mentioned reasons. Quite obviously that problem is going to get worse than it already is.
So if the money isn’t coming from the state, then I think some of you were on the right track in regards to mentioning that a more voluntary, financial commitment might be needed from parents with school children. That is if they want to stay in California. As I’ve mentioned many times before to no avail, if you REALLY wanted a good environment for your kids with reliable public schools, then you wouldn’t choose to live in California to start with. But since this most obviously isn’t an option, then I think you all need to admit that no- money isn’t likely going to be coming from the state coffers, and yes- money will probably have to either come from you, the community, or some other alternative.
It isn’t about charter, catholic, public, or private schools. The issue- as is most anything else in this state- is money. Fix the money problem first, THEN decide if you all really need alternative schools.
Anyhow, I’m gonna butt out because I don’t have any kids, but come from a long line of school teachers who’ve experienced things like budget cuts and reductions themselves and have looked the problem in the eye.
Again- good luck to you all. Work together.
Comment by edvard — January 24, 2008 @ 11:45 am
It seems there is consensus on the need to amend prop 13 but is anyone working on that locally? It seems it would be something most of us could work together on for the long term.
edvard, are you suggesting something as RADICAL as the need to raise…. dare I say the word?…. taxes?
Comment by poguemahone — January 24, 2008 @ 1:08 pm
#49
I was 30 years younger when I worked to oppose Proposition 13. It was known then what it would do to public education. However, Proposition 13 is also very much like Measure A in that it was a public response to governmental inaction. Public education in California is underfunded and, as a result, parents are scrambling to find alternatives. Charter schools are one of the results — though not a good one.
I think that we are now at the point where lack of governmental leadership to amend Proposition 13 may well lead to a public response similar to what brought it into being. We need equitable tax policies that support public schools.
Anyone in the younger generations willing to lead the struggle to amend 13?
Comment by Alameda NayTiff — January 24, 2008 @ 1:48 pm
# 47 Some CA schools are doing just fine, a lot aren’t. This situation is reflected across the nation in every state. Many people contributing to this blog seem to think AUSD would be just fine if only the Charters would go away. Whether or not the Charter issue in Alameda is resolved or goes away school funding problems are never going away unless fundamental systemic changes are made. If you thinks reform of prop 13 is going to fill your education coffers, keep dreaming.
dave, you state, “Federalization would simply duplicate our problem in other states,…” Last time I checked, CA wasn’t the Federal government. And the problem of unequal funding is already duplicated in every state. I’m suggesting that K-12 education be treated as a National concern. NCLB exacerbates the problem by letting individual states to set standards and test core subjects to their own definition of proficiency. Resulting in a meaningless mess where one high state’s test scores would be grounds for failure in another state.
Parochial interests insisting on local control must be prepared to pay the price. Because, along with local control you can expect to be on your own funding wise. Local school boards are totally outgunned by teacher’s unions. The more local control, the less power to confront local, state, federal and union mandates.
Comment by Jack Richard — January 24, 2008 @ 3:05 pm
David Lazarus at the LA Times recently wrote a great piece on prop 13, and some of the “Governators” shenanigans in the face of the State budget.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lazarus9jan09,1,630103.column?coll=la-headlines-business
Also an older article from 2003 SF Chronicle- posted on California Tax Reform Association’s site
http://caltaxreform.org/?p=5#more-5
I recall Ex-Alameda representative on the East Bay Muni. Utility Dist. and ex-Oakland City Council member Danny Wan was a consultant to California Local Finance Project which was looking to change prop. 13, but I can not find any recent info on either
Comment by poguemahone — January 24, 2008 @ 3:12 pm
From the Wikipedia on Prop 13.
Proposition 13 drew its impetus from 1971 and 1976 California Supreme Court rulings in Serrano v. Priest, 5 Cal.3d 584 (1971) (Serrano I); Serrano v. Priest, 18 Cal.3d 728 (1976) (Serrano II); Serrano v. Priest, 20 Cal.3d 25 (1977) (Serrano III) that a property-tax based finance system for schools was unconstitutional. The California Constitution required the legislature to provide a free public school system for each district, and the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution (which includes the Equal Protection Clause) required all states provide to all citizens equal protection of the law. The court ruled that the amount of funding going to different districts was disproportionately favoring the wealthy. Previously, local property taxes went directly to the local school system, which minimized state government’s involvement in the distribution of revenue. This system also allowed a wealthier district to fund its schools with a lower tax rate than the rate a less affluent district would have to set in order to yield the same funding per pupil. The Court ruled that the state had to make the distribution of revenue more equitable. The state legislature responded by capping the rate of local revenue that a school district could receive and distributing excess amounts among the poorer districts. Although this was more equitable, property owners in affluent districts perceived that the benefits of the taxes they paid were no longer enjoyed exclusively by the local schools.
Comment by Mike McMahon — January 24, 2008 @ 4:04 pm
# 49
If you’re speaking of a consensus on this blog, you may be right if you only consider those who recently bought here and have kids. If you’re speaking of a consensus in old Alameda, bad luck. As one old geezer informed me when I suggested to him that the utility lines being put underground would improve the looks of the neighborhood; Ha, he replied, we need the poles to string up politicians who mess with prop 13.
Comment by Jack Richard — January 24, 2008 @ 4:24 pm
Tell that geezer to log on here. I’d love hear him defend the fairness of my paying property taxes nearly 10x my neighbor’s.
Such larcenous chutzpah can be entertaining.
Comment by dave — January 24, 2008 @ 4:41 pm
#54
and Geezer Jr. will inherit the tax break. These times do have a bit of the pre-13 zeitgeist. Change could happen very rapidly. As one can see from the discussion here, there are a lot of strong feelings about education and taxes. There needs to be some political leadership on the issue of education and taxation. Forty percent of our state budget is wrapped up in education (K-12 plus higher education).
As an alternative there is alway this: http://tinyurl.com/4hydt
Comment by Alameda NayTiff — January 24, 2008 @ 4:41 pm
# 52
From David Lazarus’ piece:
“What he (Lenny Goldberg’s “It’s terrible economics,”
means is that Proposition 13 allows the state to reach deep into the pockets of people and businesses that buy property at market value. But it does precious little to get a piece of the action from those with long-held properties that have soared in value over the years.”
My question is, where is the “piece of the action” from long held properties he speaks of? Does someone come and dump a pile of money in our front yard each time a piece of property gains in paper value?
Comment by Jack Richard — January 24, 2008 @ 4:43 pm
# 55
Your taxes will increase at the same rate as his, you should have known that before buying.
Comment by Jack Richard — January 24, 2008 @ 4:46 pm
I would assume he is talking about those who are profiting off of long held property such as commercial realestate owners and anyone leasing or renting out property.
Comment by poguemahone — January 24, 2008 @ 4:48 pm
58
I knew that. That knowledge doesn’t trump the essential inequity of the practice, though. And really, I think you are just toying with this argument, Jack. Among all here, you are least likely to be so dense as to believe Prop 13 is any way to run a railroad.
Comment by dave — January 24, 2008 @ 4:55 pm
# 59
If you read # 55, I think dave’s opinion of the fairness issue pretty much sums up what Lazarus meant.
Comment by Jack Richard — January 24, 2008 @ 4:56 pm
# 60
Confiscatory taxation will surely destroy your railroad.
Comment by Jack Richard — January 24, 2008 @ 5:00 pm
62
Glad you agree. What should we do you about my confiscatory taxes being funneled to my free-loading neighbors?
Comment by dave — January 24, 2008 @ 5:02 pm
63
Don’t ask me, I’m out trying to clean the stable.
Comment by Jack Richard — January 24, 2008 @ 5:05 pm
So it would seem there is no local or state group looking to take on prop. 13? Anybody know?
Comment by poguemahone — January 24, 2008 @ 5:57 pm
#60
Yes Dave, but would you want your property taxes to rise rapidly and unpredictably? That is what was happening before Prop 13. Homeowners lived in *fear* of being re-assessed. Rising property values are just paper gains until you sell. Those on fixed incomes were being pushed into poverty or forced to sell. I worked against Prop 13 and went door to door. I met senior citizens who were politely angry with me for not being sympathetic to their plight.
That said, Prop 13 needs updating. There has long been talk of a split-roll system dividing residential and commercial property.
Also, California has changed a lot in 30 years. The public school population has changed and there are greater classroom demands.
As harshly as I have criticized charter schools, I understand why parents want the option. In the end, I think that parents will become as disillusioned with charters as they have become with traditional public schools. There is no magic bullet.
Whatever tax changes do take place need to benefit the poor as much as the rich districts. No one knows where the next Einstein will come from and God does not hand out talent based upon family income.
Comment by Alameda NayTiff — January 24, 2008 @ 7:25 pm
# 66
What needs to be updated is the thinking that pouring more and more money into an insatiable state bureaucracy is going to solve any problems. The fix for Prop 13 is to roll back taxes for all property to the 1977 level and watch the CA economy skyrocket. In one fell swoop the decrease in taxes (yeah, you newb’s taxes) would free up billions in this state and feed an economic renaissance the state hasn’t seen since the dot com.
It just totally amazes me to see how brainwashed people are in this state to think the big STATE is going to solve any, let alone all, of their problems.
By the way ANT that geezer is an Alameda native.
Comment by Jack Richard — January 24, 2008 @ 7:50 pm
#67 I do not think anyone here has stated “that pouring more and more money into an insatiable state bureaucracy” is the answer. I think what is being said is there has to be a way to decentralized way in which to secure funds for schools. Local control if you will. The state has a choke hold on districts as it is.
Comment by poguemahone — January 24, 2008 @ 8:03 pm
“By the way ANT that geezer is an Alameda native.”
There was never a doubt in my mind.
Comment by Alameda NayTiff — January 24, 2008 @ 8:06 pm
#68
What do you mean by reforming prop 13 except pouring more money into the state? Believe me, local control of schools doesn’t register on Perata’s or Nebez’s to-do list (check out prop 93, like those two need more experience). Have you ever seen a state politician seek local control of anything? Ferries for example.
Forget local control, the best solution for equitable stable funding lies with the Federal government. They have a bottomless pocket and we have political control.
Comment by Jack Richard — January 24, 2008 @ 8:15 pm
nunez, I meant obviously
Comment by Jack Richard — January 24, 2008 @ 8:17 pm
nunez, I meant obviously
Comment by Jack Richard — January 24, 2008 @ 8:19 pm
#70 Prior to prop 13 local municipalities including districts HAD more local control ($ and otherwise)and thus leverage with the state than is now the case. There must exist a way in which to restore a similar relationship.
A great film that outlines prop 13’s and what it has done to public schools is “First to Worst”
http://www.pbs.org/merrow/tv/ftw/
I can not find it to view online but it shows on PBS and can be purchased. An interview with former NPR and PBS education reporter John Merrow who hosts the docu., follows the the showing of the film at USC with William Celis, author, USC Annenberg journalism professor, and former education reporter at the New York Times, participating in a roundtable discussion led by Martin Kaplan, associate dean, USC Annenberg School and director of the Norman Lear Center.
http://annenberg.usc.edu/Events/event186.aspx
Comment by poguemahone — January 24, 2008 @ 9:46 pm
typo 13’s = 13 sorry!
Comment by poguemahone — January 24, 2008 @ 9:49 pm
Y-A-W-N
Prop 13 is here to stay. Get over it.
Comment by Tess V — January 24, 2008 @ 9:58 pm
RE 75
If it is then I would have to accept that the voting public are a total bunch of lazy, easily duped, head in the sand,
numbskulls. I don’t yet. I guess I still have hope and faith that if people see the clear error in something they can and will seek change.
Comment by poguemahone — January 24, 2008 @ 10:15 pm
Looks like all you have to do is overturn Serrano v. Priest and education can go back to local funding.
(It is still under local control, there are just a lot of State & Fed mandates to fulfill with our local choices.)
Back in ‘72 I was on our school debate team and the topic that year, at least for the state of NY, was whether education should be funded federally. I always argued to the negative on the proposal. The gist of my argument then was “he who pays the piper calls the tune” and the feds should not be mandating what is important to education nation-wide. Nationally speaking our citizens are not centralized, nor are the needs of their education the same in all regions. Providing education per local control and funding may result in different educations delivered, but that does not necessarily mean the level of education is higher or lower, just different. Unfortunately our need to keep score seems greed based, as in higher grades will result in higher income and that is what is deemed relevant for judging education.
Just as we should understand and celebrate the differences in people – race, nationality, religion, sex, etc, instead of trying to start a belief that everyone is the same – different educations per region will meet different needs per region. Surly one could argue the world is a lot smaller today than in ’72 so perhaps the needs are more alike, but I still believe we can understand our local needs better from here than somebody fingering a keyboard in DC., and we should be allowed to evaluate and judge educational needs locally.
Without the State and Federal educational mandates we could probably deliver a better product to our students even if the funding style did not change, though we all think it should – at least as far as re-balancing the appropriations formula.
How could we more appropriately evaluate the ’success’ of our educational delivery? Isn’t it more important to inspire goals that promote social growth toward things like community responsibility, inspiring our future leaders to work for a peaceful world without abject poverty, or human and planet abuse? How do you judge the success of education without sitting down and having a valuable discussion eye to eye with the students? Grades still seem more based on the regurgitation of information – can’t we just leave that to the machines yet?
Comment by David Kirwin — January 24, 2008 @ 10:35 pm
It is defacto state control since the state controls the money. The state says “We think you should do x, y, z. You don’t have to do x, y, z, but then we will not fund this specific amount of $$$ for this specific item(s).
Comment by poguemahone — January 25, 2008 @ 8:28 am
# 77
Since neither Serrano v. Priest or Prop 13 is going to be overturned, who better to fund public CA K-12 schools than the Feds?
“Isn’t it more important to inspire goals that promote social growth toward things like community responsibility, inspiring our future leaders to work for a peaceful world without abject poverty, or human and planet abuse? How do you judge the success of education without sitting down and having a valuable discussion eye to eye with the students?”
No it’s not. Give them math, science and reading and help them understand what they’ve read.
With all due respect, pie-in-the-sky blathering about peace, poverty and abuse as subjects for, ’sitting down with our dear students and having a valuable discussion while leaving the rest to the machines’, solution does no more than relive your good old days in a ‘72 debate. Which, as history shows, you obviously lost.
Comment by Jack Richard — January 25, 2008 @ 9:10 am
Prop 13 needs to be eradicated.Gone. swept away, or whatever. To my understanding, if you cut through all the bullcrap, Prop 13 was a knee-jerk reaction to older folks losing their homes because property taxes were rising. What nobody considered in the long run was what it would not only do to schools, but ultimately what it would do to the cost of property. Many state economists have pointed blame on Prop 13 for it’s unforeseen negative impacts.
It really isn’t any different than Measure A or the more recent “stimulus package”, rate freeze proposals, and other bullshit band aids meant to address now current, soon to be obsolete problems. I view laws like these as none other than attempts to sweep problems under the carpet.If more people are moving to an area and having more kids, then the answer isn’t to suddenly stop building homes for them and hope they’ll go away. The same with prop 13, which is to say that yes- we might have helped save a few old folks from losing their homes, but instead thousands of Bay Area residents are losing their homes anyway because the prices got too high. Cause and effect. Choose your evil because one way or another, someone pays the price. Whether that be your kids, young couples, or even the general population is a given because in many ways they already have.
Lastly- most other states have property tax that goes up incrementally with the value of the real estate. This does two things: first, it provides funding that correlates to the cost of living. Secondly, it also serves as a safety valve that keeps property value in check to a degree and also gives owners a vested interest to see their property tax, and subsequently property values in direct proportion- in other words- manageable. This works out for everyone. Schools and roads get more money.Home prices don’t go ape and reach unrealistic levels, and young couples get a better chance of affording their own homes. That’s the stark opposite in California. So the question is… Why not have the same in this state?
Comment by edvard — January 25, 2008 @ 10:37 am
#80 Bravo! Some statements based in reality.
#79 You trust the feds more than the state? What kind of lunacy is that? If anyone thinks the state has us jumping through hoops like trained poodles in a circus, all the while more concerned with covering their own ass than the real business at hand- just have a go with feeds. P-LEEEEEEEZ! I don’t get it. Seems just when you start to make some sense it’s off to the lunatic fringe again.
For anyone interested in more lunacy check out St. Laurens coments here-
http://laurendo.wordpress.com/2008/01/23/one-parent-at-a-time/
Comment by poguemahone — January 25, 2008 @ 10:45 am
#81 Typo feeds=feds. Why isn’t there an edit option?
Comment by poguemahone — January 25, 2008 @ 11:33 am
# 81
I have to agree, the “one parent at a time” is almost as bad as # 80 edvard justifying increases in property taxes so property owners can judge how much their property is worth. That’s true lunacy.
Comment by Jack Richard — January 25, 2008 @ 12:21 pm
I’ll clarify. No- I don’t agree with the Fed AT ALL. I’m fact, I think we are heading right into what could be called “The lost decade” which was a time period in 1990’s Japan in which their country suffered a pronounced recession brought on for the same reasons as ours might be:
from wiki:
“The economic miracle ended abruptly at the very start of the 1990s. In the late 1980s, abnormalities within the Japanese economic system had fueled a massive wave of speculation by Japanese companies, banks and securities companies. Briefly, a combination of incredibly high land values and incredibly low interest rates led to a position in which credit was both easily available and extremely cheap.”
Anyhow, their government and financial bodies did the same as ours seems to be doing: Bailouts, dropping rates almost down to zero, and so forth. This led to their recession. So no- I totally disagree with what the Fed and government is doing.
As far as ridding prop 13, well I’m a realist and realize that removing it abruptly would cause economic panic in the state. The law has been in place for too long and as we see in housing, many are near the breaking point in their finances just to pay for the mortgage. A hike in property taxes would push countless others over the edge. That still doesn’t change my mind that the law is extremely flawed and in many ways tied to a great deal of the funding issues in the state.
I’m not sure if a parent by parent idea would work either. I will say that I would be perfectly happy to pay a bit more in taxes to help children of which I do not even have myself. Education is important and the state’s budget situation is a sham.
One way or another, the regulations that have caused the problems we now face need to at least be addressed as the pain in the side of the state’s operations. I just find it amazing that the richest, most economically powered, most heavily populated state in the country has one of the worst school systems in the country and one of the largest fiscal budget crisis’s as well.Seeing as how Californians seem to balk at anything and everything that possibly means change in their lives, I have no answers. If we can’t even agree on whether more people can build houses on a small sandbar of an island then I fail to see how a law like Prop 13 would ever get removed.
There are many problems in this state. Affordability, schools, infrastructure, illegal immigration, traffic, and on and on. So far not a single politician has breathed one sentence that has me believe that they’re even willing to address the issues and look them in the eye.Instead, I get emails from people like Senator Boxer that we aught to : ” Save the homeowners!” or some other bullshit so that all those bleating sheep that bought beyond their means can get a handout.
As you can tell, I’ve pretty much lost whatever faith I had with our political system to actually do what they’re supposed to do, which is to make America and California a better place to live. So what are we to do about our schools? Write to your congress person and tell them. I’ve already done that. Repeatedly.
Comment by edvard — January 25, 2008 @ 1:48 pm
ohh… whoops.I just realized that I responded to #81 incorrectly. Apologies. But you should see the striking similarities between 1990’s Japan and what the US appears to be doing. Very interesting.
Comment by edvard — January 25, 2008 @ 1:52 pm
#4 Follow up -
Washington population according to information from faculty = 380.
Reg. Ed. current capacity from district report cited = 356.
District prediction for this school year = 328.
Perhaps Mike could shed some light on this as it would seem we are over capacity unless Special Day Class is factored in differently and that accounts for the difference?
Comment by poguemahone — January 25, 2008 @ 3:52 pm
# 81
My position on the feds as it relates to K-12 education is: 15000+ school districts in the US, 50 States with NCLB standards left to each individual state to set the standards and determine whether or not they’re meeting those standards. Each state determining, in most cases, the funding level for each school district based on the wealth of the district; i.e., high value homes equal high property taxes equal highly funded school districts, low home values equals low funding for schools. The more the wealthy enclaves segregate themselves from low income the more the inequality in education.
Each kid in the US is entitled to a K-12 education. I believe, implied in that entitlement, is access to an equally funded education regardless of the income level of the parents or the value of the home they live in or the State’s determination which school districts warrant more funding than others.
Again, my position (and it’s not exclusive, it’s a position held by many on both sides of the political aisle) is that the Federal Government is the only entity that can bring a modicum of funding equality to the nation’s K-12 schools. And, as I said before, part of that funding would require nation wide standards in both the teaching profession and the achievement of the students. I do not pretend this is an immediate panacea, but look at the state of the nation and its system of education and tell me if a lunatic could not design a system more apt to fail.
Now I want to hear what your “local control” brings to the table.
Comment by Jack Richard — January 25, 2008 @ 8:15 pm
RE:#87
Answer: Local knowledge.
Question: What does the Fed know about funding equality and what method do they use to determine such?
Even within Ca we have a hard time adjusting funding levels to balance fiscal inequity. How the hell would the Fed do it?
You can’t possibly try to say a dollar has equal value anywhere in the country. (Although that may be a position held by many on both sides of the political aisle.) Wages, taxes, home and housing prices prices, food and fuel cost, etc, are different all across the country as are the needs of our people different in different regions. Surly you can’t say “equality means one size fits all”
Also re: #79 : teaching and promoting positive core values does not prevent teaching math science and reading. The question I have is why you think it would!
Comment by David Kirwin — January 25, 2008 @ 9:37 pm
You need to govern schools from the bottom up not top down, as it was in the past, we do not need more of NCLB and the like, we need less. But then how do you deal with funding? I think you/we are screwed there ’cause you gotta dance with the devil.
Comment by poguemahone — January 25, 2008 @ 11:31 pm
86
The number used by the District for actual is a date designated by the State to establish a baseline. In this case for FY 2007/08 that date was 10/03/2007. On that date, Washington had 336 regular education students and 13 Special Education students. On January 24, Washington had 356 regular education students and 14 special edcuation students.
Comment by Mike McMahon — January 26, 2008 @ 11:53 am
poguemahone,
Your heap of selected stats proves your first point which is that there are piles of stats for both points of view. You have buried me with enough stuff to neutralize my argument that charters don’t result in improvements, because I am now totally confused. I do pay attention to who does any particular study and the Hoover Institute for example always raises my suspicions, but I’ll move on.
Even if I accept that charters do result in better performance, there was limited information measuring that. The stuff from D.C. which was cited showed serious difference, but we have to know that each and every charter situation is different. Another thing which is never mentioned in any detail is method. It seems to me when details are mentioned, small class sizes come up.
Jack #52 “Many people contributing to this blog seem to think AUSD would be just fine if only the Charters would go away.”
I think that is a false statement. I object to the new charters on the grounds they will make things painfully worse at the worse possible time in memory in terms of money. I will repeat that AUSD would be a lot better off if we had ADA rates equal to the average private school tuition. I think the highest priority for money would be class size reduction K-12 and on that basis alone I object to charters as making that less attainable for the public system they leave behind.
I also have a long list of other objections regarding the way charters tend to serve elite populations, but that aspect hasn’t been debated here since NCLC was on the block.
We are having this discussion in the context of what the legal entitlement is currently, but I would be happy to consider revising or repealing the charter law, I just don’t know enough detail to take a stand at the moment. But in every aspect, I feel we must make the mainstream public education the priority before alternatives.
I hate what dave is thinking when it comes to vouchers, but appreciate he is honest about it.
The reason I revived Barbara Mooney’s Washington quote is because I never heard anybody interpret it as I thought it was intended, but what is more it was stripped and pasted into emails by NCLC supporters and framed in a way it wasn’t intended and then widely distributed.
Finally, on Prop 13, it really burns my ass when I see stuff like #75. “Prop 13 is here to stay. Get over it.” I don’t know if Tess V. says this because of support for Prop 13 or merely fatalism, but I refuse to except that. The same when I hear people moan about how you “you’ll never get people out of their SUVs”. How about we have $8 a gallon gas and drivers pay the real costs of the privilege to drive through car taxes which reflect the imbedded costs? But that’s another rant.
Certainly the status quo in the state legislature will not do more than give lip service to reforming prop 13. There were local folks working on this and I was receiving notifications of meetings and some updates, but I didn’t have time to get directly involved and haven’t heard anything in a while. My impression was that the principles of this discussion must have been thinking about lobbying because a ballot initiative was never mentioned, but I think that is what it takes. Veteran politicos shy away from the initiative process because they say it takes special interest money to launch such a campaign and the special interests are all against the change. Catch-22! They say that to try and fail is a set back.
I think that this is a rare case of how the initiative process was originally intended to be used. Even a failed attempt gets the debate out in the open. The primary concern is writing a legally solid document and then you take as long as needed to kick it into an actual campaign. People with no financial backing who are willing to bust ass over principle might begin to put some fear into the politicians. “I’m mad as hell and I don’t want to take this any more!”
Jack R.’s assertion that changing prop 13 won’t fix schools is a sloppy general statement. Reforms may not be a cure all, but the decline of California schools meshes chronologically with the passage of the law. Jack objects, I think, in part because he thinks more money won’t fix anything and is always wrong, but it was the bleeding of funds that caused the system to crumble and money for things like class size reduction ( yes more teachers and classrooms, so yes a bigger bureaucracy) is needed.
Barbara Kahn, are you listening? Do you know who is doing what on Prop 13?
Comment by Mark I — January 26, 2008 @ 12:39 pm
#90 Thanks Mike.
#91. I agree with almost all you have stated, and stated so well.
I am still not convinced though that charters = financial ruin and have found no empirical data to support that argument here or elsewhere.
The comment about charters being elitist is simply pure fiction as attested to by this quote from the California Department of Education (which by the way is headed up by Jack O’Connell, a life long Democrat with years of service in public schools)
“Student achievement among educationally and economically disadvantaged students in California public charter schools is improving faster than in non-charter public schools, according to the studies from the Hoover Institute at Stanford University (2003), and the School of Education at California State University, Los Angeles.”
- California Department of Education
Last Reviewed: Thursday, October 18, 2007
Comment by poguemahone — January 26, 2008 @ 1:17 pm
Re: #92 While I’m aware of the fact that the Hoover Institute is primarily a conservative think tank the same may not be said about the School of Education at California State University Los Angeles which is liberal in its leanings. It seems obvious that the California Department of Education choose these two studies to nullify any questions about bias.
Comment by poguemahone — January 26, 2008 @ 1:30 pm
#93
And then there is this UCB/Stanford study.
“Charter schools now offer hope for hundreds of thousands of families, many dissatisfied with mediocre or unsafe local schools,” said PACE co-director Bruce Fuller, a UC Berkeley professor of education and public policy who directed the study. “Ironically, we discovered that many charter students are exposed to less qualified teachers and weaker instructional support than if they had remained in regular public schools.”
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/04/08_charter.shtml
We can throw numbers at each other all day.
One thing that I do not understand is why those who want to start charters in order to benefit the children simply do not bid to take over an existing neighborhood school for the children in that attendance zone? If we want to preserve neighborhood schools, then why not have the charter founders simply run an existing one?
Comment by Alameda NayTiff — January 26, 2008 @ 2:14 pm
#94
I know for a fact that that HAS been explored with the district and was meet by with complete and total disinterest. In one instance ACLC received a huge grant to go towards a charter middle school. They approached the district, offered that the district hand pick the students to participate, even encouraging the district that they be the “most at risk children” but the district balked. So what does one do in the face of such stubborn, misguided, opposition?
Comment by poguemahone — January 26, 2008 @ 5:41 pm
How about if, during this round of budget cutting, the legislature did not reduce the funding of school districts, like Alameda, that don’t get their fare in the first place? I would like our representatives in the legislature to propose that.
Comment by Mike Rich — January 26, 2008 @ 9:39 pm
# 91
Wow, Mark, Tess V’s Prop. 13, “Get over it.” really did scorch your brain.
Couple of things you could maybe flesh out a bit; Could you enlighten us with just how you would write your phantom initiative to reform Prop 13? And, just what is the “principle” these reform people are going to “bust ass” over? Why do you assume your teacher’s union is more powerful than the prison guard union or the health care advocates or the infrastructure rebuilding advocates or the etc, etc, etc advocates all vying for all that money that will magically appear with the demise of Prop 13?
June 2007, “ASSEMBLYMAN Jared Huffman’s proposed reform of Proposition 13 is off the agenda.
It just wasn’t ready for prime time, he says. Opponents say it wasn’t going anywhere anyway.
The rookie lawmaker quietly scrapped the bill that would give voters the chance to lower the two-thirds majority required to pass special taxes. It went nowhere — not even a first-rung committee hearing.”
Sounds to me like Tess V has a realistic understanding of state politics.
Comment by Jack Richard — January 27, 2008 @ 11:15 am
#92 How can you say accusations of elitism are “pure fiction”? You like to characterize other people’s remarks as rhetoric, how do you define elitism anyway?
Again, EVERY charter is different. I’m not saying it is deliberate, but with ACLC for example there is a self selection process which begins with who is interested in applying to charters to begin with. At ACLC, the drop out rate skews this further in terms of the retaining the more disadvantaged populations. I don’t want to go back to race and I won’t, but socio-economically, the school doesn’t mirror the district well either.
We can argue whether this is really harmful, wrong etc. as dave and jack R. may, but I can’t except the statement that that skewing is imaginary or does not constitute a situation whether an odd population of kids who come to the school with more advantage are the ones who end up being served most.
Some folks think that if a certain group is willing to act for their children’s interest, it is their right and it shouldn’t matter who the pool is they end up being educated with, just give them the chance. But if that pool was likely to be largely the group Jack R. essentially disparages as dead wood who drag the good students down, I wonder how much people would scramble to have their kids in that charter with that elite group.
Comment by Mark I — January 27, 2008 @ 11:32 am
# 98, 91, et al
Mark I,
Could you start referencing by subject and comment number all the statements/thoughts/surmises/baloney you attribute to me. I’d like to go back and read some of the actual comments but it’s too hard to find exactly which one you’re mis-quoting or mis-interpreting.
Comment by Jack Richard — January 27, 2008 @ 11:42 am
#98 You all seem to want it both ways. First insisting that we must glean facts from statistics and studies. After I point out the ease with which one can find such info. to argue one way or the other it’s then questioned if my information is somehow biased. I then quote the California Department of Education’s findings based on two studies from opposing political agendas to be met with the assertion that “Again, EVERY charter is different.” Furthermore you had better have some solid irrefutable evidence when you start flinging around words like racism and elitism.
Comment by poguemahone — January 27, 2008 @ 12:26 pm
Why don’t any of you have anything to say about #95 or this from
#34 “I challenge any of you to come up with SPECIFIC verifiable unbiased instances in which a public charter school(s) directly created financial hardship within the district they operate.” (Even though by law a district can not deny a charter based on financial impact since the state feels it is not a valid argument.)
Comment by poguemahone — January 27, 2008 @ 12:47 pm
#100 I’ve said what I have said. What are you threatening if I keep on the same line? I don’t appreciate being bullied myself when I’m trying to have rational discussion.
The statistics for ACLC are known to all of us who read them. I NEVER said there was racism for the 100th time. Many of us have referred to the numbers for who the district is at large and the disparity between that and the make up of ACLC. It isn’t racist to do so or say that it is an important fact.
Elitism is another matter. When you create any special group, arbitrarily or otherwise, the product could be described as elite. As an average, the achievement at ACLC is not so much do to the special curriculum as it is WHO the students are to begin with and who the parents are who are backing them up. All you had to do was attend the BOE meetings and watch who stood up to give testimony for ACLC.
The ironic and awful twist is that AP students at ACLC are taught by regular Encinal staff, yet ACLC gets the benefit of the API and Encinal does not. Is that not skewed?
Yo Jack. You post so often I couldn’t keep track of you without a special file.
How about this. When I am accused of calling people racist and I disagree, I defend myself. You seem pretty good at that. If you don’t like my paraphrases of the baloney you have posted, take a case in point and refute it. Deny that you have said repeatedly that the better students shouldn’t be forced to be dragged down by the bad apple, or state how I mischaracterize what you said in that instance. You also SEEM to consistently argue the line that Big Gubmint is evil, or at least you ere on the side of having the least confidence that any bureaucracy can spend money responsibly.
If this is wrong then correct it maybe, but while you are at it consider that it may not be me twisting what you’ve said so much as how people hear what you think you have said.
Comment by Mark I — January 27, 2008 @ 1:20 pm
# 98
Mark I, I’ve read your 98 post and, with all due respect, truthfully I do not know what you are saying. The argument you attribute to me about whether ACLC’s dropout rate is or is not harmful; did you mean you can’t “except” that it’s imaginary or did you really mean you can’t “accept” that it’s imaginary? The way it reads is that you think it may indeed be imaginary (since you can’t except or exclude it) in which case you would be agreeing with the despicable argument you attribute to me (mistakenly, I might add).
And in your last paragraph, could you run by me, just who I’m accused of “essentially” disparaging? Is it the elite “deadwood” (you mistakenly attribute to me as dragging the good students down) or is it the nonfiction elite of the elite who drag the poor students up?
Comment by Jack Richard — January 27, 2008 @ 1:50 pm
#101
“About $1.2 million of the current year’s shortfall comes from a larger-than expected enrollment in city charter schools, said Joseph Rufo, the district’s chief fiscal officer.
The district had anticipated the city’s two charter schools would attract 64 more city students than the 656 who attended last year. But with one charter school moving to a new, larger building and the other excelling on state performance tests, 202 more students went the charter route, district figures show. ”
http://www.syracuse.com/articles/news/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1200995728102850.xml&coll=1
“The larger deficit is being driven by a number of factors, including higher utility bills, a new program to pay students’ bus and subway fares, and larger-than-expected student enrollments at charter schools and cyber charter schools, Tom Brady, the district’s interim chief executive officer, said.”
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20080117_Despite_growing_deficit__a_promise_to_make_it_zilch.html
“Philadelphia - A $15 million budget deficit in the School District of Philadelphia has grown to $33 million in just three months thanks in part to unanticipated spending on charter schools, school district officials conceded yesterday.”
http://www.thebulletin.us/site/news.cfm?newsid=19206356&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=618959&rfi=6
“Losing students to charter schools also funnels money away from needy public schools, said Heather Williams, a Mount Greylock Regional School Committee member.”
“If a student goes to a charter school, it takes money away from the district. Yet, when we get a student through school choice, it brings in little money,” she said.
http://iberkshires.com/story.php?story_id=25780
Comment by Alameda NayTiff — January 27, 2008 @ 2:46 pm
ANT - Are you imply that all states fund K - 12 educations with the same funding laws?
My view of charter schools: When compared to the District where they exist; some charter schools good, some bad. They all seem to be able to reflect the same student diversity as in the district’s student population, they are more efficient administratively because the bureaucracy is smaller and supported by the parent district. My perception is that in CA charter schools are allowed greater freedom and curriculum flexibility so that the State education “experts” can see what works or doesn’t work. Charter School curriculums are like lab experiments, and some work better than others. Likewise the Charter schools themselves are like researchers - some put their life work into it to further the ‘science’ and some are into it more for the ‘grant money’ than the ’science’. It looks to me like ACLC has reaped kudos from many like Jack O’Connell who should know the ’science’ of good education delivery. But then again Don Perata wrote praises in ‘02 to the Bey family of Your Black Moslem Bakery, for all the wonderfully work they did. Obviously today anyone has to be a fool to trust the word of ‘experts’. Perhaps it is better to only trust after you personally verify.
To Mark I - Perhaps the reason you think the ACLC population are educational elitists is that your only perception is of the parents who cared enough to speak at the BOE meeting. It is very likely a skewed perception if you only examine those who care so strongly as to show up, be involved, participate, and speak out. Clearly we have learned that there are many others on the far end of the scale that wouldn’t know for months whether their 9th grader was even going to the school or not. I’ll bet those parents were never at any BOE meeting.
So Charter schools can be good or bad, and are available to all students equally across the diversity spectrums. I believe that these ‘experiments’ are also financially more efficient per student thinks to the parent district carrying the bureaucratic burden. I think having additional options is a plus. The downside is the financial hit to the parent district which is minor when compared to the havoc that the governor can create (despite the funding requirements decided upon by voters), and secondly, or sadly (depending on perspective), by law, the financial hit to the school district is not allowed to be a evaluation factor in determining the qualifications of a charter’s application.
On the other hand, Vouchers. My opinion of “vouchers” is drastically different. ‘Vouchers’ is a “neo-con”, elitist method of dismantling the educational system.
Comment by David Kirwin — January 27, 2008 @ 9:53 pm
#104 as I stated in #34 UNBIASED is the key missing in your examples; as in a neutral, objective party, not a school district or it’s agents.
Also, as Mr. Kirwin has pointed out it seems all of your examples are outside of California and the funding laws may be drastically different.
Furthermore I do not see how a district could accurately track the so called lost money anyway since at least some of the kids without having had the charter option would have been home schooled or gone to private schools and then often as is the case here in Alameda with the B.A.S.E. charter, many kids may come from other neighboring districts further complicating where the money would have come from, or gone to without the charter option.
But, nice try.
I’m still waiting for a response as to #95.
If the district is so strapped for cash why did they balk at partnering in a charter that ACLC had acquired a $400,000 grant for in which they, (the district) could have hand picked the student population for?
Comment by poguemahone — January 27, 2008 @ 11:18 pm
#102 You want to talk disparity? Why doesn’t anyone bring up the fact that Franklin is 60% White non-Hispanic and comes nowhere close to mirroring the district at large in ethnicity? Isn’t there a huge problem in that?
So, it is elitist to be caring involved parents or did I miss something? I didn’t realize children in Special Day Class qualify as elitist since they are in a “created special group” and that is elitism. Thanks for clarify