I think this brings up the larger point that very few can afford to be teachers. I taught for Los Angeles USD at a special-ed school, loved my job, but once I started having children of my own, I quickly realized that I would perpetually be in debt if I stayed on their pay scale. Many other amazing teachers were forced to make the same difficult decision. I think the real blame is on the whole damn system that devalues teaching as such a critical role in society. Take a few basis points from what we spend on the military and none of us would be having this conversation. We’re fighting over scraps here.
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Need to add in the state “tax reform” of the 70s and 80s a la CA Prop 13 which radically eliminated local funding for social programs like education.
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BB also runs stories where students protest (and other issues) in public schools. If it seems to anyone that a disproportionate number of these stories are about charters, the obvious reason is not that Cory is selectively combing the news with an agenda.
This particular story is about a school that did fire good teachers just because they wanted to organize (story on NLRB report) and the school is technically non-profit because they spun off a profitable organization, run by the same people, as a legal tax dodge (ruling on tax-exempt status). Perhaps #notallcharters, but the accusations appear to be true for this school.
That said, while I applaud the students for their intent and bravery, I don’t think commencement is the place for this. The ceremony is for the family of the students, all the students, and – especially in a school where many or most of the students are from poor or immigrant communities – most of the parents and aunties and grandparents just want to be able to unreservedly celebrate the accomplishment of their offspring. It is in bad taste to sour the celebration buy telling all these people that they made an unethical choice of school for their kids.
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Absolutely. It started with the Feds cutting 70% of school funding over the course of 3 decades. Followed closely by the States, pinched by the Federal cuts, doing their best to keep up but failing, with some just throwing their hands up and practically giving up on education. That left public school funding almost completely up to the local school districts, with one of their only mechanisms for funding being the property tax. People railed about having their property taxes raised constantly without realizing that it was because education was being raided at both the Fed and State levels, pitting residents against both the school district and teachers.
To sum up: it’s a big fat mess. And it all started with, what is basically a temper-tantrum reaction by conservatives to Brown v Board. If you’re going to force desegregation, then we’re killing public education. How’s that working for you, Alabama?
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“They are privately run schools which receive public funding”
Weird I called the district in Detroit that the school is in and they said the school in question is a public school. And the principal of the school receives a paycheck from the public school district. You’ve got a weird idea of “privately run”. I think your beef is with the privately run curriculum provider.
I think the difference here is semantics. You haven’t much experience with tax returns, corporate structure or the mechanics of public charter schools.
Go ahead call them what you want Mangochin
You could tell how soured it was by all the cheering. 
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Ok, fair. But we do need to eliminate charter schools to properly amputate and cauterize them from our future.
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Subsequently, charter schools across the nation rolled out new codes of conduct for all students, forbidding them and their families from criticising the institutions on pain of disciplinary action, suspension, expulsion and legal action.
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Once she starts talking about the issues it is mainly muttering, until other students start shouting for the volume to be raised. This is clearly something many of the students feel strongly about – which is fantastic, and also reinforces how great these teachers must have been – but I still think graduation ceremonies are not for the students but for their families. Of course, the school made it much much worse by shutting off the microphone.
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Quite right. When you create a school, immediately create a parallel private corporation, and use the former to funnel money into the latter while letting the former’s non-profit status get you tax breaks and accreditation, then calling the school a “non-profit” is just semantics.
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I disagree. #1 for students, distant #2 for families. I just went to a high school graduation ceremony. If that was for me (as family of a graduate), I want a refund. I told the rest of the family not to come, as it was just going to be a chaotic mess for the audience. However, for the graduates, it was recognition of the work they put in to graduate and an important transition to their next stage of larval development.
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Yes, some ceremonies are not especially audience-friendly; some of us were close to passing out by the end of my son’s college graduation.
I’ve been to many K-12 ceremonies, and enough in higher education that I own my own regalia, and in almost all of them the people who appreciated them most were the families, especially parents and grandparents who themselves had no comparable degree.
I do. My parents are retired public high school teachers and my wife was on the board of a public charter school. This isn’t a public school. Here’s a hint:
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Hardly. The entire concept of charter schools is parasitic to public education. There is no actual choice because the funding for the charter schools represents a diversion of funds from the public ones. A non-public charter school is just a private school. One that is not paid for by taxpayers.
Even vouchers are a sham. The private schools more likely to take vouchers are the ones most likely to be warehousing their poorer students or in some cases flat out segregating them from those who pay full tuition. Also it represents diverting funds from public schooling and eliminating choices.
Moreover, at no point do Charter schools have any mandate to teach entire communities. So their stats easily reflect a level of selectability which is repugnant to the mandate of public schools.
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Hamadeh Educational Services owns and operates the school and is a for profit corporation.
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Also, about 4 in 5 charter schools in Detroit are for profit and in the public school system. There’s literally a nationally famous effort by the current head of the Department of Education to set the system up that way by using the billions she inherited to influence policy in Michigan and nation wide.
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Hardly what? Either you’re calling me a liar or you’re not aware that there are non-profit public charter schools that are part of the same district and oversight of the rest of the schools in the district. Yes, John Oliver and Boing Boing told us all that charters are evil but that’s simply not the case. In fact, even John Oliver backed down on his initial assertions to later admit that there are successful models.
Hello and welcome. Do stick around.
Whaddaya know here it is! 
I wouldn’t expect a reply from Cory, he tends not to stick around for the comments much - although he does sometimes, it’s rare. Other writers are much more involved on the comments.
And, yes, a lot of the posters here share many of the same views. But if you stick around, that’ll be one more who doesn’t…
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In what state? Every state has it’s own charter school law and they vary wildly. In Pennsylvania, for example, charter schools are public schools that are overseen by the district they are chartered in and can’t discriminate based on race or gender.
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I got almost all of my education from K-12 from “alternative” schools designed for people with self-directed learning. These were created during the Summerhill movement, at a time when people were raging against “the man” in every way, from war to education. So I have a strong tendency to support education alternatives, but only those that are public schools, open to everyone without prejudice (including testing). But I also struggle to understand how my schools are any different than nonprofit charter schools and magnet schools.
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