(From the blog of Mister Journalism: Reading, Sharing, Discussing, Learning)
“Can Detroit schools be stabilized? Ed Tech – who is being served? Are Charter schools Public schools?”
By Jeff Salisbury https://misterjournalism.wordpress.com/
Why none of the Detroit Public Schools legislation will actually stabilize the district | Detroit Metro Times blog
Posted By Allie Gross on Friday, March 18, 2016
On Thursday (last) the Michigan House passed a “rescue package” that would give $47.8 million to Detroit Public Schools to help the district finish out the rest of the school year.
Earlier this month the district’s new Emergency Manager Judge Steven Rhodes (who for some reason prefers to go by the title “transition manager”) announced that the district would be unable to stay open and pay teachers/staff past April.The House “rescue package,” which takes dollars from the state’s tobacco settlement fund and would allow the district to remain open through June, now heads to the Senate for deliberation. It should not, however, be confused with the bigger legislative debates currently happening around DPS’s future.
Read the full post here:
When It Comes to Public School Technology… Who REALLY Is Being Served?
Peter Greene’s CURMUDGUCATION blog Tuesday, March 15, 2016
The issues of tech in education are a mixed and mottled bag. Some folks are driven and excited to get any tech into a classroom no matter what, and other folks automatically rise up in revolt when education technology darkens their door. I fall into neither camp.
Modern ed tech can be hugely helpful and enormously valuable. It can open up a whole world of possibilities. But like most magic, it comes with a price, and sometimes the price is too high and the benefits too small.
When someone wants to drop some tech on us, it’s time to ask some questions, and boy, are there many questions to ask. How do we distinguish between tech that can enhance education and tech that needs to be avoided? I think we can cut to the heart of the matter with one question.
Read the full post here:
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2016/03/who-is-being-served.html
Why charter schools are not public schools
Peter Greene’s CURMUDGUCATION blog Monday, March 14, 2016 (
Here’s the shortest, simplest list of talking points I can craft.
1) Charter schools use public tax dollars, but are not accountable for how those dollars are spent.
Charters don’t have to tell how they spend public tax dollars. Not a cent of it. In fact, they have gone to court to defend their right to stay unaccountable to elected officials.
2) Charter schools are run by unelected persons who are unaccountable to the voters.
Charter school boards are not elected. Charter corporation executives may not even live in the community where the schools operate. Charter boards do not have to open their meetings to the public– ever. If you are a parent with a child in the charter, your only “voice” is to pull the child out. If you are a taxpayer without a child, you have no voice at all.
3) Charter schools do not have to accept all students.
The most basic promise of public schools in the US is that they must take every child in their community. Charters do not have any such requirement. Besides pushing students out, charters can use targeted advertisement and demanding application processes that push away the less desirable students.
4) Charter schools are business-centered, not child-centered.
Charter advocates will claim that only a small percentage of charters are for-profits, but a noon-profit charter is just a charter that doesn’t have to share its profits with shareholders.
Yes, teachers and educators in public schools make money from working there. But if a teacher wants a raise, she must bargain for it with elected representatives of the taxpayers. Because of 1 and 2 above, charter leaders can give themselves as much of a raise as they like. For charter operators, every dollar spent on a child’s education is one less dollar they get to pocket.
Read the full post here:
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2016/03/bernies-charter-lesson.html
— until next time, keep reading, sharing, discussing and learning.
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