Tim,
Glad to see you posted this article. Did you also see the Ed Department report that showed public schools are doing as well or better than private schools? I take it you still read the Star online because the papers in Texas don't publish these kind of stories?

Arleigh

Why would you care about a study like that? If it came out the other way, would that change your mind about the right school?

Oh, by the way, “Harvard University researchers publicized findings last week calling into question the methodology of recent studies finding that students at public schools did as well as or better than their private school peers on some standardized tests when scores were adjusted for student characteristics.” A professor at Harvard’s JFK School of Government found that when he and a student “reanalyzed data from the NAEP using different variables to adjust for student characteristics, students at private schools came out on top of those in public schools in almost all areas.”

Arleigh, you still have time to enroll your son in a private high school.

Jerre

Jerre,
You just can't except the fact that public schools are doing better than private and charter schools, even when the study comes from the White House. Seems to me the government should create an NCLB for private schools so those kids don't fall behind.

Question: Should a charter school take money from taxpayers, to educate their students, and also guarantee that school's investors a 10% profit?

Question: Should a charter school also have the right to hand pick the students they'll accept or deny enrollment to?

Another question gs, should a Charter School that is paying off investors with taxpayer money be allowed to keep their list of investors secret? The night Vista Real was approved by Kunicki and others, they refused to say who their investors were, why? What is there to hide?

No way! That investor info should be part of public records and available for public scrutiny.

Kunicki was once before accused of an alledged conflict of interest while head of the City planning commission (he was reportedly on the payroll of a developer that had a large and controversal project before city planners) I don't know what the final determination was but he resigned in the midst of that controversy and has since worked with the same developer. There are some who believe that those same developers may be involved in the Vista Real project, along with their east coast financial backers and that some local politicians are involved in the Vista Real project. Who's to say what's true or what's false when those involved won't speak to the public?

If only to put an end to speculation, the Vista real partners AND Kunicku should be impelled to disclose this information or the Board should revisit their highly suspect approval of a taxpayer subsidized profit scheme.

This purported guarantee of 10% to the investors brings up the question of legality. If this guarantee requires the operators of the school to take that 10% off the top off the monies being provided by the State then aren't they violating the State's mandate to provide equal educational opportunity to their students? I'll be the first to admit I know almost nothing about per pupil public school spending vs charter school spending but if the amount provided by the State, per pupil, is the same then it would appear that Vista Real may be breaking the law and that the Board may have contributed to a crime by approving the school in the first place.

Can anyone instruct us all as to the particulars of the PS vs CS financing & spending?

Arleigh – I was a little suspicious of the first look at the NAEP testing, because it stated that the results had been “adjusted” to get to the conclusion that public school students were doing better. Fortunately, people much smarter than I were also suspicious. They looked at the data and came to the conclusion that “students at private schools came out on top of those in public schools in almost all areas.” That article can be found in Ed Week, August 9 issue.

It is interesting that upwards of 30% of public school teachers, folks that are most knowledgeable of public school education, send there own kids to private schools. This far exceeds the rate of 10% of the general population that sends their kids to private school. If public schools were so good, don’t you think that all public school teachers would send their own kids there?

President and Hillary Clinton supported the public school system 100% -- and they sent their daughter to private school. It would be interesting to see how many families would flock to private schools if cost was not an issue.

Both Arleigh and gs seem to believe that education is directly related to how many dollars are spent. Maybe, just maybe, is HOW the dollars are spent. I would guess that charter schools spend far less on administration and bureaucracy so that more of the dollars actually are spent on the kids. Profit is not a dirty word. If you work for a private company, would you rather work for one that makes a profit, or one that doesn’t? Public sector workers have little motivation to do things efficiently. As long as there is one taxpayer left with a dime in his pocket, there is money to be spent.

Jerre

Far from it Jerre! I don't see ANY correlation between spending and performance and that was NOT the issue I raised. Nor do I advocate more spending: merely a more efficient application of that spending.

What I DID point out was that the State constitution requires that each student is offered equal opportunity and until someone can come up with absolute evidence that Vista Real students aren't being short-changed the people behind that for-profit enterprise need to open up their books and tell us how they can guarantee their investors a 10% profit.

The biggest correlation to increasing student performance is parental involvement in the schools, not money, not nifty policy reform, just down and dirty parental involvement. What I find most interesting is that most comparative studies between Japan and the US don't discuss the family role in education.

Personally, while I attended public school and did pretty well. I have new concerns if my child faced drugs, school violence, and bullying on a daily basis. I would see that as a hinderance on development in both private and public school settings. I am actually growing more skeptical of the argument that school socialization is important.

Second, studies have indicated that homeschoolers generally outperform children in either public or private schools and that the gap between minority and white students is non-existent in the homeschool world.

While I'm not a total believer at this point, if I had to make a choice for my child, I would much prefer that my family is in charge of our child's educational capabilities and success. To me, reliance on government, charter schools or private industry to educate my child just seems like I'm passing the buck.

This might be a break from waht I've discussed earlier, but my question to everyone is why not homeschool your kids?

Maybe the old adage of "If you want things done right, do it yourself," should really hold true here.

I welcome a discussion on this topic.

gs

How do you determine that each student is offered equal opportunity? I'm not clear on that point.

Jerre,
We get it, you hate public schools and regardless of the facts, that is your position. Funny that you also claim to want tax cuts, but at the same time you seem to careless if tax dollars are being misused. When you ran for School Board you said you support public schools, but now you say you do not? Were you hoping to destroy public education from the inside out?

Jerre! I don't know how to determine that, at this time. But that's the problem: no one does, or no one's honest enough to show us how.

I spoke with the directors of the Vista Real Charter School's that the County VCBOE approved. Their school's are targeted for students at risk of failing or students who have been expelled from other school's. I inquired if they had student support service's by credentialed special education teachers and they informed that they do not.

Many students that are failing have learning disabilities that have contributed to their educational difficulties, they also have self-esteem problems because they perceive themselves as less smart than other students because they struggle while they watch their peers breeze by. So, they assume an identity that they do not care and that school is not "their thing" and they try to find an identity that they feel they can identify and associate with. That's when the problems begin that lead to their failure. Vista Real also does not have licensed therapists availble to students, our public school's do if it is determined that they need counseling in order to succeed in their education. Students can have therapy while they are at school so they do not have to be taken out of school during school hours making it even more difficult to keep up with their work.

My understanding is that Vista Real does not offer extra curricular's or other ways to engage students that are already having a difficult time. There are many studies that attest to the fact that being involved in extra-curricular activities improves student performance and social skills and helps them to "fit in."

Charter school's are exclusionary, they target a certain demographic of student's that public school's are not serving that's why they are created and approved. If a school district is not doing their job that is not a bad thing, if they are needed and a school district is not offering the programs that student's need to succeed.

Most school district's make sure that they meet all the needs of students. Oftentimes surrounding communities will provide inter-district transfers to students whose educational needs are more individualized and they can not meet them. This is often true of smaller district's that it would not be fiscally possible to offer every possible type of student's educaitonal need. There is an operation's cabinet for the County school's that is made up of the Director's of Student Support Services from each school district. It is at these cabinet meetings that they sometimes make agreements to have different specialized programs in different communities in order to be able offer a program that would not be fiscally feasible at both school district's.

When I was appointed to the state mandated County School's Community Advisory Committee, by SVUSD Trustees we would meet with a members of the Operation's Cabinet monthly to make sure that the County School District's were collaborating well and making sure all student's needs were met and that one district was not overly burdened. If there is a dispute it is the responsibility of the County Board of Education to resolve the issue. My experience is that the Community Advisory Committee usually intervened and the County Board of Education never became involved. I never saw a VCBOE Trustee attend a CAC meeting in the three years that I served and none of the subsequent representatives have seem any VCBOE Trustee's ever attend a CAC meeting either.

Jerre I am still amazed you try to attack public schools using Bill Clinton as an example.

George Bush favors people driving thier own cars to get to work, yet he uses motorcades!

Ronald Reagan favored a strong national defense but yet he didn't carry a gun!

Maybe The Clintons feared for their daughters safety because they could be the targets of an international terrorist group. Maybe I am wrong but I bet Al Queda is looking to get Jerre Reimers.

Arleigh: Like President Clinton, I support public education 100%. It’s just that the public schools did not meet my kids’ needs. This blog has raised a number of problems with public schools and I am in a position to offer some thoughts about private schools and how they do things differently. I think your only problem with private schools is that there is no union control. If you are happy with public schools, don’t give a moment’s thought about what’s happening in private schools. No amount of evidence is going to change your mind. You never did share with us your expectations of what your kids will achieve by attending public school. My goal in participating in this blog is to make sure the parents are aware that there are alternatives to public school, including home-schooling. I ran for the school board because I have direct experience with both public and private schools and I want to share some of the private school successes with the public schools. None of the current Board members seem to have knowledge of private school operations. Therefore, they are hard-pressed to offer up proven ideas. None of the problems raised in this blog will be solved in any reasonable amount of time, and maybe never. There are too many expectations of public schools.

Did anyone know that “the Ninth Circuit ruled in November that a parent's authority to make basic decisions about a child's upbringing does not include a constitutional right to control what the child is taught at school.”

Just wondering?

Public education is a State & Local affair, not a Federal one (at least not until the Bush Admin decides to make it so, as they're trying awfully hard to do). As long as public ed is offered in a way that doesn't violate State and/or Federal laws, and since there's no provision in the Constitution even remotely related to parental rights, in re the education of their kids, there's no Constitutional issue.

Besides, can't you think of a lot of people out there that SHOULD NOT be allowed to dictate what schools should or shouldn't be teaching their kids?