Charter Schools: Stockpiling Money, or Good Stewards of their Finances

In Massachusetts, there is a big problem, somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 million dollars. It seems that the charter schools in this state have the audacity to have a cash surplus, and they are actually being attacked for it.

Imagine, you work hard to save your money, and spend what you have responsibly. Your friends have not done such a good job. Let's see what the critics say:

Glenn Koocher, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, said the report shows charter schools are "stockpiling large reserves" when other public schools are struggling to make ends meet.

"It cries out for reform of the charter school funding system," Koocher said. "If they've got money to give back, why don't they give it back to the people they took it from."

But is there another side to this?

But defenders of charter schools say it's misleading to suggest they are rolling in cash. They say that, unlike traditional public schools, charter schools are barred from accepting money from the state's School Building Assistance fund.

Since they have to rent or lease their buildings, charter schools operators say they need to keep extra money in the bank from year to year.

"It's almost a necessity for a successful charter school to run a surplus," said Marc Kenen, executive director of the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association. "We took this report as a very favorable report about how charter schools are managing their finances."

Read more...

Attention Parents! Pick a School at a Community Fair!

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to actually find a school for your child that meets their needs?

Imagine being able to actually shop around...browse through pamphlets and meet the staff.

Well, it's happening in Indianapolis:

"Parents went shopping Monday at Circle Centre mall, but they weren't looking for clothes, shoes or toys.

Their mission was much more fundamental: They were browsing the schools at a Charter School Community Fair at the Indianapolis Artsgarden.

Dozens of parents picked up literature and interviewed staff from the 17 alternative public schools in the city, searching for the best matches for their children for the 2009-10 school year.

Sponsored by Mayor Greg Ballard, the first-of-its-kind fair allowed parents to supplement their research on the schools with one-stop shopping convenience.

And parents were being methodical and particular about making a decision so critical to their children's futures."

Read on here...

Charter School Does Not Recognize Union

KIPP AMP in Crown Heights, Brooklyn has decided not to recognize the union, and is using intimidation tactics?? What defines intimidation you may ask? This:

"The city’s teachers’ union also filed a complaint with the state’s labor board on Thursday, claiming that the administration intimidated employees at KIPP AMP and used staff meetings to discourage them from forming a union.

According to the complaint, Mr. Levin attended a mandatory staff meeting and said that the teachers’ current retirement, maternity and private pension benefits would be “potentially in jeopardy” and “all of that goes away,” if they formed a union. At the meeting, Mr. Levin distributed a letter with instructions on how to revoke their support for a union, union officials said.

George Arzt, a spokesman for KIPP, said that Mr. Levin was simply responding to inquiries from teachers about their options under state law, and added that the same information was available on the Web site of the state’s labor board."

Read on...

No Liquor Stores, Landfills or Charter Schools!!

Does this make anyone angry?

"ST. LOUIS — When leaders of the St. Louis Public Schools prepared to sell a slew of old school buildings a year ago, they moved to ban a few businesses from buying. They barred liquor stores, landfills, distilleries, as well as shops that sell "so-called 'sexual toys.'"

They also blackballed charter schools.

Now, as the school board debates closing as many as 29 more buildings in the shrinking city district, and as new charter schools search desperately for space, a swell of anger is rising up against that restriction.

Legislators have readied resolutions in Jefferson City asking the district to remove the ban. Pro-charter and school-choice groups have sent around press releases. Residents worry about the empty buildings that will rot their neighborhoods."

Or what about this?

"We tried to buy three," said Susan Uchitelle, board member at Confluence Academy, a charter school with three campuses and 2,700 students in St. Louis.

"We finally just gave up," Uchitelle said. "It was made very clear they weren't going to sell to us. They'd show them to us. They'd let us walk through them. But then they'd take them off the market."

(Click here for the whole story)

Democrats debate U.S. education reform

by Colin Chazen

2-10-09

A teacher's union organizer and an education reform lobbyist sparred last night in a wide-ranging discussion about the future of the American education system. The speakers, both Democrats, differed primarily over whether reforms should focus on improving the current system or expanding the use of charter schools.

Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform, advocated greater flexibility and spoke against powerful interest groups that oppose major changes.

"There was a notion if you supported anything other than the status quo, than investing in the system as it is, you couldn't be a Democrat," Williams said. "The teachers unions are telling us not to have these conversations."

Patrick Crowley, assistant executive director of the Rhode Island National Education Association, argued that teachers are not the enemies and should not be blamed for systematic problems.

"It's not summers off and getting out at two o'clock," Crowley said. "The enemy is a lot of the policies that the people in power have always used."

The discussion, which was sponsored by the Department of Education, the Brown Democrats and Students for Education Reform, came ahead of a pending $800-billion federal stimulus package that will allocate billions of dollars to education projects across the country. Both speakers said they are hopeful that President Obama will bring positive change to the education system, but described a litany of contradicting views and opinions on what types of reforms are needed and which will be successful.

"Pick a study and I'll show one that says the opposite," Crowley said...

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Education in the Stimulus Package

Do More on Education in the Stimulus
by Seyward Darby

Thanks to the hefty sum--roughly $140 billion--slated for education funding in the federal stimulus package, heated debate over education reform has hit the news yet again. Although they welcome the attention being paid to the nation's schools, many reformers, who favor hard-line measures like performance pay, high-stakes testing, and charter school funding, are rightly arguing that there should be more conditions encouraging broad, innovative changes attached to the stimulus funds.

The main goal of the education measures is to rescue state and local school budgets that are languishing in the bad economy. As the package stands now, upwards of $15 billion would go toward school improvement, namely construction and renovation; roughly $26 billion would assist poor and disabled students through Title I and IDEA programs; and several billion more would fund student financial assistance, namely Pell grants. But, of the $140 billion, the largest portion--$79 billion--would be part of a stabilization fund meant to prevent major education cuts and layoffs. "We want to save literally hundreds of thousands of teaching jobs," Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told CNN last week.

Some reformers, however, worry that the bill could buttress jobs for teachers who aren't performing, without demanding that they start doing so. "Some of the jobs might not be worth saving," Mike Petrilli of the Fordham Institute, a conservative education think tank, told me this morning. Similarly, in a Washington Post column on Tuesday, Richard Cohen asked, "How about doing something [in the stimulus] about the sad fact that teachers aren't what they used to be?"

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Charter Schools Fight to Be Started

***Academic shortfalls? Where have we heard this before? Why try something new when what we have been doing does not work? Read below FTM***


City district recommends against 2 new charter schools

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

By Joe Smydo, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Two proposed charter schools are getting poor reviews from the Pittsburgh Public Schools.

Citing academic shortfalls and other concerns, district administrators last night recommended that the city school board reject proposals for the Quest International Charter School and the Community Service Leadership Development Charter School.

The school board will vote on the recommendations at its legislative meeting Feb. 24.

Organizers of Quest International proposed a school for kindergarten through 12th grade. They have been exploring a North Side location and proposed themes of social justice and social service.

City school officials said the proposed school lacked a coherent curriculum and questioned its financial plan, estimating it would run a $744,440 deficit its first year.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

Does your state have any charter school laws?

Here are the states that you will not find any charter schools:

Alabama
Kentucky
Maine
Montana
Nebraska
North Dakota
South Dakota
Vermont
Washington
West Virginia

Mississippi, Iowa, Rhode Island, Virgina and Kansas are the top 5 states with the weakest laws.

How do you feel about this? Are you in a state that does not have any charter school laws yet? Let us know what you think!

Here is a great link if you want to see where your state ranks, and what the laws are.

Public Charter School Bill in Mississippi Heads to the House!

Sunday, February 01, 2009

The charter school bill pushed by state Sen. Michael Watson, R-Pascagoula, passed through the Senate last week and is bound to the House for consideration.

The bill is an attempt to strengthen Mississippi's anemic charter school law, which expires in July.

"Public charter schools are accountable, innovative and encourage community and parent involvement," Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant said. "They also stimulate improvement by creating competition in failing school districts. Our kids deserve better opportunities to learn, and public charter schools can help bridge that learning gap."

While many states have experimented with charter school programs, Mississippi has largely resisted. There is only one charter school in the state in Merigold largely because the current law makes it difficult to create them.

Watson's bill features two types of charter schools. A conversion charter is a public school that the state Board of Education allows to convert. An open enrollment public charter is a public school operating under either the state Board of Education or a local school board that may attract students across school district borders.

"This offers parents a choice about public education," Watson said.

Click here to read the rest of the story.