NC charter schools

What was that Republicans were saying about the Dix deal?

A state Senate committee on Wednesday discussed legislation that would make charter schools more aggressive competitors for students and the taxpayer money that follows them. The measure would cancel the current requirement that at least half a charter school's teachers be certified. Charter school directors could decide whether to check job applicants for any criminal history. Local school boards would be required to lease available buildings or land to a charter school for $1 a year.

The hypocrisy is mind-boggling. It's bad enough to siphon off taxpayer dollars to subsidize schools that don't even require certified and vetted teachers, but to force local governments to give them real property, which the local school board will have no jurisdiction over, is tantamount to theft on a massive scale. Adam Smith would not approve, I'm fairly certain.

We don't need no stinking college graduates:

There are so many troubling things about Senate Bill 337, an N.C. charter school bill unveiled last week, that it’s hard to know where to start. But this item stands out like a sore thumb: The bill would remove the requirement that at least half of a charter school’s teaching staff be certified, or be college educated.

Well, most of them teach right out of the book anyway, so...wait a minute. We don't have enough money for new books, either. Well, as long as they check these new degreeless people out first before they put them in the class...wait a minute. We're not going to do that anymore, either:

Pardon the Star Trek reference, but... Your Child Will Be Assimilated:

Lambeth said converting the system’s 80 schools into a charter-school district would give administrators more flexibility to help teachers and improve the academic performance of the district’s 53,300 students. Forsyth County has five charter schools.

Help teachers? Really? Will they be able to retain their membership in the NCAE? Will they still have the same pay and benefits that their counterparts in other districts have? How about tenure? The reality is, not even the author of this white paper (begins page 5) knows the answers.

I just caught this Tweet a few minutes ago:

SenatorBerger 11:34am via web
Parents have long been denied choices they need to make a better future for their kids bit.ly/xpPcdy #ncga is changing that #edreform

Let's see if this rebuttal sounds familiar: They haven't been denied choices! There are numerous private schools out there, and nobody is "denying" parents the right to place their children there. Choosing another school is a "lifestyle choice", and other people (like NC taxpayers) shouldn't have to pay for your chosen lifestyle!

Public monies should not go towards schools that ignore the economically challenged:

Durham leaders are suspicious that the charter high school, near Research Triangle Park, will target RTP employees and draw mainly white, affluent parents. Charters must have a transportation plan for students, but they do not have to operate school buses. Charters are not required to provide lunch.

I guess if poor kids want to attend badly enough, they could walk to school and rustle up their lunch along the way. Socio-economic barriers may come in many forms, but the public shouldn't be required to fund them.