Shockingly Candid Response to ACLU “Resegregation” Lawsuit
Delaware’s charter schools are causing resegregation and discrimination against minorities and students with disabilities, the ACLU and Community Legal Aid Society are arguing in a complaint to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.
The groups say that, especially in the City of Wilmington, most charters are easily racially identifiable as either mostly white or mostly minority schools, with those serving minority students vastly underperforming those serving more affluent white students.
The complaint is filed against the State Department of Education and the Red Clay School District, which authorize all of the state’s charters.
In response to the complaint a Charter School Advocate said, “Re-segregation? No shit Sherlock. That’s the whole idea.”
Or, rather, that’s what they would have said had they been shot with a dart containing sodium penathol.
I couldn’t be more thrilled. It’s past time we had this discussion.
Here’s the ACLU recommendations:
This should slow down charter conversion on the 6 Priority Schools (which was the only plan for them).
The random opt-out lottery was first mentioned years ago by Mike O in regards to Newark Charter School.
I couldn’t be happier to see all those “tuition fees” and “mandatory volunteer requirements” called out.
And I’m doing a happy dance regarding equitable funding.
This is the first step, because we all know that it isn’t only charters that have re-segregated. The Neighborhood Schools Act and Choice have done the same thing. Those of you who’ve read my posts over the years know the numbers.
For more information go to:
http://www.aclu-de.org/news/aclu-de-files-complaint-with-office-of-civil-rights/2014/12/03/
“The groups say that, especially in the City of Wilmington, most charters are easily racially identifiable as either mostly white or mostly minority schools, with those serving minority students vastly underperforming those serving more affluent white students.”
Good luck with that. The problem with this formulation is that the schools aren’t underperforming; the students are. To make the case made in the paragraph above, you would have to assume that the tests really are showing disparities in the schools rather than disparities in the student bodies.
In short, if you don’t believe the tests truly measure performance by schools, you shouldn’t use the tests to claim there are differences in school performance.
The full complaint can be read here.
http://www.aclu-de.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/ACLU-et-al-v.-State-of-Delaware-and-Red-Clay-Consolidated-03-Dec-14.pdf
Unfortunately, tests are all we have – they are what everything is based on. I disagree with that, but that’s the way the system works. Tests are what gave us Priority Schools.
I’m not sure what will come of this, but I’m so happy it is finally being addressed. Public-private schools shouldn’t be allowed and if you’ve ever read about all the extra costs associated with these charters you’d wonder how they were allowed to get away with that nonsense – altho, it did let them shape their populations.
Editorial Note: I swapped out “spokesperson from the Delaware Department of Education” for “Charter School Advocate” because I have a nagging feeling that the DOE simply attempts to carry out whatever stupid policy they are handed.
LOL!
Just finished attending the announcement that the ACLU and Community Legal Aid Society are arguing in a complaint to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. Good news is that it is certainly about time this situation gets public exposure. Bad news is that many of these things could have been and should be addressed by the State legislature. Recalculating the pupil-funding formula to more pronouncedly follow the needs of the individual student diversity is the most complex and resource ( read: $$$) demanding issue that should be tackled by law change. But a lower hanging fruit that should be immediately addressed by lawmakers is the need for charter school law reform as regards the 5 mile radius exemption that charters are permitted to use that, (in most cases), closes all access to that school. Case in point is the recently granted Newark Charter School expansion to a high school level populated by students and siblings who have matriculated from the K-8 population currently attending with vacancies privileged to a lottery bound by the 5 mile radius allowance.
This is a very serious situation that I pointed out at the hearings on Newark Charter HS (pre-expansion granting by DOE and State Board) and tried to amend HB 165 to remedy. All Wilmington matriculating 8th graders in Christina have the limited option of choicing into Christiana H.S., Newark H.S. or Glasgow H.S. since there are no other high schools (Christina District) in the city. They are bused into the suburbs but are denied access to the 4th Newark area high-school “Newark Charter” due to the 5 mile radius entitlement enjoyed by Newark Charter. This has resulted in one of the most serious exclusionary realities in a publicly funded (taxpayer funded) “alleged” public school that is manifested in a distorted lack of racial, socially-economic and special needs diversity that is, by any measure, comparable to the existing diversity in those aforementioned three Christina District high schools that are located within the five mile radius restriction enjoyed by Newark Charter.
As legislators, our failure to remedy this defect in the law speaks poorly of our commitment to equal access to publicly/taxpayer funded institutions such as “public schools” are defined.
I intend to again address this discriminatory and exclusionary policy with legislation and perhaps the ACLU and CLASI legal action can give my colleagues the necessary impetus to remedy the situation.
John Kowalko
I told the IEP task force months ago what my legislative ideas were. Had most of these been implemented years ago, none of this would have happened. Charters are the first to complain when they want money or resources, but when they do bad stuff they get very silent. They think public schools are for peons. This is not about test scores. It is about isolating what they see as undesirable students in society and holding their heads up while everyone else suffers as a result. This is a very good thing the ACLU has done and I hope it initiates the change that is needed.
John Kowalko’s comments on point here, to the extent that while there is a wish basket of good things in the ACLU complaint, many (if not most) of them come under the category of obeying the laws as they were written. Obviously, if DEDOE and RCCSD present that as a defense, it is possible for a court (OCR not so much) to strike down part or all of those laws.
Here’s the part that will get people up in arms (against me): I’ve read the complaint through three times, and while I have an established track record here and elsewhere of being in sympathy with the complaint, I’m not impressed with it. I would have no difficulty as an attorney accepting the case to defend RCCSD and DEDOE against this complaint as written.
There are multiple reasons for this, including the fact that the whole segment of Section 504 of ADA for students with disabilities is asserted and never proven, and yet is used as the linchpin for requiring redress. This is even more important because the argument completely ignores IDEA (the term is not even in the document) and yet bases its argument on statistics about student on IEPs, which ADA 504 does not touch. So, to be honest, the whole “Argument A” is weak enough that it looks like it was written by a first-year law student. And unfortunately, most of the regulatory authority to impose redress (as this document is written) rests on that argument.
There are many other deficiencies in this document, including the fact that the ACLU glides carefully by multiple anomalies in its treatment of the statistics for ethnicity at CSW, and doesn’t even attempt to deal with the question (under law) about why the Asian population there should not be considered equally an ethnic minority as the African-American or Hispanic populations.
I say again: I have a track record for my stances on this issue, but frankly I would tell people that with a hearing officer who follows both the arguments and the law, this is a weak complaint, almost to the point of being a nuisance complaint.
You’ll be able to call me out quite clearly later if I’m wrong, but I don’t see this as a game-changer.
… ducking, putting on helmet …
No need to duck. Your points are valid.
I’m looking at this as a first step, so even if the case isn’t worded strongly/clearly enough they can keep moving forward. And it really needs to move forward.
@pandora
In the interests of full disclosure: for a lot of reasons over the past 3-5 years that I don’t get to share because they are covered by confidentiality issues, I have very little confidence in either the staying power or the legal acumen of this particular ACLU team.
Delaware’s charter school law was designed to rebuild the old suburban segregated school districts demographically, if not geographically. Resegregation is a feature, not a bug. And it’s not just charters; magnets and Vo-Techs are part of the same syndrome.
The Enrollment Preferences Task Force is meeting Dec. 8. They are nearing the end of their work, and after this news it should be an interesting meeting.
http://egov.delaware.gov/pmc/Event/Details/25644
Steve, I read the majority of this complaint as focusing on racial discrimination, vs. discrimination against spec Ed students. That is certainly a second component (dealing with an area of law that I know little about)–but do you see the racial argument here as weak? I don’t.
Not sure what your beefs are with the DE ACLU team, but for what it’s worth most of this was written by their NY colleagues.
Most interesting to me were the Newark High School numbers before and after the Newark Charter expansion. I’m not an attorney, but that’s a pretty graphic illustration of the lawsuit’s claims.
Pardon my ignorance but can someone explain what a “random opt-out lottery” is?
Eve
That’s the weakness of the piece. The entire argumentative section focuses on racial issues, but then they shift the ground to disability under ADA 504 to argue for the ability of OCR to order changes in their favor. My point is this: (a) the racial issues are poorly framed from a legal standpoint (don’t be confused by the boilerplate language on the testing arguments); and (b) the disability arguments are NEVER made at all in the entire brief.
This is NOT a strong brief, regardless of who wrote it.
Steve, you understand that this is not a court briefing, right? It’s a claim to the OCR (exec. branch) asking them to examine whether DE DOE complies with the civil rights protections that it agrees to enforce in return for federal $ (e.g. race to the top). Different genre and standard of proof than a court proceeding, in my understanding.
I have faith in the savvy of those who crafted this, but we’ll know in a year or so which of us is right.
Rufus,
I believe that every child residing in within the purview of the Charter would be auto-entered into the lottery.
The school would draw names and send the winners a letter indicating they have been selected to attend. The parents/guardians can then opt out of that invitation.
It is a countermeasure to the current standard of having a lottery from among only those that expressed an interest in the school, which in 2012, the Sec. Ed. demanded that one charter school’s efforts to attract applicants was deficient in its methods to attract minority applicants.
Eve
There is a limit to what an OCR review can order as a compliance measure; yes, I’m very well aware of what this is.
That doesn’t change the fact that you cannot realistically expect a positive ruling on your behalf if you base the linchpin of your argument for regulatory authority on ADA 504 but spend your time on racial inequities that are not covered under that statute.
Remember that even in an OCR complaint it is the responsibility of the complainant to bring a prima facie case; this brief looks good and sounds good to people who already agree with the underlying points. To somebody who is, however, reading the brief as objectively as possible and comparing it to law, it’s not very strong. I didn’t say that the situation was not as they suggest it is, only that the brief–as written–does not prove many of the points it claims to prove.
And in the wide world of “how politics works,” if you really believe the Obama/Duncan OCR is going to rule against the Rodel/Biden/Carper/Markell administration based on this, you also retain a strong belief in unicorns.
OCR is NOT, as much as people would like to believe otherwise, at all isolated from the politics of its rulings. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt shot full of holes.
As long as the kids learn to be complicant little bourgeois cogs in the corporate wheel and are segragated from the colored kids..
And let’s not forget The Concerned Neighbors Of Cooke Elementary School’s effort to keep the kids of Lancaster Court Apartments out of their school. All of this is connected.
this was one of your quicker exoduses
as the middle class couldn’t afford private catholic schools in the state, getting your kid into a “charter” school was the next best option. charter, cab, DMA and now I guess Conrad to a degree at least in new castle were all destinations for parents not having the ability to put their kids in more expensive private schools.
the silver lining to all this is, that in some sense the public schools are getting some attention from people that wouldn’t normally have cared because they could send their kids to a private school. Now they can’t and still want a decent education for their kids that doesn’t have “poor” or “city” kids in the halls, they push for this Charter stuff, prep the kids for testing and get them in hopefully, breath a sigh of relief that no “poor” (aka minorities) are in the halls with their fragile children.
if they don’t get into Charter, they hope conrad, if they don’t get into Conrad,they hope DMA, if no DMA then maybe little Johnny wants to sing Opera and get’s into Cab. Eventually I have to assume the numbers of people wanting in to Charter schools exceeds the availability and those parents have to suck it up and send kids to schools in their district. There by forcing them to care and educate themselves on the goings on of the district.
I’m just hopeful that enough people can continue to push towards a real resolution not some bullshit Charter system that acts as a means for middle class people that want their kids in a safe, sanitized environment similar to the ones they used to be able to afford or grew up in when they were kids.
So, if I read you correctly, we’ve given up on giving all the kids a safe, sanitized environment, and since we can’t, it’s only fair to put everyone in an unsafe, unsanitized environment.
If that’s your argument — and it’s the argument I see from a lot of liberal whites — well, fuck that. You’re never going to get a buy-in for shared misery.
Why not give the little blighters a broom and put them to work as chimneysweeps? You know, get them used to the world beyond the safe, sanitized school environment.
I’m not sure why you think public schools are unsafe and unsanitized.
“the middle class couldn’t afford private catholic schools in the state, getting your kid into a “charter” school was the next best option.”
Exactly, charters are nothing more than a private school for the middle class, who do not have the means to send their children to real private schools. So the vast relatively silent middle class is concerned about their children’s education and subsequently their chances in life. How will the progressive wing respond? Well historically the general theme is similar to the rising tide meme. If we just focus on the bottom strata of society, everything will be better for everyone.
The problem is one of both optics (yeah disadvantage people need help, but what about my kids, don’t they matter?) and personal experiential knowledge (you mean my kid is going to get a better education if they are bused to an inner city, low performing school?). Regardless of whether progressives are right about charters or anything else regarding systemic issues in public education, it is personal to parents with children and the perception (optics) is that many proposals (and demands such as appear to have a negative impact on their children. How do you think most parents would react to the ACLU complaint? Do you know? Do you really care? If you believe charters are bad idea (and it’s obvious most of you do), what else you got in your bag that parents concerned for their children’s future can hang their hopes on? I mean stuff that doable and has a realistic chance of getting done.
What you see as racial segregation is probably not that at all. The bottom line is that most parents want their children in a good school receiving a good education. It doesn’t matter that much who they go to school with as long as it doesn’t compromise their child’s education. I think that parents want their kids in top performing schools even if all the other kids in the school are orange.
Donviti is right. My children have been in public and private. Parents in both places run the gamut from “utterly checked out” to “obnoxiously involved”.
In my experience, the checked out parents who put their kids in a private school do so out of simple racism. The number of brown skinned faces they see in a classroom is their lazy shorthand for judging how good a school is or isn’t.
The defensiveness of charter operators gets hilarious:
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20141204_Charter_school_CEO_compares_Temple_professor_to_Darren_Wilson.html
In addition to reseg, Charters also are significant private profit centers.
The problem is… we have diluted the system, resulting in public schools losing money and resources. And this doesn’t only affect the neediest kids. When we pull all the high performing kids out of a public school and put them into a charter, magnet or Vo-tech then the public school they leave behind will lose accelerated programs due to decreased enrollment. The school’s high needs percentage rises and further drains resources.
If we focused on elementary education a lot of this would sort itself out because we would be preparing all students to enter CSW, Cab, Conrad, etc.. That’s where the divide exists – at the end of 5th grade. Fix that and your middle and high schools diversity problems will lessen.
And one of the biggest problems with Choice is that you can only choice if you can provide transportation. That will limit the choices of our neediest families – it’s – as Mike O. says above – a feature, not a bug. Add Neighborhood Schools Act into the mix and you have something very similar to redlining.
And… we are discussing Public education. Carving out private niches with public tax dollars that benefit a few at the expense of the many is wrong.
My idea has been to turn these charters into programs within public schools (not all of them because… sheesh, have you looked at charter schools’ performance? Not good.) which would keep money and resources in our public schools while allowing the program diversity of charters/magnets.
“OCR is NOT, as much as people would like to believe otherwise, at all isolated from the politics of its rulings. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt shot full of holes.”
I agree with that. I am sorry this has to go through Dept of Ed (Duncan) vs., say, Dept of Justice. But OCR has recently been sending out “dear colleague” letters addressing disparities MUCH less severe than what this document’s data indicate for DE, and asserting that such disparities are actionable under Civil Rights law (facilities differences, for ex.). Perhaps they are bluffing; but perhaps their staff is fed up with the national trend toward school reseg. This case is a good test of that (in a small state with manageable student data).
http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-resourcecomp-201410.pdf
The problem is that many of the policies that the complaint discusses clearly relate to legitimate educational goals even if those policies have a disparate impact. Stating a prima facie case is just the beginning.
In addition, the complaint strongly implies that affirmative action is required if your standards for admission are high, e.g., the complaint provides: “Highly selective yet racially neutral admissions policies, like the one at CSW, are devoid of diversity considerations and have devastating effects on diversity.” Good luck with that.
Finally, I reject the complaint’s use of students with special educational needs as a proxy for students with disabilities.
Until other non charter schools are deemed sanitized and safe, you’re going to get middle class Delawareans (white folk) demanding charter schools for their kids.
St. Hedwig shut down on my kids, and you’re damn right I scrambled like hell to find my kids a safe alternative. Right or wrong, I got them to Conrad, cab and got one up into the Brandywine school District.
So as all the Catholic schools shut down in the state you can sure as hell bet hundreds of parents just like me begged for something other than the self perceived shitty public school system in every part of Delaware their kids were assigned to .
And, people move when they can to Garnet Valley and other way better options on Pa. And still do to this day. We lose dozens, if Not hundreds of people with incomes in excess of $250,000 to Pennsylvania because of our perceived shitty school system
…..and the second their kids graduate school in Pennsylvania they will be back in Delaware complaining about the ungodly high taxes in Pennsylvania with no sense of irony whatsoever.
The notion that anyone crosses state lines to chase lower tax rates is a myth.
If anybody crosses state lines for perceived differences in public schools, it has to be an insignificant number.
Donviti, no one is contesting that many DE parents want segregated public schools. The question is whether they can legally have them, while the state DOE accepts federal $.
Jason, in my experience it’s common for DE parents to move over the PA border whe their children reach school age. I don’t know what the total # of families who do this is, but it certainly happens. It may be most common among parents who would choose private schools in DE–they see higher taxes as less burdensome than tuition for multiple children. I suspect their kids would do just fine in a number of our public schools (even the genuinely public ones) but there is def. a middle class paranoia about DE public ed. That gets additional fuel from the “choicing” mania, which encourages a fear-driven scramble among publicly funded options (which are pretty clearly “ranked” in most parents’ minds, from best to intolerable–even if these perceived rankings have minimal grounding in reality).
I agree that there is a middle class paranoia about DE public ed. I’d also say that the paranoia is rooted in simple anti-black racism. I get all of that. Not sure about the state line crossing. Anecdotes are not data.
I have known exactly one family who moved to PA for schools and their kids attended Tower Hill before the move. I have heard a lot of people talk about moving, but they’re still here… talking.
When I read Donviti’s comment something jumped out.
” Right or wrong, I got them to Conrad, cab and got one up into the Brandywine school District.”
Notice how he names two specialty schools in Red Clay and then the Brandywine School District. Not a specific school in BSD. He named the district.
I remember when people use to say that about Red Clay, but they don’t anymore.
I’m not saying BSD is perfect, but they did fight against (and won) the Neighborhood Schools Act. They don’t allow rampant choice. Red Clay loves unrestricted choice so much that they even built additions onto A.I. High School to accommodate it – even though space existed at their other high schools. Then again, they built new suburban elementary schools even though there were more than enough seats at existing elementary schools. Talk about wasting tax payer money.
There is no doubt that parents want safe and high performing schools and they will leave no stone unturned to get their children into one. Given a choice of a high performing, highly diverse student body, school and a low performing segregated (white) school, they will take the high performing school every time.
Would some parents put their children in a segregated (white) school? You bet! For them, race outweighs all other considerations. But they are the minority. To state that segregation is an objective in parent’s school choices is a mischaracterization at best. Quality not color is the key attribute. Give parents empirical data that quality and color are not mutually exclusive and see what they choose and if they make the choice that you expect them to make, then you can state that segregation is the objective.
The problem, of course, is with how parents evaluate “quality.” A more socio-economically diverse school is likely to have lower overall test scores than a homogenously middle class school, simply b/c there is much greater variation in student performance across the diverse school’s population. The highest performing students at the diverse school may perform better than those at the homogenous school, but many families either don’t recognize this or don’t spend the time to dig more deeply. The diversity of the first school is, for many families, a count against it, due to race- and class-based fears; add the lower average test score and it ceases to be an option. The issue at hand is whether, in districts as diverse as many of Delaware’s (such as CSD & Red Clay), it is legal to establish schools as homogenous as CSW & NCS–esp. at the high school level, where districts blend students from quite varied neighborhoods. At the elementary level, Neighborhood Schools already produce significant homogenization in some cases, notably in a few Red Clay suburban areas. That is another (important) issue, not dealt with in this claim.
That’s a succinct and very accurate summation. Dover HS, for example is a great school that produces a significant number of Ivy League bound students each year. However, the lazy, uncritical doofuses in Kent County assume that CR is a better school – based on nothing other than racial make up.
I always thought that if Capital School district devoted a portion of its budget to PR, a little money could go a long way.
“Notice how he names two specialty schools in Red Clay and then the Brandywine School District. Not a specific school in BSD. He named the district. I remember when people use to say that about Red Clay, but they don’t anymore.”
It’s not a coincidence. Twenty or so years ago, the poorest sections of the city were bused to Brandywine; Red Clay’s slice of the city was more middle-class. That’s when Red Clay was the desired destination for people who chose their real estate with school attendance patterns in mind. I don’t remember exactly when or why, but the two districts essentially swapped city areas, with the poorest kids from the worst neighborhoods going to Red Clay and the more middle-class areas going to Brandywine. Presto-chango, now Brandywine has the better schools — and it’s not racism by parents, either. Test scores, the root of the entire problem, would tell you the same thing. No change in educational methods, just a change in student population, and suddenly Brandywine had the better schools.
You shouldn’t need any more evidence than that to understand that high-stakes testing, peddled as a solution, is in fact the problem.
Until you dethrone the tests as arbiters of teacher/school/district quality, everything else is rearranging the deck chairs.
Good news: Diane Ravitch, the doyenne of the national movement against “school reform” (charters & privatization), calls the ACLU action on behalf of DE students a “blockbuster” that “could have sweeping national consequences…if the Brown decision is still in effect.”
http://dianeravitch.net/2014/12/05/blockbuster-aclu-sues-delaware-for-segregated-charter-schools/
Admittedly she doesn’t understand an important element of the case–she refers to it as a lawsuit when it is an “administrative complaint” to OCR (not to the courts). Still it is nice to see this getting national attention. WHYY and NBC-Phila. have also picked up the story.
I don’t remember that, Geezer. Which parts of the city did RCCD take from Brandywine? I think I remember, but can’t be sure, that Christina may have added areas… but I don’t remember Red Clay swapping/moving areas with Brandywine. And I get why Christina struggles – the city is only part of its poverty issue.
!00% agree on the testing.
Jason–exactly! Districts are beginning to spend more $ on PR, although of course this comes out of ed. budgets so they’re reluctant to do it. Still, since we’ve made public ed. a market, advertising is sadly necessary.
Newark HS is in the same predicament as Dover HS, it sounds like. The only student in DE who was accepted to Stanford Univ. last year attended Newark, for ex. And his classmates received scholarships to several extremely competitive & prestigious U.S. universities. But plenty of area families will never look at that school–even less so now that there is a non-poor public HS across town (Newark Charter), which will no doubt have higher AVERAGE SATs, etc. And the charter HS does little to nothing for our less advantaged students (few of whom attend it), whereas Newark HS has strong programs for those kids as well. NHS is a much better investment of PUBLIC dollars. This is where we have gone completely off the rails, confusing public with private. Different obligations, different roles. The publicly funded private school should never have been established–but now that we have them, politicians are terrified of taking them away from the benefiting families. This is where federal intervention may be able to help.
“Districts are beginning to spend more $ on PR, although of course this comes out of ed. budgets so they’re reluctant to do it.”
I don’t know the situation at the other districts, but Brandywine, Christina and Red Clay all have communications directors making around $100,000 a year, at a time when most journalists make half that. Careful stewards of the public’s money they are not.
DE has too many goddamned school districts for a state the size of a small county in most states. Idiotic. Always has been. Too much overhead, too much admin. It needs to stop. And white parents need to stop “moving to a good school district.” Lets just standardize property/school taxes and let it all go to all the schools and we will stop having inequality. Your kid might have to sit next to a brown person then though…eek!
I thought the most important thing was the tribal football rivalry? In Sussex County evey little inbread town is a school district with 6 figure administration and a school board full of theists shoving their superstitious dogmas down everyone’s throat
Mouse, That is the best description I have ever heard. So accurate. Well done. Clap.
Mike – Delaware actually has fewer districts for their population than the average state.
Delaware has 0.29% of the population of the country yet only 0.20% of the nation’s school districts.
Maybe we need 14 more school districts to catch up to the average.
“And white parents need to stop “moving to a good school district.””
Parents of all colors will move to a good school district if they are able. Nothing is going to stop them from doing so. For every measure or obstacle presented, there will be a corresponding counter measure.
The sooner that paradigm takes hold, the sooner solutions can identified to make all schools high performing. You cannot demand that parents compromise their child’s future in the interest of social justice, even if their perceptions are incorrect. You either have to change their perceptions (their beliefs which drive their reality) or stop making them part of the solution. You are attempting to force them to choose between their kids and those kids. Do you really believe they are going to make any other choice but their kids?
Dave, with full investment of resources (human, financial) in the fully public schools, parents don’t get a public choice btwn their kids & those kids. They can make that choice at a price (tuition or higher taxes). If they can’t or don’t wish to pay that price, their investment in their kids’ school will by extension be an investment in “those” kids, who attend the same school/district. We currently allow parents to choose btwn their kids & those kids at no cost, since a charter (e.g. NCS k-12) costs nearly the same as a public, with wildly different students demographics. The point is to leverage parents’ instinct to invest in their own kids as an investment in children more generally, in return for public $. DE has been doing the opposite, with disastrous impact on actual public schools.
I think the state should intervene when some schools are falling apart and other districts have so much and yet none are really adequately serving the education needs of young people. Referendum after referendum and we end up with bigger admin buildings, more admin jobs and less going to students. Its just a waste.
@Eve: Now explain the value of our investment in the vast number of minority kids who drop out before graduation. You can pretend there’s no difference between “their kids” and “my kids,” but most people will refuse to play along with that. Indeed, they already do, which is why charter schools have support among the public.
Read this and all related threads in DL history. The sales pitch boils down to, “It’s unfair of you to seek advantages for your own kids.” Fighting against human nature is always a bad bet.
Geezer – Democracy is in many ways a rejection of human nature in favor of reason. I fail to see how this is different.
“but most people will refuse to play along with that. Indeed, they already do”
Even so, most people will recognize the societal need for improving education for everyone, especially minorities. After all, it takes a village. But they don’t want to necessarily live in the village. Call it, racism, classism, whateverism, they don’t and won’t. But the need? Sure. Now give them solutions they can believe in, because the perception (which is reality), is that you name it, we’ve tried it and nothing works. Busing? Check. Private corporations running schools? Check. Teacher pay for performance? Check. Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner? Check. Rewards? Check? Kitchen sink? Check. Next?
What I’m saying is there is the perception that we’ve been there and done that. I keep saying perception because some solutions were half assed, some were half fast, and some were victims of an approval and appropriation process that establishes programs but doesn’t fund them. But to the average (middle class) family, all they see is more of the same. So they hunker down to take care of me and mine. And who can blame them?
What they hear (even if that’s not the message that is being sent) is that someone wants to build up one group at the expense of their children. What many communicators fail to recognize is that it’s not the message that’s being transmitted that matters, it’s the message that’s being received and when you attack charter schools, which people believe is their means to a quality education, the message being received is “I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too!”
When you consider that every charter school is its own school district – with all having the same administration overhead – Delaware has a ton of school districts. This is part of what I mean when I said above that we are diluted resources.
Doesn’t NCC have the highest percentage of private schools in the country?
Old news, and it’s got history. I’ll be back.
I don’t understand why people don’t understand the word “public” in public schools. If you don’t like public schools cough up tuition money.
But this creation of public/private schools designed specifically to get away from the public isn’t right. Public education is about serving all kids, not just the ones who can go to a charter, or move to certain neighborhood.
And can we please stop pretending this isn’t racially and socioeconomically driven. Hello? Were people not paying attention when the Cooke Elementary neighbors fought (even lawyered up) to keep the poor kids of Lancaster Court Apartments out of their attendance zone? As if they had a right to decide who entered their new school. It was ugly and it demonstrated exactly what was going on – and it had nothing to do with their kids getting a good education.
But very little of this is about education.
Donviti – There’s no misperception. 6.95% Income Taxes and shitty schools was enough for many of us high earners to leave Delaware. We have no regrets.
Donviti says:
December 4, 2014 at 10:06 pm
Until other non charter schools are deemed sanitized and safe, you’re going to get middle class Delawareans (white folk) demanding charter schools for their kids.
St. Hedwig shut down on my kids, and you’re damn right I scrambled like hell to find my kids a safe alternative. Right or wrong, I got them to Conrad, cab and got one up into the Brandywine school District.
So as all the Catholic schools shut down in the state you can sure as hell bet hundreds of parents just like me begged for something other than the self perceived shitty public school system in every part of Delaware their kids were assigned to .
And, people move when they can to Garnet Valley and other way better options on Pa. And still do to this day. We lose dozens, if Not hundreds of people with incomes in excess of $250,000 to Pennsylvania because of our perceived shitty school system
I was going to say something, but Steve Newton and Pandora already said it. 🙂 Particularly agree with Steve about the weakness of the complaint.
But two things: One, doubt this will go anywhere. As it stands now, 20% of my district choose an option that ISN’T a public school of any kind. The ones that are left, in my town, are the choice parents. St Peter could arrive and they wouldn’t move the kids to our feeder schools, none of which meet AYP. Doesn’t matter who decides what, and I doubt anyone will do it, even if the complaint takes action. All the power players in Delaware politics sent their kids to those charters, and, yes, it’s a feature, not a bug.
Second, I understand why Jason doesn’t like anecdotes. Therefore, he’s not interested in the high numbers of parents who are transferring to Delaware who contact me, via homeschooling channels, to make plans to homeschool before even arriving here. That’s how bad our rep is.
What’s the polite way to say we have the public school system we deserve?
Or, for that matter, what’s the politically correct way to say my children aren’t your experiment?
The complaint isn’t just about the predominance of whiter richer families in the so-called “high performing” charters – it is also about the predominance of poorer minority families in the failing and borderline charters. In Delaware, there is even segregation among charters.
The problem is clearly poverty, which is now pervasive thoughout the counties, no matter how many devious ways we try to gerrymander the school demographics. We tried charter schools, now we are trying Priority schools – when do we wake up and start trying Priority Neighborhoods or Priority Families?
The charter system, their record aside, is the lottery ticket Delaware parents of all kinds buy. It’s all about hope. If you can’t fill that need, you aren’t replacing it.
So have you all talked to parents or students from CSD or Colonial or Red Clay middle or high schools to see if they think the schools in their district are shitty or not?
Why don’t you do that, and, to be fair, you can’t include anyone who is or was part of the Cambridge program at Newark High.. Hey, that would be a good question.. how many black and/or low income students are in the Cambridge Program at Newark High School? And, do we know how many black and/or low income students are in the IB Program at Dickinson? Are they on the ACLU’s radar? If not, why not?
It’s kind of funny how so many of the comments on here blaming parents for choicing their kids into a charter school creating segregation are from people who either live in a district like Appo. which has 10% low income for Middletown High School and even less than that for Appo. high school, or choiced into a different high school than their feeder, saying it had a reputation for being safe without a lot of bullying, or someone who has kids who are not even middle school age yet (the age where it gets real).
“But very little of this is about education.”
Whoa there. You don’t get to decide for other people what their motivations are.
Is it “about education” when the middle-school bullying that Pencader Mom mentioned starts? Because that’s a big reason I pulled my son out of HB du Pont, and it existed because the administration’s hands were tied when it came to disciplining the city kids.
I pulled my daughter out for a different reason: She was the 41st kid in the gifted class. Yes, that was the class size — 41 kids. At Tower Hill, the entire graduating class was 58 kids.
You will get nowhere trying to convince people that they are racists for protecting their kids.
As far as a solution, I have always said we need to focus on our elementary schools. Do you know why middle school gets real? Well, there’s hormones… but middle school is where different elementary schools merge and it’s here we see the difference in education offered. Those coming from a high needs school tend to be behind their peers – who attended a low poverty (or in some cases, almost no poverty) schools with all the extras those schools offer.
It’s not surprising our middle and high schools (Conrad, CSW, IB, Cambridge) look the way they do when you realize that we can tell who will get into these schools/programs based on which elementary school they attended. And there’s the problem.
I have also said (for over a decade) that we can either work together to fix this problem or do nothing and wait until the Feds come in.
I understand why parents take part in Choice – they were forced to. But here’s the deal: Parents are allowed to choice and still point out the problems created by choice. So please stop with your purity tests.
The waste generated from all these kids attending all these schools with all this overhead and with all these different school buses driving down the same flippin’ block is astounding. Start counting the the different school buses coming through your neighborhood. Crazy.
So while people can say “they want what they want” it doesn’t make them right when it comes to public education. And it’s what’s created the problem – school districts, legislators, and DDOE created this mess by catering to one segment of the population. And the only way they could give this segment everything they wanted was to create separate but unequal schools. Which is infuriating since they could have looked out for all the kids, but they didn’t… and now the Feds have been contacted. Is anyone really surprised?
You will get nowhere trying to convince people that they are racists for protecting their kids.
Thus, the courts.
Individual parents are not racists because they send their kids to a demographically elite charter school. The racism is inherent in the impulse to build those schools and the law that allows it, in the face of the deterioration of the rest of the system.
If “racism is inherent in the impulse to build those schools” then those who advocate for those schools must be racists, because only people can have impulses. Regardless, I reject that conclusion. Reliance on that canard in regards to parents desires and motivations detracts from the need to attack poverty, which is the greatest barrier to schools that perform.
I no longer have any children in the school system, but I can guarantee you that I, like most parents, want good schools for their children and race, if it is a factor at all, is well at the bottom of the list. Give parents an opportunity to send their children to a high performing school that has majority minority student body and see what they do. Then you can trot out the race argument.
Race and poverty (and I have mostly focused on poverty) cannot be removed from the conversation. They are the reasons for the NSA. They are why when Brandywine Springs opened as an all choice school city schools, overnight, became high needs schools. They are the reason why Edison and Newark Charter look the way they do, why Moyer and CSW look the way they do… unless you have another explanation?
If you have time, go read the comment section on educational blogs.
I posted this comment on Diane Ravitch’s blog site. Please feel free to post where you wish.
John Kowalko
Thanks to Ms Ravitch’s blog post on this very important subject and thanks to Ms. Buckley and Mr.Ohlandt for their incisive and relevant comments. I am a State Representative in Delaware and I have found it to be statistically provable and accurate that the Delaware Charter School law, as written. has permitted (and encouraged) a segregation of minorities, low-income and special needs students throughout the entire public school system. This law was/is inherently flawed and the recently passed HB 165, promoted as a charter law reform measure, contributes to a further segregation of student population and resources $$$. I made numerous attempts to amend the bill and could not muster the votes due to pressure brought by the wealthy charter school network and its patron organizations such as RODEL, Vision Network and Innovative Schools et.al. If the amount of money being spent to fight legitimate reform needed in the charter school law is any indication, then it is surely a hugely profitable venture for those privateers of public education who seek to drain public taxpayer money and resources from the less fortunate. An average of 8-10 well-heeled lobbyists roam the halls of Dover whenever legitimate attempts to correct the many flaws in the existing code are proffered or whenever there is a proposal to create more access to public funding (exclusive to charter schools) that they support. Quite frankly it can be exhausting, encouraging those people who have an appropriate sense of fairness, justice and equality for all, to raise their voices and demand fair-play. This is notable and somewhat understandable, especially in the face of such a logistically wealthier special interest that seems to promote a tunnel-vision ambition that excludes many more than it includes and erodes already inadequate resources that are needed to provide equal and accessible educational opportunities for all Delawareans. So let me express my thanks to ACLU and CLASI and all of the Buckleys and Ohlandts and Ravitchs who clearly see the reality that this is an honest and just fight for equality. Let me conclude with an apology for my own failure to convince enough of my colleagues and others of influence that we, on behalf of all of the children and families in Delaware, must do better and must do more to correct these inequities.
State Representative John Kowalko (25th District Newark)
“Race and poverty (and I have mostly focused on poverty) cannot be removed from the conversation.”
I don’t think race should be removed from the conversation, but it when it becomes the go to factor, it subordinates all other considerations. If the focus needs to be on poverty and how to counter that condition as a factor in quality schools, then put the focus on poverty.
Instead the NJ article says “To fix the problems they see, the groups want a moratorium on authorizing and opening new charter schools until a new desegregation plan is in place.”
Shouldn’t it say “To fix the problems they see, the groups want a moratorium on authorizing and opening new charter schools until a new plan is in place to bring existing schools up to quality standards”?
“entrance exams, parent essays, mandatory parental involvement and required fees and uniforms” are not bad things. Most of them are good (maybe not parent essays, that seems kinda weird). If it’s a barrier for some, what does it take to eliminate those barriers? Needs testing for free uniforms? Tutoring for entrance exams? Alternatives for parental involvement in the school?
It seems to me the conservation is focused on restoring the lowest common denominator. I wish the conservation were about how to pull all the schools up to charter school quality levels (if indeed quality exists in the charter schools).
I wish the conservation were about how to pull all the schools up to charter school quality levels (if indeed quality exists in the charter schools).
But that IS what the conversation is about. High-performing charters got that way by engineering elite demographics in their enrollment. Is that what every school should copy? Is that even possible, or is it a contradiction?
You wish all the children were above average.
“High-performing charters got that way by engineering elite demographics in their enrollment. Is that what every school should copy?”
The system rewards schools with high test scores. The easiest way to get high test scores is by excluding poor kids. And so those schools with the opportunity to do so exclude poor kids from their enrollments. What part of this should we be surprised about?
Clearly, educators think it’s easier to attract an already-above-average student to a charter than to turn a below-average student into an above-average student. I don’t know if that’s true, but after 20+ years of “reform,” it’s become pretty obvious that our schools have great difficulty improving student performance. Given the circumstances, cherry-picking students seems like the best route to success, other than outright cheating on the tests, a solution many test-pressured schools have resorted to in the age of high-stakes testing.
I respect what Pandora et al want, but they want to achieve it by banning the schools from trying to cherry-pick the best students. That might work if students didn’t have parents to advocate for them, or if we had an entirely autocratic method of educating children. Neither situation exists, so we end up with well-meaning parents like Pandora battling other well-meaning parents who don’t give a crap if their children never see a minority student in their classes.
The only way between the horns of the dilemma is to scrap the entire system of using raw student test scores to rate the teacher, school and district. Such tests don’t measure what they claim to measure anyway, but because they have been given such power all other goals become secondary to improving test scores.
End the testing and we end the madness — or, at the least, we find a new form of madness to replace this one.
“You wish all the children were above average.”
Pretty close for a guess, but wrong nonetheless. What I wish is for all schools to be above average.
Since I’m agnostic on charter schools, I don’t actually care how or what they did. What I do care about is why they did it. Because “after 20+ years of “reform,” it’s become pretty obvious that our schools have great difficulty improving student performance” and parents are disillusioned, frustrated, angry, and willing to entertain any and all measures to get what they want.
It may be time to listen to them instead of beating them down by calling in the federales. Parents have no interest in shared misery. Charters exist because there is a void and nature abhors a vacuum. Whatya got to fill the vacuum?
Dave, you may want to visit some of the local public schools that you have heard are terrible. Some of those stories and impressions are way off the mark or wildly exaggerated. Where I live, the Downes elementary PTA sponsored a conversation last week between area parents and recent Downes “grads” who now attend Shue middle or Newark HS (these were 6th-9th graders). Many of the parents in the room attended b/c they are very skeptical of choosing those schools but willing to keep an open mind. The kids were asked frank questions about things like fights they had witnessed (almost none had–one or two had seen a small hallway skirmish at some point) and encouraged to be candid, which of course took a bit of warming up, given their ages. They had pos. and neg. things to say about their school, but the overall impression (of both these children and their school) was quite positive–MUCH more so than most local residents ‘ perception. (The neg. comments centered on uniforms and start times; the positives wre often about extracurriculars and special classes.) I would encourage every district elementary to host events like this. Choice-in schools rely on parental perception that the public schools are intolerable, and some of our charters are notorious for fostering this perception, to their own advantage. This isn’t hard to do, since there are occasional fights and some kids with serious academic challenges at public schools. So there is material to work with, and they milk it. But it is also quite clear that there are many thoughtful, poised students in these schools receiving a strong education from caring teachers in a diverse environment–and thriving. Before you assume that the stories you hear are true, investigate. Certainly don’t use data like average test scores as indicators of what opportunities are available at your local schools for capable students.
And of course, it’s the choicing-out to less diverse schools that has intensified the perception that actual public schools are horrible. As the better-supported kids flee, the average test scores plummet, perceptions worsen, and to some degree reality begins to meet them (schools of highly concentrated poverty do tend to have more disciplinary challenges than those with more varied student populations, for ex.–and DE has no mechanism for resourcing our high-poverty schools to address those real challenges).
Remember also that area property values are tied to the actual public schools. No potential buyer wants to know what school they can get a lottery ticket for if they buy your house. They want to know about the schools to which their family would have guaranteed access if they moved in. It is not in most taxpayers’ interest to deprive fully public schools of human & financial resources in order to create privileged enclaves for people who already live here. But that’s what we’re doing, now.
“DE has no mechanism for resourcing our high-poverty schools to address those real challenges”
Then that’s probably where I would focus my energy and interest. lex parsimoniae! Where would you encounter less resistance? Combating charters or finding a mechanism to resource high poverty schools? I’m adverse to tilting at windmills. So I would be inclined to approach it differently.
And with that, I’ll say good night since I have an appointment that involves dinner and wine.
This:
“The only way between the horns of the dilemma is to scrap the entire system of using raw student test scores to rate the teacher, school and district. Such tests don’t measure what they claim to measure anyway, but because they have been given such power all other goals become secondary to improving test scores.”
That is 100% correct. There’s BIG money in the test industry, just like there’s BIG money in the charter school industry. This makes changing the path we’re on extremely difficult, mainly because the business community and hedge fund managers have simply found a way to tap into all those government education dollars. This really isn’t a grass roots parent movement. It’s an advertising campaign that has nothing to do with educating children.
So when I say this isn’t about education this is what I’m referring to. There’s serious money here, and the main way they drive customers to their product is through fear of public schools.
Go read a charter school brochure or walk in for information. The recurring theme you will hear is safety – and given how much this is stressed by charters one would expect to hear of stabbings and shootings occurring at our public schools on a daily basis. Surely our newspapers would be full of these reports? And don’t forget to add bullying into the safety sell. Newark Charter parents will tell you that their school has no bullying. Anyone buying that one?
And if these charters were actually delivering a superior education I would have to give them credit (even though I, personally, think isolating kids like veal is detrimental to their overall education and development, but that’s me), but they aren’t. The ones that are out-performing public schools have nothing to do with what goes on in the classroom and everything to do with who they let in. They haven’t found the educational version of the fountain of youth, despite their claims.
And make no mistake, “smart” kids at public schools are doing just as well, if not better, as their charter school peers. If we judge who gets into what college with scholarships (and isn’t that really the end game, the golden ticket?) then public schools are rocking it. (See what I did there? And if you don’t like it and find flaw with that logic (even though it’s true)… then welcome to the world of charter school marketing.)
Dave says, “It may be time to listen to them instead of beating them down by calling in the federales. Parents have no interest in shared misery. Charters exist because there is a void and nature abhors a vacuum. Whatya got to fill the vacuum?”
Look, parents care about their own kids, which is fine and makes perfect sense. What doesn’t make sense is basing a public school system on their individual wants. It can’t work and ends up looking like what we’re dealing with now. The parents with the most money and political pull end up with their public-private schools at the expense of, you know, the public. This method doesn’t create strong public schools. It creates winners and losers – and the winners are funding their public-private schools (and these aren’t only charter schools) with our tax dollars.
Not to mention, when choosing a school, most parents base their choice on what their neighbor says – they don’t actually research or visit schools. They simply hear talk like… You’re not actually considering that school?. And so it begins… more as status (my kid attends so and so school) then as a self-fulfilling prophecy as more parents leave public schools they never even bothered to research. So yeah, I’m not willing to let parents set the agenda for anyone but their own kid.
Ah, I can hear you now! Pandora just said, ” I’m not willing to let parents set the agenda for anyone but their own kid” so she agrees with choice and charters. Um, nope. I have always said this. That has never been my point – I have never called for busing to be reinstated (altho I was fine with busing). I have said a gazillion times that if we create high poverty, racially identifiable schools then we have to flippin’ fund them. But we haven’t funded them, in fact we’ve actually pulled resources and programs out of them because, in order to equitably fund them, we’d have to pull money from more affluent schools – and that wasn’t going to happen.
And now… here come the Feds. Good. It’s about time. Delaware is an embarrassment – two seconds after the court ordered deseg was lifted we went and re-segregated. Not exactly a genius move.
Just finished my wine, now off to a concert. BUT, Dave: note that changing DE funding to be “student weighted” ( higher for those categories of students who tend to have higher needs ) is PRECISELY one of the recommendations ACLU makes, to right the current inequities. Please read what they submitted to OCR!
Several legislators have wanted to make that funding change happen; perhaps this will accelerate those efforts. DE can fix our mistakes or the Feds will fix ’em for us. Lots of Delawareans resented that, last time it happened re: public Ed. We’re certainly capable of complying with civil rights law, just very reluctant w/o prodding. Consider ourselves officially prodded.
“Dave, you may want to visit some of the local public schools that you have heard are terrible. Some of those stories and impressions are way off the mark or wildly exaggerated.”
Ever try to visit one on your schedule instead of theirs? At most schools, you’ll be barred from going beyond the principal’s office.
“the Downes elementary PTA sponsored a conversation last week between area parents and recent Downes “grads” who now attend Shue middle or Newark HS (these were 6th-9th graders).”
The Dept. of Corrections used to conduct similarly staged events for lawmakers who wanted to visit the prisons. Guess how many prisoners with complaints they met? Such events might serve a valid PR purpose, but are not a realistic view into the schools.
“there are occasional fights and some kids with serious academic challenges at public schools.”
And that’s exactly what people are looking to get away from. Once upon a time some of them believed, as you still do, that such problems have solutions, but they realized that those solutions would come too late for their kids to benefit.
Such people — me, anyway — no longer believe that we know the solutions to these problems, or if you prefer, that we know the solutions but will not spend the amount of money it would take to remedy them.
As the most glaring example, consider class size. Multiple studies of the subject show that class size matters only when you get below 15 or 16. My experience with private school confirmed that when a class has15 kids in it, there is no “back” of the classroom; no student disappears into the woodwork, and no student has to act out to gain attention. From what I saw, the benefits go well beyond the obvious ones.
The public’s obvious solution would be to hire twice as many teachers so we could cut class sizes, now about 30, to the level at which it makes a difference. But that would require us to spend almost double what we now do on education. Think the public will go for that? Me neither.
“it is also quite clear that there are many thoughtful, poised students in these schools receiving a strong education from caring teachers in a diverse environment–and thriving.”
This is like saying the Black Death got a lot of bad publicity, but lots of people came through it just fine thanks to their prayers and avoidance of “bad air.” Do you think such students would fail to thrive in a setting without the occasional fight or classroom disruption, or do you think they might have done even better without them?
“Certainly don’t use data like average test scores as indicators of what opportunities are available at your local schools for capable students.”
Yet that’s exactly the data on which everything else is based. What data should he use? Or should he use no data at all, just the anecdotal evidence he picks up from visiting the schools?
“schools of highly concentrated poverty do tend to have more disciplinary challenges than those with more varied student populations, for ex.”
Tell the whole truth — schools with varied student populations tend to have more disciplinary challenges than those without any low-income students, too.
“and DE has no mechanism for resourcing our high-poverty schools to address those real challenges.”
What a load of edu-babble. These problems exist in high-poverty schools all over the country, no matter how much money states and cities throw at them. You make it sound as if we know how to fix those kids, and that it’s a snap to implement it with enough money. At the moment, we don’t even know how to keep them in school once they turn 16.
“Remember also that area property values are tied to the actual public schools. No potential buyer wants to know what school they can get a lottery ticket for if they buy your house. They want to know about the schools to which their family would have guaranteed access if they moved in.”
Thank you for identifying the real incentive behind the Neighborhood Schools Act, arguably a bigger driver of Red Clay’s resegregation than choice/charters. You are partially right — but only for the more expensive properties.
An incredibly large number of New Castle County’s suburban homes share fewer than a dozen basic floor plans — you can find the same house in Claymont that you can in Brandywine Hundred, Hockessin and Christiana. They vary in price because of location, and most of that variation is due to school districts and, to a lesser extent, their feeder patterns.
But look at this from the perspective of a low-middle-income buyer — get into even the low end of Red Clay and you have a better shot at your kid getting into Charter School of Wilmington (the word “Wilmington” in the name is the extent of city residents’ power in Red Clay). That school is the district’s lottery ticket, and last time I checked it was the poor who most played the lottery.
You have overlooked one important factor in parents’ school choices: college. Admissions departments will downgrade a great student from a mediocre high school more than a mediocre student from a great high school.
Those are the factors parents consider when they buy a home, which used to be when they chose their schools. Now it’s no guarantee. But don’t worry — the damage already has been done.
“It is not in most taxpayers’ interest to deprive fully public schools of human & financial resources in order to create privileged enclaves for people who already live here. But that’s what we’re doing, now.”
That depends on what you define as “most taxpayers’ interest.” Care to expand on that? Also, what do you mean by “human resources”?
Which charters would you say are “privileged enclaves,” or does the charter itself confer privilege?
“changing DE funding to be “student weighted” ( higher for those categories of students who tend to have higher needs ) is PRECISELY one of the recommendations ACLU makes, to right the current inequities.”
You will find much less resistance to funding city students if you keep them in the city and throw more money at them. If that’s your call for action, you’ll get what you want. Under such circumstances, both city and suburban parents would agree to the split.
But you’ll get no buy-in from the taxpayers — the suburbanites, for the most part — by demanding both higher taxes for programs for the city kids AND co-attendance with the suburban kids who should not have to live through the rigors of acculturating the city kids to a suburban education style.
“DE can fix our mistakes or the Feds will fix ‘em for us.”
If they do that before 2016, they will turn Delaware red.
“Lots of Delawareans resented that, last time it happened re: public Ed.”
And they haven’t forgotten. As I said, if the Feds make any kind of order in this state, it will vote Republican for years to come.
“We’re certainly capable of complying with civil rights law, just very reluctant w/o prodding.”
Bullshit. They won’t do it at all without prodding. And, as the last federal case illustrated, some victories are pyrrhic. Civil rights won, and the state’s public school system was permanently diminished.
“Consider ourselves officially prodded.”
Yes, what a wonderful thing it is to have my taxes fund an attack on a school system funded by my taxes. Now if we can get NPR to do a story on it, we’ll have the trifecta.
“What doesn’t make sense is basing a public school system on their individual wants.”
Except it’s a lot of individuals who want it. If it wasn’t popular, people would stop forming charters.
“It can’t work and ends up looking like what we’re dealing with now. The parents with the most money and political pull end up with their public-private schools at the expense of, you know, the public.”
Whoa there. Who’s “the public,” and why doesn’t it include the parents with the most money and political pull?
“This method doesn’t create strong public schools. It creates winners and losers – and the winners are funding their public-private schools (and these aren’t only charter schools) with our tax dollars.”
In most of America, rich people live near other rich people, and they send their kids to public schools made up mainly of rich kids, and the same for each economic class down the ladder: Local taxes pay for local schools. It used to be that way in Delaware, too, but Delaware got a little too organized about it, redlining all the blacks into easily identified areas and making sure the white kids didn’t have to attend school with them. Once they were forced to change, the broad support for spending on education dwindled. It’s demographic, too: In the 1970s, 40 percent of households were married with children. Today it’s 20 percent, so fewer people have the time to advocate for their own kids let alone all of them.
“So yeah, I’m not willing to let parents set the agenda for anyone but their own kid.”
Only because you perceive it as detrimental to your kids. Let’s face the fact that your interests and those of the people fighting against you are not in alignment. It’s not some mistake on their part, it’s not a situation in which they’d be happy with public education if they’d only give it a chance. Those incidents that Eve characterizes as rare, minor inconveniences are what make public schools unacceptable (“unsafe
What you and the egalitarians fail to realize is that education is by definition aspirational — without the aspiration to better oneself, or more accurately one’s children, education doesn’t work. People are applying to charters in ever-increasing numbers because they offer parents hope. You would call it false hope, but for most people it beats no hope at all. Just like a lottery ticket.
That’s sweet. Some 6-9th graders from Shue and Newark saying, at one meeting, one time, in front of a group of adults staring at them, that their school isn’t that bad. Of course they are going to say that! If you want to really know what kids are thinking , try hanging out with them on a regular basis. And don’t ask them anything. Drive them all to the movies and just listen to the stories they tell each other, or work in your front yard while they play basketball in your street and listen to the stories they tell. Have them hang out at your house playing video games and listen from the other room.
A lot more I wanted to add but am signing off so will just say ditto to what both Geezer and Dave said.
Pencadermom
You’re sarcastic indictment of the legitimacy of these 6th-9th graders stories and your offhanded dismissal of their honesty must make you feel really proud of yourself. Both of my children went through the CSD Bayard, Shue and Newark High experience and both graduated and matriculated to Ivy League schools. Johanna received her Doctorate from Harvard and John III just passed the Maryland Bar exam. Amazingly they both enjoyed every moment of their 12 years in traditional schools and still reflect on the many friendships and wonderful experiences they had with all of their wonderfully diverse circle of friends, (poor, black, Asian, Latino and many unidentifiable beautiful individuals). Also, amazingly, they never felt threatened by their fellow students whom they hung out with “on a regular basis”. If it is any consolation for your prefabricated sense of righteousness I also drove “them all to the movies” and listened to their stories and they “played video games” within earshot. Just some unsolicited advise I would offer to you. Be careful that what you imagine doesn’t displace reality or you might inadvertently harbor an opinion that unfairly and unjustly reflects on others. If and when that opinion is proven to be false it might reflect on you.
Representative John Kowalko
Geezer says, “But look at this from the perspective of a low-middle-income buyer — get into even the low end of Red Clay and you have a better shot at your kid getting into Charter School of Wilmington (the word “Wilmington” in the name is the extent of city residents’ power in Red Clay). That school is the district’s lottery ticket, and last time I checked it was the poor who most played the lottery.”
I do believe they’ve altered this enrollment preference this year. They even voted on it. Wonder if Red Clay potential lottery players know about this?
“Bullshit. They won’t do it at all without prodding. And, as the last federal case illustrated, some victories are pyrrhic. Civil rights won, and the state’s public school system was permanently diminished.”
I never understand this claim. How was the public school system diminished exactly? Are you saying that the generation that was bused was less educated than the previous generation? If so, how?
Before busing, many of New Castle County’s public high schools produced multiple National Merit scholarship winners annually. No more. Of course, we didn’t have nationwide testing to measure Delaware against other states, so I don’t have data to show the decline. Suffice it to say that before busing, employees taking jobs in Delaware weren’t told they’d have to send their kids to private school.
One other thing I forgot to address: Your notion that getting into a good college on a scholarship is the goal. Not so. For people with money, the scholarship isn’t as important as the acceptance.
Moving on to your next comment, Geezer!
“It can’t work and ends up looking like what we’re dealing with now. The parents with the most money and political pull end up with their public-private schools at the expense of, you know, the public.”
Whoa there. Who’s “the public,” and why doesn’t it include the parents with the most money and political pull?
This question isn’t worthy of you. You know I include everyone under the label public. Building two new suburban elementary schools and building additions onto AI High to accommodate choice students while space exists at existing schools was a waste of tax payer dollars. So the parents with the most money and political pull are the part of the public benefiting the most – their “wants” are being catered to at the expense of others. I would like public policy that benefited the all of public – or at least attempted to.
““So yeah, I’m not willing to let parents set the agenda for anyone but their own kid.”
Only because you perceive it as detrimental to your kids. Let’s face the fact that your interests and those of the people fighting against you are not in alignment.”
Nope. This isn’t about my kids. I’m out of the system in June and I’ve been more than pleased with my children’s public education and results. This is not personal to me. I’m not fighting for my biological children. I’m fighting for children who are being screwed over by the system and I really don’t understand why people don’t give a sh*t about them.
@pencadermom
I “hang out” with lots of teens and don’t hear the horror stories you’ve heard. Maybe the kids “hanging out” at your house are part of the problem since they always seem to have such first hand knowledge of all the bad things happening at school. (Kinda kidding.)
John, I apologize to any of those students, or their parents, who might read this. I do believe that the students who said their experience is fine at their school were being truthful when asked.
Not really sure what it has to do with anything at all or why you felt the need to point out the diversity or races of your kids friends but I’ll play along. My kid went to Pencader, he was a minority there, had friends who were poor, black, Asian, Turk (or is it Turkish?) and his best friend is Indian Muslim.
Your kids (and Pandora’s and whoever else) would have succeeded to the degree that they did no matter where they went. Congrats. on being an awesome parent. (And I am not saying that sarcastically.) Then there are the rest of us! Seriously, many people who feel we need the help of a school to have discipline and set boundaries to help us. I am not some snobby person who wants to keep my kids away from “those kids” poor, black, whatever (or he wouldn’t have gone to Pencader for 4 years if that was the kind of person I am) but felt it was my best bet, given our slim choices, to help him, and to help the kids around him (because I feel many kids are greatly influenced by their friends) stay on track and not get into trouble, or at least discipline them when they did, and that he would probably do academically, what he would have done anywhere.
Like Geezer said above, the schools hands were tied when it came to discipline in his kids school. Untie their hands.
My ideas don’t come out exactly how I mean them when I write on here. I think you guys make me nervous or something 🙂 whatever. I’m done. Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas and Happy Hannukah to you all.
“I’m not fighting for my biological children. I’m fighting for children who are being screwed over by the system and I really don’t understand why people don’t give a sh*t about them.”
I should have phrased my comment, “Your advocacy for the poor kids doesn’t hurt your kids.” It’s nice that you value diversity in the classroom, but not everyone does. Your position seems to be one you think is best for ALL kids, no matter what their parents believe. I refuse to substitute my judgment for theirs, even if I think theirs is mistaken.
You really don’t understand why most people don’t give a sh*t about poor children? I find that hard to believe, but here it is: Most parents feel more debt to their own children than the rest of society’s children, and always will. I think even people who feel a debt to poor children will look after their own kids first. You will not find a stronger advocate for minority kids than Jea Street, but he sent his own kids to private school.
The overwhelming attitude here seems to be that such a position is morally repugnant. Good luck with that. I’m highly skeptical that your argument will prove persuasive.
You know, my position has never been that all schools should/must be diverse. In fact, in this very thread, I made clear that my thoughts on diversity were only my thoughts. I have called for equitable funding. I have called for resources and programs. Please stop putting words in my mouth.
Of course parents will look after their own children first. (Hey! Whatdoyouknow, I even said that on this thread!) But when we discuss education we aren’t discussing individuals we are discussing a system. And I know plenty of people who take care of their own children and advocate for other children. It’s really not an either/or scenario.
Here’s a question: What steps would you take to fix the education system? You’re very short on solutions when it comes to this topic. I have offered several suggestions/solutions but they’ve not been addressed. I’m beginning to think the point of not addressing them is that people are happy with the status quo – which is fine, just say so.
Yep, a lot of people are flipping out over the ACLU’s actions. I’ll even admit to enjoying the freak out – my bad. But it’s past time we had this conversation.
” I’m highly skeptical that your argument will prove persuasive.”
We only need to convince one judge. It is a matter of civil rights, not a referendum on charter schools.
I apologize for putting words in your mouth. I think some people, not all of them writing on this thread, do feel that way, though, so let me redirect the comments at them.
If solutions were to be found, wouldn’t we have found them already? I have no solutions beyond the one I suggested — we spend twice as much on education as we do now in order to shrink class sizes to the necessary levels. Of course, that idea wouldn’t get 10% in a referendum. I have no problem with the solution you have suggested, that we steer larger amounts to “challenging” student populations, and it seems like the right thing to do as well. But I’d wager that wouldn’t top 40% in a referendum. And I wouldn’t expect it to achieve better than a small improvement.
If you mean real, practical solutions, I don’t know of any. Neither does anyone else, from what I have seen over the past 30 years — at least not one that translates easily from school to school. I have seen schools that are well-oiled machines, and more that are oil spills. My experience was that the principal was the single most important element in a school, and that there are more schools than there are good principals, partly because the best principals have a good bit of experience, partly because a principal must lead and relate well to both adults and children, two related but different skills.
If I’m right about that — my evidence is only anecdotal — I suppose better leadership training might produce better principals. But I think any improvements always will be incremental. There is no “solution” to the reality that some of the kids will, by definition, be below average.
Here’s a question: What steps would you take to fix the education system?
An advocate/mentor/social worker for every single identifiable at risk kid. Every one. Start with one school or one neighborhood and start young. I guess it would cost a fortune. But if it worked, in the long run, would be worth it, to stop a kid from being socially passed, dropping out, turning to crime and/or drugs because they are without hope, being a bully, being bullied, being hungry or without other basic needs, mentoring whatever parent or guardian they might have, etc.
@Pencadermom
So, in short, give a new parent to each at-risk child?
Yep. Isn’t that the missing piece to the puzzle?
I recently participated in a facebook discussion about an old school picture. My local elementary school was rolled into a bigger district as part of the 1969 consolidation. http://www.doe.k12.de.us/cms/lib09/DE01922744/Centricity/Domain/141/Consolidation1953_1973.pdf
EVERY PERSON WHO SPOKE spoke with pain of the loss of the school, and the community. They HATED that school. For me, I did all right in it, largely due to having been nurtured and protected by my teachers… who later went to my parents and told them to send me to private school rather than the Junior High. I’m a success story. But I was so surprised to hear this, from kids who ‘looked okay” to me.
Sure, there are kids getting great educations in our public schools. There are also kids getting no education. There are also kids getting raped and sexually assaulted. The thing is, from my POV, every kid is “at risk.” That’s where the problem lies.
And, related, we can talk about race, but the kids, in and out of public schools, getting the worst deal are in our special ed population. They haven’t gotten much more than lip service in this debate.
But the solution doesn’t come from father away. It doesn’t come from more consolidation. We already have data on that.
I would be willing to pay higher taxes if I thought the money would be spent responsibly. Smaller class sizes or other real solutions vs. “Race to the Top”.
I think there are solutions. I just think that we don’t want to spend the time and money on certain populations.
One of the reasons this is blowing up is due to separate but unequal. When certain public schools have so much and others have so little – so little as to practically guarantee that their students will never be able to access “elite” schools and programs – things will eventually blow up.
And all of this can be improved if we start at the elementary school level. Here are some ideas:
1. More money and resources directed at high needs struggling schools.
2. Start using the stupid test (since it isn’t going away any time soon) to identify problems. Meaning, if a school is failing the test (ugh) then the district and the DDOE must take steps to add additional money and resources to that school – rather than slapping a label on the school and shrugging, like they do now. Yep, they’re going to have to alter their budgets.
3. Struggling schools have a mandatory (no waiver allowed) class size cap.
4. House desirable programs in the least desirable schools. This will create voluntary diversity (see Brandywine School District) and add parents with the luxury of time and money.
5. Get rid of homework. Yep, I said it. I’m not sure when tons of homework became the fad, but it’s time to end that. Actually, ridiculous amounts of homework seemed tied to the test. This is what ed reform looks like when it’s cheaply done. There isn’t enough time to teach to everything on the test – let alone take an extra day to review material a class is struggling with – so we add homework to fill in the gap.
And that’s why parents are so involved today – we have to help our kids get the homework done. And all this talk of parent involvement is a relatively new phenomenon. Yes, my parents would help us if we had a problem, but mostly they only asked, “Is your homework done?” as we ran out the door to play. And I would bet the most fights and stress at home between parent and child centers around homework.
And there’s no doubt that some kids will remain below average, but they exist at every school. Right now we are writing off huge segments of children without even trying to improve their outcomes. This was one of my biggest problems with the new “priority” schools. I wrote this in October:
“What’s infuriating is that we begin these discussions pretending we’ve actually tried to help these schools. We haven’t, and the State and Districts are both guilty of this. It isn’t as if the State and District are saying, “Hey, we tried smaller class sizes, putting more teachers in the schools, implemented equitable funding, added resources like wellness centers, school psychologists and put back programs such as TAG, Technology, Reading/Math specialists, Arts, etc. and these schools are still struggling so now we need to try something different.” They can’t say that because they never did that.”
I think we’ve reached a tipping point, and for people on my side of the issue it’s a welcome point. It’s past time for this conversation.
I think there are solutions as well. However, I agree with Geezer that over the past 20 to 30 years just about everything has been tried and with varying levels of success or failure, have been found wanting.
In my opinion it is because in general, our public educational system is good enough that you can only eke out small incremental gains in performance. We all recognize that the public education system is like a 3 legged stool. Nothing you can do to one leg can fix anything because the stool cannot stand on one leg.
Pencadermom, unintentionally highlighted this when she offered that providing a mentor for every single at risk child (followed by Davy, who noted that it was tantamount to giving each child a parent). The schools currently offer after school programs, meals, take home meals, yadda yadda. All out of every concern for the child. And now the next natural progression is to give them each a parent? Wither goest thou? Wards of the state?
The educational system cannot take the place of every institution, structure, or necessity, that is essential to make education effective or produce upstanding well-rounded adults. It fails when it deviates from its core competencies. Yeah, there are bad teachers, but that’s not new. We all had them and survived and thrived. But we did it because even though one leg of the stool may have been a bit wobbly, the stool still was able to carry us.
What’s missing, in my opinion, is the focus on the other legs. But unfortunately that’s a very difficult (and maybe impossible) conversation to have. I’ve always thought that the most effective means to eliminate abortion is to eliminate unwanted pregnancy, especially through use of contraceptives. In the same vein, I believe you will improve education when you decrease the number of at-risk children. In fact, charters are doing exactly that, eliminating at-risk children as means to improve education.
Ideas to improve the system? Stop trying to be all things to all people. If reducing poverty reduces at risk children, then focus on that. If we have cultural issues that are producing at risk children, work on that. Schools have a large role to play in the development of children, but they are not the only leg of the stool.
Dave, several good points–but I’m still wondering whether you’ve read the ACLU complaint. Their goal is to insist that low-income & special needs children have equal access to DE’s highest performing charter schools (they cite Wilm., Newark and Sussex charters specifically). All of those school impose barriers to access for poorer kids (who are disproportionately minority–that’s what allows this complaint to be made, via OCR) that could easily be removed and should never have been imposed (but the state was lazy and the schools did what they/their populations wanted–despite being publicly funded).
That sounds, to me, perfectly consistent with your position. In addition, leveling the demographics across proximate schools should reduce the burden on public schools that ARE currently required to take all comers, improving their outcomes as well. The student-weighted funding recommendation would aid schools that, for whatever reason, remain serving student populations with unusually high needs. These aren’t particularly novel or radical ideas, but DE has drifted away from public school equity over several decades. This is a call to return to compliance with federal law (or forego federal Ed. funds, if DE wants to do its own thing in the civil rights arena). One or the other.
I love these old bygone stories of where everyone turned out smart and successful. It never existed but people keep pretending it did.
The real difference between then and now was manufacturing and blue collar jobs – jobs where average, or below average, students could earn a salary sufficient to provide for a family.
The idea that everyone received a great education in the 40s, 50s, and 60s is complete nonsense and we all know it. (Hell, we all know people of that time period that aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed – and there are a LOT of them.) Certain people received a good to so-so foundational education, more affluent people received a better education. Poor communities never received the “best” or “better” education. To pretend that times were different back in the good old days is wrong. The reason we’re discussing educational levels now is due to a test that measures where populations are. This didn’t just happen. It’s the way it’s always been. So can we please stop romanticizing the past – poor people in the fifties have a very different experience of those times.
I did not say that schools were great back then or that we received a great education. In fact, I said we “survived,” inferring that schools were at best, good enough.
You zeroed in on that, mischaracterizing what I said, to exclusion of my primary point that the education system is but one leg of the stool and if you keep playing Don Quixote on that leg, while ignoring the other legs, the stool will not stand, regardless of what you do!
I don’t care about leveling the demographics. I am suggesting that the zeal to accommodate the demographics is tantamount to perpetuating the demographic status quo, in direct opposition to what Geezer pointed out that education is aspirational.
In fact, the comment about leveling the demographics is telling in that it evokes an image of a homogenized demographic where everything is just good enough and there is no incentive for anyone to excel at anything. Basically, it leads to the conclusion that the interest lies, not in pulling anyone up, rather to pull others down.
I’m simply offering that we’ve been at this education reform for a long number of years and perhaps it’s time recognize that if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got. Education is a key element of human development, but it’s not the only one.
The problem with your argument (and pencadermom’s and Davy’s) is the assumption that poor people don’t care about their children – that’s one of your legs, right? Parenting? It simply isn’t true – or it’s true to the extent that there’s a percentage of parents – across all socioeconomic lines – that don’t care – wealthier parents simply rely on the system to care for them. And that works for them because they have a good educational system in place.
Parents that care have kids that do well? We know this isn’t true, yet when middle class, or above, children don’t succeed we don’t blame parents. We don’t say, “There’s a percentage of non poverty parents whose children didn’t get into college and now reside on their parents’ sofas and we need to address their parenting.”
And it’s this generalization about people in poverty that makes me see red and also tells me that the people writing stuff about “parent involvement” for poor people – while ignoring that most wealthier parents aren’t involved in their kids education… it’s always a small group of the same people – don’t know any of these poor families. I live across the street from a high poverty school and this is what I hear and see every day from the parents dropping off and picking up their children: Hugs, “Have a good day and work hard!”, kisses, “How was your day? What did you learn today”, laughter and a ton of caring communication. Listening to the people commenting on this thread you’d think that poor people are all crack heads who don’t care about their children. That has got to stop.
I agree, Pandora, that the schools never provided the same education to people. Among the mostly white kids I grew up with, some became professors and some janitors. Everyone KNEW which kids might become professors, and which would probably become janitors. And, some 40 years later, they’ve had reasonably happy lives doing those things.
The difficulty now is that our education system isn’t permitted to acknowledge that some people will be janitors, or even that we NEED janitors. Everyone is supposed to be a professor. And not everyone is qualified to be a professor, or wants to be a professor. But we’re putting huge amounts of energy into making it “possible” to get kids into college, where they acquire huge amounts of debt, which they have to pay off doing work they think is “beneath” them. I work with kids of all kinds. I’ve had students that got all the advantages…Odyssey, charters, AP’s, enrichment up the wazoo. Many of them are on year 7 and counting for a bachelor’s degree, not because the school failed, but because they weren’t the sharpest tools in the shed to start with, they have lousy work habits, and they’re too good to do the work like ordinary mortals. We want the charter schools open to more people? Why? I work in the arts. I think Cab should be shut down…as I think some prestige private schools in the arts should be decertified, because there are dozens of kids in every class and program who do not have the talent to make it in a very competitive field. And no one will tell them so, until the market “doesn’t understand them.”It’s just fraud, that’s what it is. We should open a professional basketball player charter. People would have the same shot with a degree from that. In fact, I’ll bet there are more former NBA stars succeeding in entertainment than Julliard graduates, by proportion, so maybe the Cab students should transfer.
I was in the public schools the last time we played this game. Was anyone else, here? If you were, and you’re willing to commit YOUR kids to a similar circus, we had very different experiences.
I have a suggestion. How about we completely change our teacher selection process? Right now, the training we give our teachers (and require them to get, to be employed in the public schools) is excessive and inappropriate. We care almost not at all whether they know their subject, as long as they studied pedagogy (which is right up there with phrenology, in some instances) and tested through the Praxis. Instead, let’s get people who have studied a field, and who pass a rigorous background check and battery of psychological tests, to remove pederasts, bullies, and people who believe in Creationism. Rotate them into teaching in a system like Teach for America, as a mode of community service. Then rotate them out. Why do term limits make sense for politicians, but not for educators?
Or sort the kids. But sort them double-blind, and be honest about what you’re looking for.
“is the assumption that poor people don’t care about their children – that’s one of your legs, right?”
Yes it is one of the legs. But your assumption that I was inferring that poor people don’t care about their children is incorrect. I wish I could understand how you reached that conclusion. Is it the way I said it? I was trying to choose my words carefully and non-judgmental.
Reread your comment and see how far you took your inference and assumption. You went all the way from one leg of the stool (which is accepted by experts) to arguing that it matters little if at all! (“Parents that care have kids that do well? We know this isn’t true”). Family is one leg of the stool. Does that mean that if that leg is strong kids will do well? You know better than to trot that out. Of course not!
Did I say, non-poverty parents are automatically a strong leg of the stool? No. I did not. Nor did I infer it. Why do you automatically jump to those kinds of conclusions?
Still, on your point, parents poor and rich are one leg of the stool. Perhaps rich parents have no excuse for being weak, but poor parents often lack the resources, tools, and necessities. I was suggesting that it’s a resource allocation issue. Resources going to the schools when perhaps we would get a better return on our resources if we put it towards parents/families.
Why do you have take that simple thought and make it seem like it’s a criticism of poor people? You pounce too quickly.
Forgive me if I misunderstood. You do write vaguely so you leave a lot open to interpretation. What exactly is the 3rd leg of your stool? Society?
And it was probably your yadda, yadda comment followed by your ward of the state comment in reference to high poverty children. You did limit that comment to “after school programs, meals, take home meals” two of which directly relates to children in poverty. And if we focus on schools stepping into those roles then perhaps we should ask schools to stop stepping into, and funding, other roles like sports, TSA/Odyssey of the mind, etc. If schools fail “when it deviates from its core competencies” then should we remove everything that isn’t a core competency?
” And if we focus on schools stepping into those roles then perhaps we should ask schools to stop stepping into, and funding, other roles like sports, TSA/Odyssey of the mind, etc. If schools fail “when it deviates from its core competencies” then should we remove everything that isn’t a core competency?”
There’s crux of it. What core competencies should schools possess and how well are they executing those core competencies? That is, what is the common core (intended reference) of education and in what manner does it get delivered?
On further on the crux. If you were to write a mission statement for schools that would embody all they must do, what would it look like? And what competencies should they possess to execute their mission?
Kids today learn a lot more than past generations – Even the ones who are struggling.
One of the biggest problems is the test. Everyone knew 3rd grade was when it got serious – that was when the test really started and counted. On that test kids needed to write essay questions. When my son was in 2nd grade he was learning to write an essay. Had he learned sentence structure? Nope. There wasn’t time for that. There’s the problem – teaching to the test, which is an absolute must.
By third grade children should have a strong educational foundation in reading and math. This will involve repetition. Go speak with a teacher about this. They will tell you that repetition of a subject matter is gone… due to covering material on the test. So if a child, or a class, doesn’t get something… too bad, moving on. It’s in the curriculum, by date, don’tchaknow. There are even curriculum packets for teachers on what to teach each and every day.
4th and 5th grade we can begin to expand while still building a strong foundation by adding science and social studies. Science joins math and reading as a core subject while social studies can be subjective given what is being taught.
By the end of elementary school, kids should be able to read on grade level, understand sentence structure and parts of speech, write a basic essay, have a firm grasp on addition, subtraction, multiplication and division with basic algebra/geometry (in the form of introducing letters – find x – and basic shapes and their components), know basic science and be exposed to history. (I’m sure I’m forgetting some things – typing quickly)
We see when this foundation is missing in middle school, and if you ask most people where educational problems exist they’ll say middle school, but they’d be wrong. Middle school is where problems in elementary school come to light. And if we try to address these problems in middle school we’re too late. Middle school sets the track for high school – they are linked.
The mission of public school, imo, should be to offer the same basic education to all children. Yes, we can still have TAG and special ed, but the foundation should still be the same across the board. If a family moved from the city to Pike Creek (or vice versa) there shouldn’t be big gaps in their public school education. But there are.
The entire discussion assumes that we will continue indefinitely funding our current system of building brick-and-mortar schools for 400-600 students and busing the children to their destination (and, even worse, allowing them to drive themselves there the last two years of high school).
It’s my belief that you are tossing buckets of water on what used to be a house but is now a pile of embers. One-third of our state budget goes to education; add property taxes for schools and you are looking at roughly half of a middle-class taxpayer’s tax bill going to a system everyone seems to agree is failing, and the rich no longer want to pay for.
By attributing a problem of the poor — and it is, disproportionately, a problem of poverty — to the entire system, the entire system is going to be torn down, most likely to be replaced by a computer-based system that will give even less attention to kids than we do now. Taxpayers won’t see any savings, because at that point the entire system will be geared toward turning a profit. Some parts of the system already are profit-oriented — can anyone explain to me why we still use dead-tree textbooks instead of handing every kid a Kindle? — but it will get much, much worse.
In many ways, I won’t be sad to see it go, at least at the high school level. High school in this country is a warped, warping experience that most people look back on with fear and loathing, and rightly so. So, unlike so many of you, I’m not invested in this system at all. I think getting schools out of competitive sports is an excellent step, but it won’t happen. I think segregating kids by grade level instead of age is a good idea, but it won’t happen. Every change you might propose will be opposed by entrenched interests, and therefore won’t happen.
Prop up a failing system long enough, you’ll easily find a majority willing to abandon it. Prop it up with lawsuits filed on behalf of the poor, and you’ll continue to drive the middle class to the Republican Party. The GOP has since Reagan told middle-class whites that they have more in common with rich whites than poor minorities. White middle-class voters see such lawsuits as evidence that the GOP is correct.
Other than pandora, S Newton & me, I’m curious whether anyone else who is posting on this thread has read the ACLU/CLASI complaint. I guess that’s asking a lot, but since people are commenting–have you read it?
Yes
I most certainly have and it’s dead on. Most people don’t know what the grand plan is with the charter conspiracy, even some legislators in our fine state. Many parents certainly don’t. They just think their kids are being serviced by the excellent charters. Don’t get me wrong, not all charters are bad. Not all teachers at charters are bad. It’s the ones who control the conversation overall, all the way up to the federal level. I would have to bet many high up in the charter world in Delaware don’t even know what the true goal is. But many of us do, and we have figured it out, piece by piece. This ACLU and CLA complaint is just a first step in the exposure to the public about what these agendas are. All will be revealed to all in due time.
Reading the complaint is important, but so is understanding Delaware’s educational history. Knowing what happened in the last 18 years, with charters, choice, magnets and the NSA is vital to this conversation and understanding why this is coming to a head.
This is a question for eve Buckley
I am curious, please tell us, very specifically, what exact barriers has the Sussex Charter placed in the way for Minority children?
What are your examples, not anecdoatl, but actual barriers and how where they addressed, and where they addressed at all.
Because.there is a lot of noise about upstate charters, and that’s fine if these problems do exist. But Sussex has one charter. ONE, that serves a very large geographic location. And with the 5 mile rule maybe being an option in NCC- that would not work in rural Sussex where the population density is far different.
So,,before one goes off and bashes the only option to public school most sussex countians have let’s look and see if there is really even a porblem before we try to ‘fix’ something that might not be broken.
So, what are the actual barriers placed in the way for minority students at the sussex charter.
Thanks
Yes, I’ve read it. You know what I find odd about it? It completely overlooks the most glaring racial concentration in the entire state: The Charter School of Wilmington’s student body is nearly 25% Asian. It’s almost as if someone had designed a school just to attract those kids, isn’t it? Yet that goes entirely unmentioned. I wonder why that is? Whose civil rights are being violated when a single school has five times the Asian population of its district? Could it be that such a concentration violates NOBODY’s rights? How could that be? You couldn’t possibly get such a concentration — the odds of it happening at random are staggering — unless you planned it, right?
“Yet that goes entirely unmentioned. I wonder why that is?”
Obviously a rhetorical question. I noticed that also. I also noticed that the complaint does not include Asians as “students of color.” One can only assume that they are considered white. Further, the report does not seem to identify any structural barriers for students with disabilities. I also found it interesting that the complaint found fault with “high-performing charter schools’ preferences for students who have a specific interest in the school’s teaching methods, philosophy or educational focus…” Is the ACLU advocating that disinterest should be a criteria?
Regardless, I stand by my original statement that charters are a solution to a problem. It may be that they are the wrong solution, but they are a parental response to many years of reforms that apparently have done nothing to ease their concerns or ameliorate the problems. If it isn’t charters, it will be vouchers, private school, home schooling, et al.
And with each attempt by parents to climb out of the morass that comprises our educational system, someone (ACLU) will grab them by the ankles and vigorously pull the attempted escapees back down, perpetuating the downward spiral. Truly the only questions that remain, is when will the bottom be reached? Or are we already there?
It’s almost as if someone had designed a school just to attract those kids, isn’t it?
Yes, that is exactly what happened. In Delaware, Asians in charters tend to have highly educated parents with higher income levels, which is CSW’s target enrollment.
I took a quick look at the Sussex charter and found a couple of interesting things in their supplemental application and handbook.
1. “Write an essay explaining why you would like to attend Sussex Academy. Include specific information about what Sussex Academy can offer you in terms of the methods, philosophy or educational focus and explain how our school would be the best fit for your learning preferences. Students applying for grades 6 – 8 may respond in a paragraph. Students applying for grades 9 or 11 should respond in a multi-paragraph essay.”
I don’t have a huge problem with an essay, altho… that’s not a requirement for a public school.
2. Uniforms and gym clothes must be purchased through an approved vender (Flynn and O’Hara) at an estimated cost of 60.00+ (That’s two shirts and gym uniform – I went on the site). There is no mention of financial assistance being available, altho it probably is. But not mentioning it can cause a poor family not to apply.
3. There are costs for before care (5.00 a day) and after care (5.00 a day). Again, no mention of financial assistance which could deter parents from applying.
4. On Sussex Academy’s supplemental application they are asking: “Is your child currently receiving special education services or has a 504 Plan? (If yes, attach copy of current IEP or 504)” I thought this was a no no? Did I miss something?
5. Fees: “The rate of $200 shall be assessed for each middle school student and $225 for each high school student annually. This fee or a portion of this fee may be waived for families based on income.”
Public schools do not charge annual fees to attend.
“Yes, that is exactly what happened.”
So if the school was designed with Asian students as specific targets, why is that entirely ignored in the complaint?
You missed my point: The “identifiably white” CSW actually has five times the number of Asian students it should, but the complaint doesn’t even acknowledge that fact — because to acknowledge it would undermine their pre-determined narrative.
The obvious problem with the complaint is that is does not demonstrate causality. The truth is that the “failing schools” are not actually failing. They are just full of failing students. There’s no evidence at all that if you filled — to pick an example — Moyer Academy with 25% Asian students, they would all start failing. And if you filled CSW with free-lunch kids, it, too, would be “failing.”
Y’all want to pretend that no effort has been expended on those students’ behalf, when the truth is that we have spent the past 40 years trying to boost their achievement, to little effect.
As Dave pointed out, you’re a bunch of crabs in a basket.
Well, if the case is so ridiculous why is everyone freaking out?
It’s not about the old skin color hatreds. Asian families fit the target demographics, no matter what color they are. If more black parents had graduate degrees and made six figures working for Delaware’s leading corporations, their children would be in CSW in larger numbers too. But we don’t have that kind of society yet.
“Well, if the case is so ridiculous why is everyone freaking out?”
I was unaware “everyone” was “freaking out.” It’s not ridiculous from the standpoint of people who still believe in public education.
“Asian families fit the target demographics, no matter what color they are.”
In that case, why does the complaint take such trouble to document what color students are? And if what color they are matters, why doesn’t it matter if they’re Asian?
“If more black parents had graduate degrees and made six figures working for Delaware’s leading corporations, their children would be in CSW in larger numbers too. But we don’t have that kind of society yet.”
That statement assumes, without evidence, that we someday will have that kind of society.
@Pandora: Several charters — including the only one ever founded by an educator and based on a non-traditional teaching approach — have closed for lack of funds, so it’s pretty obvious why parent fund-raising has been made part of the program.
Fundraising is one thing. Mandatory fees to attend a public school is another. This fee at Sussex Academy isn’t a suggestion – it’s tuition.
Aoine, the Sussex Charter case was drafted by parents in Susses Cty school districts, in collaboration with the ACLU staff. I am less familiar with it–but I believe the complaint cites some issues such as required school fees (there is a specific section on Sussex Charter, you can consult this) that bar attendance by poorer families–particularly Hispanics, since that demographic group is among the poorest in that area. The pie charts, p. 10-11, illustrate the stark differences in Hispanic & black enrollment between Sussex Charter and surrounding public schools. I can’t say more about that example other than what is in the complaint, as I did not contribute to that portion.
“Fund-raising is one thing.”
Yes, it is, and the complaint makes a big stink about it, despite the fact that waivers are available.
“This fee … isn’t a suggestion — it’s tuition.”
I agree.
BTW, when I was in high school back in the ’70s, we had to buy our own gym clothes, too. I had no idea how downtrodden I was.
I am also various curious to see what OCR does with CSW’s Asian demographic figures, since most of OCR’s directives focus on comparing white students’ access to those of black & Hispanic students (whose access to equal ed. opportunity is their central national concern, I believe). Even ignoring the Asian student % in CSW’s demographics, white students are substantially over-represented there (64% vs 44% in the district). My guess is that OCR will focus on under-representation of black & Hispanic students as the core concern (at CSW), and the need to remedy that insofar as is reasonably possible–their directives include some language about weighing educational mission against racial disparities in access, but the “educational” justification for underserving minorities has to be very compelling. Essentially, the OCR position with regard to CSW is likely to be: of the three primary categories of minority students in DE, one is very well accommodated there and two are not–how can Red Clay ensure more equitable access for those two. But we’ll see.
Waivers are nice, but those assessed fees count as tuition (glad we agree!) and disqualify Sussex Academy as a public school.
Sheesh, you cannot charge people, even people who can afford it, a fee to attend a public school.
@Eve: You’re confusing attendance with access and opportunity with ability.
Please remember that all those black kids in failing schools not only chose those schools, they want to keep their kids there too.
“You cannot charge people, even people who can afford it, a fee to attend a public school.”
Apparently you can.
@Eve: So how do you propose putting under-achieving students in a high-achieving setting? It’s a high school, not an elementary school. If you have to have remedial courses, the entire reason for the school disappears.
Explain, please, why parents of students there should view this as anything but an attempt at achieving “equality” by destroying the school’s entire reason for being?
That’s it? No wonder the ACLU is involved and just might win given the arguments from the other side. (Not addressing you specifically)
The “enrollment preferences” task force at Buena Vista last night, guided by Rep Kim Williams and Sen. Nicole Poore, was very interesting. I haven’t attended for several months, and the conversation has shifted substantially, toward widespread (not universal) agreement, within the group of 21 members, on the need to make access to DE public ed options more equitable–less dependent on students’ family advantages (wealth, parental support & navigational savvy, etc.).
Among the highlights:
Jennifer Nagourney, who joined DOE charter schools office about a year ago, stated clearly several times that any “specific interest” preference (e.g. for arts or science curricula) tends to be, in practice, a slippery slope toward assessing ability rather than interest, and that her office is very concerned about that. She noted that “interest” per se is nearly impossible to measure, thus ability evaluations of various kinds tend to be used as a proxy and this leads to clear advantages for better-off kids. Knock me down with a feather.
My senator, David Sokola, with whom I have stridently disagreed on ed. policy decisions over several years, stated clearly that he is very troubled by the reduced access to magnet schools for lower-income kids who simply do not have the same opportunity for private music & dance lessons, etc., as their wealthier peers, and that he wants to see more attention to that issue. Also he himself cited the transcript of the mid-’90s charter law debate and the warnings therein that the law (which he sponsored) risked producing elite public schools for more advantaged kids–and emphasized that this has indeed come to pass and we need to fix it.
We can all speculate on what led to this discursive shift and whether it will have impact on actual policy debates in the coming legislative session, but in the inimitable words of Mike Matthews, there were many “come to Jesus moments” from unlikely quarters. For those of us who think this is a positive change, continued pressure on our public officials should help sustain this momentum toward greater equity in public school choice.
@geezer “Please remember that all those black kids in failing schools not only chose those schools, they want to keep their kids there too.”
Huh?
Are you unaware that the identifiably black charter schools that are failing are also the subject of public rallies to keep them open?
@geezer “Please remember that all those black kids in failing schools not only chose those schools, they want to keep their kids there too.”
I’ll second that “Huh?” That has not been my experience as a city resident and advocate for high poverty schools who speaks with many city families. Sure, everyone would like a good school close to home, but not at the expense of a good education.
“That’s it? No wonder the ACLU is involved and just might win given the arguments from the other side.”
I have no idea what “it” is. I’m not involved in defending Charter School of Wilmington according to the “law.” I’m pointing out the absurdities of complaining that a de facto magnet school doesn’t have enough dumb kids in it. Because, you know, why should we stop at mixing kids based on race and income? Don’t the stupid deserve a chance, too? Or do you egalitarians maintain that all kids actually have equal abilities, it’s just that rich people know how to tap into them?
Let me make something clear: CSW is a magnet school. Sussex Academy and Newark Charter are white-flight academies. There’s a difference, but apparently the ACLU is too stupid to notice.
It is the tuition charged by Sussex Academy.
CSW is the CHARTER School of Wilmington. It is not a magnet.
@geezer, I assumed you were referring to black children in the purportedly failing Priority Schools–several of which are apparently much stronger educational environments than test scores might lead one to believe. See for ex. today’s letter about Stubbs in the NJ (Stubbs’s current principal is a remarkable and inspiring man.) In any event the point is to ensure that families from a range of neighborhoods and circumstances have the public opportunities that we’re funding in their districts as equitably as possible. If your child dances around the room every night and you can’t afford dance lessons, what better option for that child than a public, arts-focused magnet school? Trained ballerinas should have access, too; but not necessarily MORE access. That’s the debate.
“CSW is the CHARTER School of Wilmington. It is not a magnet.”
Perhaps you missed the phrase “de facto”? So you’re in favor of destroying the school if it’s a charter, but not if it’s a magnet?
@Eve: I have no clue what the idea is with the Priority Schools, but I’m against it no matter what the idea is.
I have no problem at all with extra funding for schools with high-poverty student populations. It’s when you start moving the kids around like checkers that I find the benefits fail to outweigh the detriments.
You know what I’m in favor of, Geezer, so please stop pretending. And where did you say de facto? Did I miss that? Even though the Charter School of Wilmington is a charter school with a separate board and specific laws pertaining to a charter school.
As far as magnets, lookee what I said on this very thread:
“The problem is… we have diluted the system, resulting in public schools losing money and resources. And this doesn’t only affect the neediest kids. When we pull all the high performing kids out of a public school and put them into a charter, magnet or Vo-tech then the public school they leave behind will lose accelerated programs due to decreased enrollment. The school’s high needs percentage rises and further drains resources.
If we focused on elementary education a lot of this would sort itself out because we would be preparing all students to enter CSW, Cab, Conrad, etc.. That’s where the divide exists – at the end of 5th grade. Fix that and your middle and high schools diversity problems will lessen.”
So I do, and did clearly state on this thread and others, that I have a problem with magnets’ admissions processes. How many times do I have to say these things?
So no magnets either. Well, I suppose I should let you go so you can get to your unicorn riding lesson on time.
You’re right, I didn’t say “de facto” that time. Of course, I also said Sussex and Newark were white-flight academies, and you didn’t disagree.
And, again, that’s all you got. Unicorns?
Now I have to edit because you edited to add that last paragraph. NNCS and Sussex are white flight academies – CSW is too, but not to the same extent mainly because it’s a high school.
“If your child dances around the room every night and you can’t afford dance lessons, what better option for that child than a public, arts-focused magnet school?”
Actually, any school would be a better option. We have no business running a performing arts school, and if we’re listing things we don’t want our tax dollars going toward, that would come right behind a law enforcement academy — did anyone notice that that school is failing despite a majority-white student body? — and a banking-concentration school.
“And, again, that’s all you got.”
And all you’ve got is liberal self-righteousness. Have fun.
Anyone care to reread this thread and point out who has offered ideas/solutions and who is full of self-righteousness? (Okay, I have some self-righteousness too. 😉 )
Due to real life I have been mostly following this thread in lurker mode, but here are a few observations:
1. Geezer contextualizes the whole issue in context of what he sees as the collapse of the entire traditional American public education system; charters et al are symptoms not cause, and the system as it currently exists is doomed anyway. That’s fine, but then it weakens his credibility when arguing individual points because if this whole argument devolves into nothing more than moving around deck chairs on the Titanic, why should we be considering the technical insights of an end-times prophet?
2. Eve and Kevin are both devoted enough to the cause and the impact that they hope the OCR complaint might have, that I think they’ve blinded themselves to reality of such complaints. OCR–even when not considered as a political entity–has to make rulings according to statute on the allegations and evidence provided. Disturbing point of fact: the complaint is so structurally weak that even if you agreed with it philosophically, it does not provide a sound legal basis for justifying the proposed remedies. Example: remedy requested is mandated lower classes for traditional schools; problem: complaint neither proves lower class sizes for charters nor supports with research on impact of such. In fact, class sizes are CSW are often larger than they are at AI, McKean, or Dickinson.
Likewise, you can’t just pretend that those Asian students don’t exist and are not “people of color,” much as you would like to focus on African-Americans and Hispanics, because that’s not the way the law is written. You don’t get to add the Asians to the Whites to make an identifiable school. And if you can’t, the 64-44% difference between Red Clay and CSW is just on the border of statistically significant under OCR’s own rules, and is probably not significant at all if you perform the analysis another way (add back in the CSW population to the whole RCCSD population and you will cause the “pool” white population to rise to about 48%, which knocks out the legal discrepancy for OCR to work with).
3. NOTHING in the brief makes the case for special education barriers, and despite pandora’s elucidation of other barriers to low income families, these are primarily asserted rather than proven. You can’t do that in such a brief and hope to win. For example, if I were responsible for responding for CSW I would note the following historical data:
A. CSW provides both accommodations and modifications for the placement test based on IEPs or 504s when parents request them. The complainants will be able to show no instance in which such was refused.
B. CSW can show that in fact students with IEPs and 504s who have requested such accommodations on the placement have been admitted or offered admittance.
C. CSW has taken steps over the past five years to dramatically beef up its programs and support for disabled children: to wit: a new ED; provision of homebound instruction; full range of classroom accommodations; modifications of graduation requirements and reductions in curriculum requirements for students on IEPs and 504s.
D. CSW has no record of ever having counseled out a disabled student.
E. CSW has provided special transportation, assistive technology, extra sets of textbooks, and other items to disabled students, and has assigned a single designated mentor/advisor to each student n IEP/504 who meets with them on a regular basis to help keep them on track and intervene if necessary with regular-ed teachers.
F. CSW has never refused a request for a disability evaluation of an existing student, and has never turned down a recommendation from a qualified psychologist to place such a child on a 504 or IEP. Students who have come to CSW on 504s have in fact been moved to IEPs while they were in attendance.
Now I know the counterarguments: people don’t know, CSW doesn’t advertise, my data is based on a few cases only … But they DON’T APPLY when the complainant didn’t present even a prima facie case for discrimination, and when the respondent can document statements like the ones I’ve made above. And if the special education piece disappears, then the linchpin for intervention under ADA 504 also disappears. Again: this is a poorly written complaint, barely above the nuisance level on technical grounds.
And here’s the chase: as much as people see any upholding of this complaint (or just the existence of the complaint itself) as a major shift in things, the reality is that when the charter-happy USDOE essentially rejects it in its entirety the charter school movement will then have been provided with overwhelming legal ammunition to continue moving in its existing direction.
“We have no business running a performing arts school”
Correlating to my (somewhat rhetorical) about the mission of schools (public education). Just what are they supposed to do.
And “If we focused on elementary education a lot of this would sort itself out”
a sentiment I agree with. Yet, the complaint remedies suggest nothing of the kind. In short, it is lacking in crux sensitivity. The heart of the problem in elementary education, but nary a remedy.
@geezer wrote: “Actually, any school would be a better option. We have no business running a performing arts school, and if we’re listing things we don’t want our tax dollars going toward, that would come right behind a law enforcement academy — did anyone notice that that school is failing despite a majority-white student body? — and a banking-concentration school.”
You won’t get argument from me on any of those things (and yes I have noticed the low-performance of our “law enforcement academy”). I think kids don’t know what they want to “be” when they group up, that having them choose a focus (“major”) in MS or HS is a bit silly, and that any arts funding a district has should be available throughout its schools (ditto science funding, etc.). Note that Christina district has not yet gone in for the magnet school concept, and in talking here & there to board members, I gather that this logic is essentially why. They are wary of branding one MS as X and the other as Y, etc.–whatever is good for middle schools to offer is probably a good idea in every middle school that you’re running (this is a rough paraphrase of what I think the dominant CSD board & staff view is). This is tricky, b/c many parents do like the magnet idea; it is a good marketing strategy in a competitive school-choice landscape (it’s an identifiable brand). And CSD loses a number of students to Cab each year. So there is some discussion at times about having, say, an arts MS with no audition requirement; but I think overall wariness. I sometimes think Christina district gets too little credit for common sense, in some areas. Red Clay is more flamboyant, more bells & whistles :).
I don’t focus on students with disabilities because I’m not familiar with all the laws pertaining to them like Steve.
Entrance exams, fees, uniforms, asking for 504a and IEPs prior to admission – with exceptions written in fine print on the website – are what concerns me. That and the fact that we really need to focus on elementary schools. Like I said, improve them and the high/middle school problem of CSW, AP, IB, Conrad, Cab, Cambridge goes away.
@Pandora: You say “improve them” (the elementary schools) as if we know how to do it but simply refuse to do so. Where have we shown that we know how to bring below-level poor kids up to grade level? Where has such a program been successfully duplicated?
@Steve: You are correct, I see the system as irremediably broken, and the fighting between charter supporters and traditional-school supporters as sapping energy from the fight against corporate-centered “reform.”
Any complaint based on test results is a complaint that assumes the validity of those test results, and so I think this will do more harm than good to what I consider the more important fight.
And the fact that we can’t agree what our priority should be is why public schools in their current form already are doomed. That said, I believe that football supported by tax dollars in public schools is doomed, too, though I don’t expect it to disappear for another 20 years.
What disappoints me about charters is how much promise was squandered because we couldn’t think outside the box. Education research for 30 years has known that our standard method doesn’t work best for all students, but we refuse to organize schools so that students can match their best learning method with a school that teaches with it.
It hasn’t been tried here. Take a look at the Priority Schools. These schools have been allowed to fail/struggle under the name of Choice and NSA. Choice and NSA let school districts off the hook for improving these schools – it’s like districts said, “Hey, if you aren’t happy with your school, Choice!” Ignoring the very real barriers to that. And those that don’t Choice… well they must be happy.
Steve, genuine question: I have been told that the obligation of an administrative complaint such as ACLU’s is to demonstrate persuasively to OCR that there is grounds for conducting a thorough investigation regarding protection of equal opportunity for minority & special needs students (by DOE & Red Clay). The OCR then chooses whether or not to move forward with an investigation and if so begins to pursue the various questions that the complaint raises. So the role of the complaint is not to make the “case” in full but to make the case that there is strong reason to suspect insufficient guarantees of equal protection (equal access?) for minority & special needs students, in relation to the guiding principles for compliance that OCR sends to recipients of federal ed. funds.
Do we have a copy of the complaint to OCR against Christina district, for example, regarding racial biases in school discipline? In that case (this is my understanding), once OCR agreed that a sufficient argument had been made for them to look into the matter, their office did the work to establish what was taking place, whether it constituted racial discrimination and what should be done to remedy that. I understood from district discussions of the new student manual, for ex., that OCR staff had spent significant time in CSD schools & examining CSD data, to substantiate whether the complaint made by Jea Street had merit and then to oversee the “remedy.”
@Eve: No district except Red Clay has granted a charter, even though any of them could.
My question concerning CSW is simple: If one student is turned away for every student accepted, why don’t we start a second STEM school for them? Why don’t we start a STEM school for the kids who don’t yet exceed grade level in math?
Pulling down the successful is a well-known phenomenon in the black community, which is where the “crabs in a basket” metaphor comes from.
You say “choice and NSA” as if they are the same thing. Repeal the NSA and some of the problems disappear; repeal choice/charters and you’ll still have racially identifiable schools.
Are you sure you have correctly identified the problem? Because I think not.
“Pulling down the successful is a well-known phenomenon in the black community, which is where the “crabs in a basket” metaphor comes from.”
Really? Do you have a link to that?
Check with Al O. Plant. He’s the one who taught it to me. You can also find an entry at Wikipedia.
That’s your link? Um… okay. So no link, just your conversation with one black person – who obviously speaks for all black people.
And did you attend the NSA meetings in Red Clay? If so, then you already know how NSA and Choice are linked. Perhaps you can tell me your impressions of those meetings? I’d be interested to hear your view.
Eve
Even OCR cannot proceed to investigate a complaint until the respondent has been offered an opportunity to respond. OCR has to certify that after reading both the complaint AND the response that there is something to investigate. Apparently in the case you reference the school district response was so poor that it convinced them there was something to investigate. If this process did not exist (both complaint and response required to trigger investigation) then OCR would be literally overwhelmed with having investigations triggered by every assertion that comes in over the transom.
My point is that this complaint is so weak structurally that it is possible for a comprehensive DEDOE/RCCSD complaint to derail it without an investigation. I’m not saying they WILL do such a good job on the response, but that the complaint is weak enough that they don’t have to do that much.
It is certainly possible that OCR chooses to launch an investigation, but I think it unlikely: US DOE is firmly in the hands of pro-charter, pro-choice leaders from President Obama all the way down, and you can bet that everyone from Joe Biden to Jack Markell, Chris Coons, and Tom Carper will be weighing in behind the scenes to get this thing quashed. As far as the current OCR at USDOE is concerned, while it hasn’t been reticent about pursuing sexual misconduct issues or disparate punishment issues, it is going to be far less willing to jump into the waters with what could be a definitive ruling against charter schools and particularly against DE DOE which followed the Federal guidelines under NCLB and RTTT in allocating money directly to them.
Further, I seriously doubt the legal ability of OCR to order several of the remedies requested, including the moratorium on new charter schools. The fact that there have been racially identifiable African-American charter schools chartered and supported by the African-American community (and several–Kuumba, East Side) have been successful) is grist to be used to undermine the idea that willing African-American parents and children are being denied meaningful choice.
Again–I am not arguing the merits of the situation, but the merits of the complaint. There is literally almost nothing in the complaint as written that cannot be pretty effectively answered under the law.
“That’s your link? Um… okay. So no link, just your conversation with one black person – who obviously speaks for all black people.”
So you don’t know who Al O. Plant is? Did you go to Wikipedia? Either you’re dumb or playing dumb, and neither one suits you.
No, I didn’t attend any meetings nor will I be attending any. My kids are grown and I see no point in pouring effort into a sinking ship.
Thanks, Steve. I look forward to seeing the DOE & RC responses (I assume at some point those become public). I agree with you 100% about the political muscle on the other side, at all levels. I understand your distinction between merits (situation vs. complaint). It will be interesting to see where this & upcoming DE legislative debates go.
Apparently there is an existing OCR complaint underway regarding DE charter school admissions practices for which DE charter schools have been requested (by federal OCR) to produce all data on their applicant pool and admissions decisions over the past several years. I would be surprised if they keep that data; they have several reasons not to. Does anyone know more about this? Someone from Seaford district was discussing it at the ACLU press release, apparently. My understanding is that either it was filed last summer or the OCR began to request additional info last summer–but that the investigation is underway.
I know who Al Plant is and have had conversations with him. That said, he doesn’t speak for every black person. Just like speaking with one woman or Muslim doesn’t mean you now know how every woman and Muslim think. But you know that. You just didn’t have a link to prove your claim.
So… you didn’t attend the NSA meetings in the early aughts? That explains why you don’t know how Choice and NSA were linked in RCCD.
RCCD proposed an all choice district in order to comply with NSA. There was a lot of discussion about the NSA heading back to court so RCCD proposed an All Choice district that would accomplish the same thing – as they learned with Brandywine Springs.
Prove my claim that blacks use the “crabs in basket” metaphor? You’re serious? At least we have learned that you’re not playing dumb. He doesn’t have to “speak for all blacks.” My contention, and it stands, is that the concept is widely known in the black community. Ask around.
That “link” between NSA and choice means nothing in terms of the complaint. And if the NSA disappears, so do a lot of your concerns. No neighborhood schools, no problems with feeder patterns. They could go back to the old 9-and-3 formula.
You still have no answer for the fact that the failing charters condemned by the complaint are in fact supported by the parents of the highly segregated student bodies, whether or not tests say the schools are “failing.”
You have in the past acknowledged that your real problem is the lack of AP classes in smart-kid-depopulated traditional schools, so get off the high horse. The fact that you want to bring everyone down to a homogenized level guarantees you’ll never get a majority of the public to support your fantasies.
But by all means, keep pretending that you know the solution to a problem that nobody in the country has been able to solve. Your belief in your own palaver is apparently indestructible.
Here’s one more amazing thing about charter schools: With just 11,000 students out of a student population of more than 110,000, you Chicken Littles claim it will destroy the rest of the public school system. Seems to me the burden of proof for such a claim rests with those making the claim.
Still no proof to your crab claim. Fine.
And you’re pretending (again) that my comment about NSA and Choice related to the complaint. It didn’t. I was answering your question – which, btw, had nothing to do with the ACLU case. It was a general question. Go back and read the exchange.
Charter parents fighting for their charter school is to be expected. Announce a public school or private school is closing and you’ll see the same thing.
“You have in the past acknowledged that your real problem is the lack of AP classes in smart-kid-depopulated traditional schools, so get off the high horse.”
Prove that statement. Go ahead, I’ll wait while you find where I’ve acknowledged that my real problem is the lack of AP classes. I expect you to prove this claim.
And I haven’t claimed to “know” the solution. I’ve offered possible solutions and ideas – which is far more than you’ve done.
Resegregation and profiteering.
@Eve: I look forward to seeing the DOE & RC responses (I assume at some point those become public).
You know, I think those responses become public, but now that you mention I will have to check. I’ve been involved in or around several OCR complaints in the past decade–some about individuals–and while I’ve always gotten to see the responses I just realized that I was given them because I was somehow a party to the case, not because they were public. So while I assume they become public record as you do, I don’t know that for a fact.
@Geezer: With just 11,000 students out of a student population of more than 110,000, you Chicken Littles claim it will destroy the rest of the public school system. Seems to me the burden of proof for such a claim rests with those making the claim.
That’s a pretty weak response. First, pandora has NOT claimed that charters exclusively have that potential–she’s said the combination of charters, choice, and NSA. That’s quite a bit different.
But as for the impact of 10% of the students, that’s an argument that could easily be made, given (a) the concentration of charters in New Castle County; (b) the changing demographics of high schools in Red Clay and elementary schools in Newark; and (c) the impact of funding loss for traditional school districts. Not saying I necessarily attribute it all to charters, but c’mon, you know as well as I do that taking 10% out of a demographic is plenty of people to change the characteristics of the whole–not necessarily, but certainly sufficient.
@Steve: Except we don’t know the racial breakdown of those 11,000 charter students, at least not from the information contained in the complaint. Several of the failing charters are not just majority black, they’re overwhelmingly black. Three of them are identifiably white. Without data on the racial breakdown of the cumulative total, how can we tell the effect of subtracting those kids from the pool?
@Geezer: of course we have it–it’s not in the complaint because the complaint is weak. It’s available in the DOE numbers published annually, although admittedly you have to do some work to attribute back the charter kids to the district. But it can be done.
Anyway–that’s wide of my point: a 10% shift in a population of 100,000 is demographically significant, and given that the shift includes money following those who leave against certain fixed costs for the remaining schools, it’s also financially significant. Maybe it’s better, maybe not–but denying the significance because it’s only 10% is ridiculous.
@Pandora: I apologize for being needlessly dickish about all this, but I think I’ve said about all I can to explain why I think attacking charters is a mistake. But you go ahead — take on the 8% of the parents who have opted out. I think you vastly overestimate the popularity of your position, the source of the problem and the effectiveness of the proposed solutions. If suing the state over its schools solved problems, we wouldn’t be suing the state over its schools every generation, but doomed to repeat it, etc.
On the crab thing, please reread what I originally said: That the concept is well-understood in the black community. I don’t have to “prove” it to you for that to be true, and I really don’t care whether you believe it or not. You could, of course, Google it yourself; there are 14 million hits on crabs in a basket (or bucket or barrel) and African-Americans.
Here’s a quote from Clarence Page: “In African American folklore, the sea crab ranks among the dumbest of creatures who also offers a valuable lesson. When you catch a bucket or a basketful, you never have to put a lid on because when one of the creatures tries to get out, the others will just pull it back in. Some of our fellow human beings aren’t much smarter than that. When they see you working hard to achieve your dreams, they’ll make fun of you just for trying.”
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment-july-dec04-page_9-27/
As for “proving” what you said about AP classes, I don’t know how to browse your archives and I have no interest in doing so. I guess you don’t remember schooling me on that issue some weeks back, or perhaps it was somebody else. If so, I apologize. I considered it the most valid argument for not allowing charters to skim the cream.
@Steve: By far the greatest educational expense is teacher pay. Fewer students should equal fewer teachers.
The effect of subtracting 10% of the student pool (in reality 8%) will vary. It all depends how far from the norms the subtracted students are. If the demographics mirror those of the entire group, there would be no effect at all. So, as I said, the burden of the proof of this supposed effect must be on the complainants.
I mentioned AP courses along with many other things. You claimed, “You have in the past acknowledged that your real problem is the lack of AP classes in smart-kid-depopulated traditional schools, so get off the high horse.” To say that my “real problem” was the lack of AP courses and not include my concern for high poverty schools as well my problems with charters, choice, magnets and the NSA was dishonest.
And do you really think I believe my position is popular? Of course it isn’t popular; if it were I could simply run a PR campaign and be done with it. Believe me, I’m not overestimating the popularity of my position. I know full well that I hold the minority position.
good discussion guys. this is why we tune in.
OK, I apologize. I was wrong to guess at your motives, let alone say I knew what they were. I still think that’s the most persuasive reason that’s been given for detering charters from skimming the cream, though.
It’s persuasive because it shows how charters can impact people on the opposite side of the argument than me. We both agree that I can’t make much headway by simply pointing out that we need to help high poverty kids and public schools. Which is really sad. So I point out things like loss of accelerated programs in public schools, schools that most people will end up using when they don’t win the lottery.
The other point I make to this group to get their attention is property values. No one wants to buy a house that comes with a lottery ticket – especially if the surrounding public schools are considered non-desirable. This is a major concern with Newark Charter School (now K-12).
I guess these points count as my PR campaign.
Well, a PR campaign is certainly going to be needed. Politicians react to pressure, and the pressure of the feds is nothing compared with the pressure from voters. Sadly, the NSA had wide support from voters, which is why it passed.
A complaint based on the effects of the NSA would be much easier to prove as discriminatory, since it directly undoes the effects of earlier busing plans, and would have the benefit of not insulting the parents of 11,000 students.
@geezer, wouldn’t a complaint against the NSA anger many more parents than one against charters?
I’m not sure of that. I didn’t mind having my kids bused to Wilmington. ON the other hand, none of my kids went to a charter, but I find the effort to hobble charters more offensive than any plan that simply tries to achieve racial balance through busing.
The difference is the perception of control. Parents like charters because it gives them the impression that they are working with human beings instead of an enormous bureaucracy. I think any PR campaign should start from the premise that antagonizing the most involved parents is a poor plan.
I’m with Eve. A complaint against NSA would have more widespread anger. Nothing new has happened with NSA since it became law so people take it for granted. The fight, in their minds, is over and they won, so you don’t hear much from those parents – altho, we did hear from the Cooke community recently – non-charter parents who mobilized very quickly.
Charter supporters are quite vocal, but they aren’t the majority (altho, they have a lot of pull, especially in the legislature). NSA parents are the majority. Any talk of repealing the NSA will wake that sleeping giant.
Wow. Well, my experience has been the opposite. Support for the NSA is from people who don’t want their kids near black kids. Support for charters is from people who want more control over their kids’ educations. If you’re right, that the NSA actually has more support, you must have an even more cynical view of Delawareans than I do. That’s not easy.
I think we’ve figured out why we’re on opposite sides on this. I find the NSA far more offensive and destructive than charter schools, and I think it’s a far more clear-cut attempt to resegregate than charters are.
Nope. We’re on the same side and in complete agreement over what’s more offensive and destructive. The reason this thread focuses on charters is because of the ACLU complaint.
Oh. Now I feel like Emily Littela. Never mind.
This isn’t the easiest conversation to have on a blog. There’s so many moving parts.
Did you see the two letters to the editor in TNJ today? The first one pretty much sums up what I thought the charter parents would say.
@geezer: I find the effort to hobble charters more offensive…
The plan isn’t to hobble charters. It is to redirect their resources and human capital to the district schools, minus the segregation. But what I am hearing is that segregation is the special sauce. If the lawsuit succeeds, they will have to find another recipe. If that is hobbling, so be it.
Thank you. You’re right, I wasn’t thinking about it simplistically enough.
Thanks Pandora and Eve
1) DONT know where the fees came from a but not One parent I inow pays it
2) the uniforms – anyone can get free uniforms –
3) I do also know the amount of outreach to Minority student has been staggering
If you want to do a comparison compare the student body from say Sussex Central to Sussex Academy -tell me about the minority break down – the fact remains that Georgetown itself is majority hispánic- therefore the schools physically located there reflect that dynamic
Has anyone looked at the Sussex school of the arts ?but I will say this- if I was a Jewish or Muslim parent in Sussex there would be NO WAY IN HELL my kid would go to public school
There was a lawsuit invoking Muslims against Cape and two I. Indian River One concerning Jewish families and another with a Muslim family ……and also prayer at the IRSD BOARD
With that track record like that in PUBLIC SCHOOLS a in sussex I would suggest that hat is more is an issue – as dar as i know Sussex academy does NOT have that kind of narrow thinking and never has – the Board is very diverse ethnically and in terms of religion .
The first AMMENDMENT is upheld at SA more than it is in Public school – that alone gives SA a pass in my book
They do have financial assistance for poorer families and I believe that is on their website – honestly I would have to check it to make sure of that.
But – the racial harassment against Latinos, middle easterners and other religious minorities is less prevelant there than in public schools and the public schools had to be sued into compliance with federal law – but …..
That’s sussex for YA.
One other thing I noticed – I went to the website to check on the fees
I didn’t read all the documentation but I did notice this
http://www.sussexacademy.org/Admissions/
There links are also available in SPANISH as well as the application is in Spanish
What public schools do this – as required by the civil rights act of 1964 title 6 ???? Most of the sussex schools can’t even provide translators for parent student coNferancesand many don’t send school letters home in Spanish as required by law
It’s not something I found on the web sites of other ‘public’ schools in Sussex – Indian River is woefully deficit in provides cris required service to parents and if the family speak say Creole or Korean- yeah well forget it completely
Let’s get the public schools here in Sussex in compliance with federal laws too while we are at it – but no one seems to want to take that on…
Here’s the breakdown of the schools Aoine mentioned.
*Note, DDOE has crafted some new low income formula – all schools showed a drop in these numbers under this new calculation. Not sure why they did that, but keep that in mind when looking at low income numbers.
Sussex Academy (Charter)
2102-13 2013-14
African American……1.8%……….2.9%
American Indian…….1.2%……….1.9%
Asian……………………2.6%……….3.6%
Hawaiian ……………..0.3%……….0.2%
Hispanic/Latino………4.7%……….7.3%
White…………………..86.8%……..81.3%
Multi-Racial……………2.6%………2.7%
Low Income………….20.0%…….11.2%
Special Ed…………….4.1%………4.4%
Sussex Central High (Public)
2012-13 2013-14
African American……17.2%………15.6%
American Indian………0.7%………..0.7%
Asian……………………..0.8%………..1.1%
Hispanic/Latino………23.5%………27.0%
White……………………54.8%………51.1%
Multi-Racial……………3.0%…………4.5%
Low Income………….73.3%……….44.7%
Special ED…………..14.4%……….14.2%
Southern Delaware School of the Arts (Magnet)
2012-13 2013-14
African American……..4.9%………..4.9%
American Indian……………………….0.4%
Asian……………………..2.0%………..1.8%
Hawaiian………………..0.2%………..0.2%
Hispanic/Latino……….5.2%…………8.4%
White…………………..86.2%………..83.2%
Multi-Racial……………1.5%…………1.1%
Low Income………….31.0%………21.0%
Special ED…………….7.9%………6.6%
Once again, these numbers show that the Sussex charter and magnet demographics are mostly comprised of affluent/non-poverty whites. Altho, the magnet has twice the number of low income students than the charter, but half the number of the public school. So… these numbers aren’t showing what Aoine is claiming.
Next, if no one Aoine knows pays the 200.00+ fee, then why is it in the handbook? A new parent researching the school would see this fee and not know it wasn’t required which could result in them not applying. If the fee doesn’t exist in reality does its existence in the handbook act as a deterrent to low income families?
Finally, I didn’t see any reference to free uniforms being available. Is this another secret thing like the fee that exists but doesn’t “really” exist?
One more thing… we can focus on the crazy (There was a lawsuit invoking Muslims against Cape and two I. Indian River One concerning Jewish families and another with a Muslim family ……and also prayer at the IRSD BOARD) and Sussex charter. Both deserve our attention.
I don’t know of a program at Flynn & O’Hara giving away uniforms. They are a business, and while they might try to help folks out, they don’t give stuff away. I know that at my children’s Catholic school, families would donate uniforms to the school once their children grew out of them. These were provided to others who couldn’t afford them.