Defining "Charter"

I looked up the definition of "charter" and found many. Definition number seven at "World English Dictionary" I think was most befitting for describing Charter Schools -
7. a law, policy, or decision containing a loophole which allows a specified group to engage more easily in an activity considered undesirable
Read below and you will understand why this definition is most apt!

Charter schools in Camden aren't just draining students - they're draining money, close to $66 million worth in 2013-14, compared with just just $52 million the year before. Next year, Camden has budgeted $72 million to transfer to charters. There's your $75 million shortfall. - See more at: http://thecontributor.com/how-charter-schools-are-strip-mining-one-nj-school-district#sthash.ltC8aekW.dpuf

• While Gov. Chris Christie rails about the pay of public school superintendents, top employees at these schools live in another world, spared from his rancor. Nineteen directors were paid the maximum allowed salary — $225,734 — to oversee schools with anywhere from 30 to 327 students a day. And 52 people at these schools took home more than $175,000, the most superintendents are allowed to earn in public schools with up to 10,000 students.

• About a third of the schools did business with companies owned or controlled by the same people who run the schools, or their relatives or associates, oftentimes at a higher cost than other schools pay. The deals ran the gamut from real estate to bus rentals to food.

• Nearly one-fifth of schools had instances of nepotism. One school had four related directors, three of whom earned the maximum $225,734. Another employed a part-time classroom aide related to the director who earned $94,000 in 2013, three times other aides’ salaries.

• Three dozen schools offered generous pension plans paid for by the public but requiring no contributions by employees, in stark contrast to public school teachers and administrators’ plans. At one school, a former official collected retiree health benefits after she served time for ripping off taxpayers.

• Twenty-two cars — including two BMWs, a Land Rover, three Lexus and two Mercedes — were charged in part to taxpayers despite being used for personal transportation by officials. School disclosure reports show many cars were kept at officials’ homes.

There's Gold in Them There Schools - And Wall Street Comin' to Stake Its Claim !

If you think all the "education reform" stuff in really about improving education, think again !
"Education Reform" is just a back door approach to privatization. The claims of inferior teachers and failing schools are used as wedges to crack the door open wide enough for Wall Street carpetbaggers and cronies of connected politicians to sneak in and grab the billions of education dollars just waiting to be scooped up. 
Tenure "reform" (elimination) is a prelude to the takeover by private interests. Teachers who have worked for years to arrive at decent pay levels will be easy to fire and replaced with low cost people thus insuring even greater profits when corporations finally gain full control of the system. 
The elimination of seniority under the guise of keeping "the best" teachers when layoffs occur really means keeping "the lowest paid" teachers, again to increase corporate profits once schools are privatized. (And it isn't that far off!)
How about bargaining rights? 
Kiss them goodbye!
After years of fighting to establish a fair and equitable system for determining teacher rights and compensation future "negotiations" will be "hat in hand". 
The only rights that will remain for teachers will be the right to be continually bullied, defamed and blamed ! 

I

A New Staff Member Joins Rutgers Faculty - Robo Prof !

As usual, there are a lot of questions to be answered about any new privatization plan.
(1) Who hires those who will create the Internet lectures? Pearson or Rutgers?
(2) Will new lectures be recorded each year or will the same ones be used over and over?
(3) How will those lecturers be paid? A flat fee or on a residual basis each time the lecture is viewed?
(4) Will the cost of tuition be substantially reduced using this "online" teaching method?
(5) Will the executive payout at Pearson or any other private company that produces "online education" for Rutgers be held at reasonable levels?
(6) Will university admissions be unlimited since classroom seating space will no longer be a factor?
(7) Will "online" students be required to pay fees relating to on campus activities?
(8) How long will it be before "online education" filters down into secondary and elementary schools?
(9) What are the tenure implications when a large number of professors will be supplanted by "online education"?
(10) Will tenure play a part in the selection of those who will teach the "online" courses?
(11) Will the lectures be live or recorded?
(12) If recorded, who will have the rights to the recordings, Pearson, Rutgers or the professor?

Vouchers and Vetos

How much of the $2.1 Billion in tax breaks goes to the workers of these companies and how much goes to the executives and upper echelon ?

How many jobs are created via these tax breaks and what is the cost per job ?

Who is actually doling out the $2.1 billion? (I think I can answer this one - you and me!)

Vouchers will permit most parents to chose- okay! - from "cheap schools" if they exist and I'm not too sure they will for long.

Once the deluge of students from public schools flood the market, the "half the cost of public school" institutions will no longer exist! Has Muslhine ever heard of supply and demand?
If anyone thinks that the cost of education will remain low at these schools, all they need do is look at what has happened to college costs and especially private colleges costs !
It will soon become the parent's job to start saving for a child's elementary and high school education let alone college.
Well, of course, I'm sure that elementary loans and high school loans will spring up immediately to fill the gap and further indenture the middle and lower classes.
If these people have their way with privatizing public education, a real bright future for American education is looming large on the horizon ??

He Is Kidding - Isn't He ?

Maybe they could go to Newark Academy  instead ! $33,300

Or maybe Pingry !     $34,714

Or Delbarton $30,200

Or Kushner Academy  $22,295

What If ??

I found this article on page 7 of last week's Ledger.
If an incident like this occurred involving public school students, I wonder if it would be on page 7 ?
I kind of think it would be page 1 or possibly even show up in an editorial !Could it be that private schools are not all the bastions of  learning and decorum as they are portrayed? Maybe the Ledger doesn't want to do anything to burst the bubble ?

Testing Gone Wild !

I have added numerous captions to the above video.

 

And the point of all this testing and expense?

To help justify eliminating tenure thereby enabling the firing of the higher paid teachers.
To help set the stage for low employee pay when schools are finally privatized.
To justify the privatization of public education.
To justify the state takeover of urban schools.
To allow shoveling money to test creators and publishers.
To help in the attempts to eliminate collective bargaining for public employees.
To destroy what little power the teacher's unions did possess.
Just my humble opinion!

The Brain Drain and The Wallet Drain

I recently had the poor judgment to log in to the local message board on the Internet. In so doing, I read a post by a town resident regarding the high school.

After reading it, I continued to exercise poor judgment by responding.

I guess I just lack self control! Maybe that's why I continue to write this blog.

Below is the initial statement to which I replied. It is followed by the remainder of the conversation.

I have blocked out all the names of the institutions mentioned because I don't want be accused of spreading disparaging comments about any school system.

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Poster:

Unfortunately, the problem of the brain drain at the high school level in NHS is not unique in Bloomfield and Montclair as well. The movement of students to private high schools in this part of Essex County seems to be common.

[/quote]

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W:

I have worked with many students who attend  private schools and also many who attend the public schools in this area. I hesitate to name the private schools but I will give abbreviations of the  names - Del, New, Kus, SPP, Sol, SHP, SJM. MKA  and you can guess which they are.

I can only speak for the chem and physics programs (and the teaching there of)  at these schools. They are generally inferior to, or at best equal to that of most of the public schools in the area.

Additionally, the school calendar for these private schools is abbreviated. The winter vacations at some is two weeks long, the spring break is two weeks long and the school year ends in early June. The entire year adds up to far less than 180 days (maybe in the 150 range),

You really don't get too much class time for the $15K to $25K tuition.

I would think long and hard before sending my child to a private school.

If you want to send your child to a private school for prestige or to keep him/her away from the "Riffraff" then it's probably a good idea but if you expect a superior education, I'm not so sure it's going to happen there!

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Poster:

With all due respect what are you basing your information on. Have you taught at these schools or sent a child to one of these schools?

I respectfully disagree with your "evaluation" that claims the named schools are inferior. Take a look at the AP exams* from Nutley HS as presented at the BOE meeting in February 2012, they are less than impressive. The SAT Critical Reading Mean and Writing Mean scores in Nutley have been below 500 for the past five years. The Mathematics Mean score in Nutley has not topped 516 in the last five years. This is based on a perfect score of 800. Again less than impressive. So clearly the "extra" days in the class room (based on your numbers) have not helped the students achieve great heights. I will take 150 quality days of quality instruction time to your 180 days of mediocrity any day of the week.

I have two children. Child #1 attended NHS, child #2 did not. Child #2 wrote more essays and papers in a single marking period than child #1 wrote in four years at NHS. Child #1 was completely unprepared for the amount of written work required at the college level.

Now let's talk about the intangibles, things like character, respect and accountability**. I speak from experience, again having one child at NHS and one child in private school, there is no comparison. Nutley talks about character development and talks about accountability but the follow through is weak at best. Private schools not only have a student handbook, they hold their students to the rules in the handbook

Now let me shatter the small-minded thoughts that parents pay to send their child to private school for athletic advantage. The fact is people send their children to private school for the purpose of a better education. It was not in our family plan to spend money on high school education, but after living through four years at NHS, we deemed it a necessary expense. Our experience at the elementary and middle schools was exactly what we had anticipated, but there was a big drop-off at the high school level.

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W:

I can only tell about my experiences having helped many private school students in the area and only about the chem and physics programs.

Admittedly, this is all anecdotal but it is my experience over the past twenty years or so.

As far as character, respect and accountability, again I can only speak from my experience.

I never relied on the school to teach these things to my own children (BTW they both went to NHS and were well prepared - my daughter graduated from engineering school and my son earned an MBA).

Character, respect and accountability were taught at home and I wrote the "handbook" for them myself and adhered to it.

There are handbooks issued in public schools citing rules and regulations pertaining to many of the qualities of which you speak but often the school is unable to enforce them. To remove a child from a public school, even the most disrespectful and troublesome, is next to impossible.

In a private school, expelling a student is simple and therefore private schools can enforce the handbook rules and regulations with ease

.

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More Comments:

* I taught AP physics at the secondary level. The class was often filled with unqualified students who were there strictly for extra GPA points.

During my time teaching the course I asked myself several questions which still beset me.

Firstly, I was teaching a full load of classes and at the same time expected to provide a college level program at the high school for the AP class.

Now, during this time I was also teaching chemistry at an area college. At the college, the situation was different by light years.

 I was provided with a full time lab assistant who set up and supplied each and every lab session.

The full time staff at the college were assign teaching assistants (TAs) to help students out of class time.

Instructors also had offices hours provided to help students.

The weekly teaching load of the full time instructors was but 15 class hours.

Faced with the conditions at the high school as compared to those at the college, was it fair that I  was expected to duplicate the same instruction level and student  help in AP classes, as that provided by college instructors with all the advantages they held?

I did my best to provide a rigorous course but I was always perplexed the this inequity.

Secondly, the AP exam was always given in mid May with almost a month and a half of school left. Therefore, I not only had the disadvantages aforementioned, but also a serious loss of instruction time. In other words, I was expected to prepare students for a difficult exam in a difficult subject in a very compressed time frame. These circumstances exist for all AP teachers throughout the state.

When I called the College Board (the AP people) and asked why the test couldn't be given at the end of the school year, I was told it was because schools in many other states was ended earlier than in New Jersey. I guess that was a correct answer but not one that helped my student nor me!

The answer should have been "we will prepare another test for students who end school in June and administer it at a later date". 

Could it be that they don't want to spend the extra time, effort and money?

** It appears that the public schools are now expected not only to educate the children, give dental checkups, fight obesity, give scoliosis examinations, prevent teenage pregnancy, prevent STDs, do drug testing, prevent bullying, end discrimination, (and I'm sure there's more) but also be the sole instiller of character, respect and accountability.