Comments for Charters can teach our middle schools at http://tracypress.com , comment 1 to 8 out of 8 comments http://tracypress.com Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:41:26 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://tracypress.com/content/view/9840/2241/#comment-10249 I am writing in response to comments by "Know the Facts." I found your comments very thoughtful and relevant, but I want to point out a couple of very important facts. It is true that many charter schools do not have the same proportion of students from traditionally lower scoring groups (e.g., English Learners) as noncharter public schools do. However, many charter schools also have fewer experienced and fully credentialed teachers. In addition, the charter middle and high schools included in our analyses tended to have higher levels of overall challenge with respect to success on standardized tests (perhaps because of the teacher factors) as compared to noncharters. More importantly, our study statistically controlled for differences in the level of challenge that schools faced when we compared differences in performance. Although we cannot say definitively that the performance differential that remained after those controls had been applied were not due to factors such as parental involvement, we can say that the performance differentials were not due to differences in student background characteristics and teacher experience and credential levels. - Study co-author Fri, 22 Jun 2007 13:41:58 +0100 http://tracypress.com/content/view/9840/2241/#comment-10203 Ok so I am a firm believer in the support of charter schools. They are designed for the individual learner, which we all know each child learns differentlt and at a different pace. Yes its true we more than need to better develope our public schools(where the children are often lost in the shuffle)but that is probably a long ways off. In the meantime, charter schools are the only way for some of these kids to catch up to graduate or learn at their own pace. You recieve communication from the school often if not daily whereas with public schools, you are lucky to meet with your counselors once a year. Also to those comments on a "cheating" the private school system, not all of us can afford a private school but yet we ARE paying taxes.So I guess in actuality we are paying for the school. If you can get your child in, I highly reccomend it. These programs teach them education, responsibilty, self respect and trustworthiness. I will continue enrolling my child into the charter system because we were let down by the public system. - go charters Thu, 21 Jun 2007 22:47:00 +0100 http://tracypress.com/content/view/9840/2241/#comment-10184 Private school parents pay property taxes too. But they don't get money to pay for their kids to go to private school. I fail to understand how a group of parents, unhappy with public school can start their own school, not run by the state funded school district, but their charter school is funded by the state?! Livermore is going through a huge scandal right now because the man hired to run the charter school was a stocks guy who had his license taken away because of shady investments. And who is accountable for this?! The state had nothing to do with it, but paid this man $140K a year to run a school that he had no education to do so. This is what charter schools are about. Private people making decisions about state tax dollars that have no right to do so! There are 2 public school systems out there. Those that want private school educations but don't want to pay for it so they finagle a 'charter school' and those that go to the regular public school. Charter schools are private schools funded by state tax dollars. How can this be???!!!!!! - charter schools are publicly paid for private schools Thu, 21 Jun 2007 16:01:07 +0100 http://tracypress.com/content/view/9840/2241/#comment-10174 A few things to consider: Charter schools don't have an "automatic" population delineated by a particular neighborhood. INVOLVED parents who participate in their child's education are the ones who put their students in charter schools. Some of the added success attributed to those schools might be owed to the fact that these students have parents who are actually involved in their education and participate in overseeing homework and projects and commit to the requirements set forth by these public "private" schools. Additionally, you don't have the same student mix as you'd find in the regular public school system. The regular public schools educate every facet of the community, English language learners and special education learners in greater volumes per capita than the charter schools do. These students' test scores are also included in the overall school score. The charter school's "charter" may include some restrictions not allowed in your regular charter school. One example would be the requirement of parent involvement (number of hours) on campus, should your student attend. I applaud the efforts of every school, student, parent to ensure a quality education. But please, let's make sure we get all the pieces of the story. - Know The Facts Thu, 21 Jun 2007 15:03:47 +0100 http://tracypress.com/content/view/9840/2241/#comment-10146 tu schul profesor; i kin bei profesora eef yu ned sumon. ihav degrai en mexico.shud alow ilegal tu com ceetizon an tech los ninos.I im vety educat en espanol spacking. sum da mabi yu se me bipprfessora.Tank yu comentator. ilegal. - ilegal Thu, 21 Jun 2007 12:56:37 +0100 http://tracypress.com/content/view/9840/2241/#comment-10142 parents who's children do attend charter schools also pay property tax which essentially pays for all public schools. Charters are just a choice given to taxpayers. - shirley c Thu, 21 Jun 2007 12:38:14 +0100 http://tracypress.com/content/view/9840/2241/#comment-10131 Our schools would do much better if we had people in charge who knew what they were doing.Why is it there are all of these "Learning Centers" that can do wonders for your child. If they have way's to do a better job of teaching why isn't public schools adopting these methods???? - Rob T. Thu, 21 Jun 2007 11:10:59 +0100 http://tracypress.com/content/view/9840/2241/#comment-10107 Instead of funding charter schools (private schools funded by the state essentially) we need to fix the public schools! Charter schools are nothing more than a way for parents to get a free private school education!! If they don't like the public schools, they should pay for their kids to go to private school. If you suppport charter schools, ask yourself, why are there 2 different schools systems funded by the state? It makes no sense. - charter schools are publicly paid for private schools Thu, 21 Jun 2007 09:20:41 +0100