Category Archives: Community

Chicago charter schools do no better than unionized public schools

The Georgia “charter school” amendment isn’t really about charter
schools (which any school district in Georgia can already approve,
and many have): it’s about

giving an unelected committee in Atlanta
power to force us to pay extra local taxes to fund charter schools we don’t want.
However, since the pushers of that amendment say it’s about charter schools,
it’s worth reviewing that charter schools actually on average perform
no better or even worse than traditional public schools.
Let’s look at what the pushers hate most,
unionized public schools in Chicago.
and then let’s look at Georgia’s non-unionized public schools.

Ben Joravsky wrote for chichagoreader.com 3 October 2012,

Today’s lesson: charters do not outperform unionized schools:
Confronting the anti-teachers’ union myth with, you know, facts

But as I was saying, the foes of the teachers’ union declare that we
should pay close attention to the all-important standardized test
scores. So let’s take a look.


Chicago Public Schools
There are 541 elementary schools in Chicago. Based on the composite
ISAT scores for 2011—the last full set available—none of
the top ten are charters. None of the top 20, 30, or 40 either.

In fact, you’ve got to go to 41 to find a charter. Take a bow, CICS
Irving Park!

Most of the 49 charters on the list are clustered near the great
middle, alongside most of their unionized neighborhood schools.

The top scorers are public schools with unionized teachers who are
members of the Chicago Teachers Union.

UNO is

a charter school operator. Joravsky compares one of its schools side-by-side with a unionized public school.

Continue reading →

Videos: Water, water, water, waste! and planning? @ LCC 2012-10-08


The big news
was the
waste disposal railroad, but the Lowndes County Commission also
heard about three water issues (one a rezoning), plus a beer
license, revenue bonds, community planning month, and a health fair
at its Work Session this morning.

Here’s the
agenda, with links to the videos and a few notes, or links to
separate posts.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF
COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2012, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2012, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd
Floor

Continue reading →

A rezoning, wastewater pump repair, solid waste RFP, and community planning month @ LCC 2012-10-08


2974 Pecan Plantation Road
A rezoning for well and septic,
Bevel Creek is back with a lift station pump repair,
and something about an Alapaha waterline:
water, water, water.
Plus a beer license, refunding revenue bonds, and
the long-awaited waste management RFP.
And an employee health fair, whatever that is,
and apparently this is community planning month.
All that at the Lowndes County Commission, Monday morning
and Tuesday evening.

Here’s

the agenda.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

PROPOSED AGENDA

WORK SESSION, MONDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2012, 8:30 a.m.

REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2012, 5:30 p.m.

327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor

Continue reading →

New Library —Kay Harris @ LCDP 2012-10-01

At Monday’s Lowndes County Democratic Party meeting,
LCDP Chair
Gretchen Quarterman introduced Kay Harris as chairman of the Library Board.
You can see that board in action a few weeks ago

in these previous videos.




Kay Harris said she was not there as editor of the newspaper,
since as such she wouldn’t be allowed (presumably by the newspaper)
at a partisan meeting.
She was there as chair of the library board.
She said this is her fifth year on that board, and
her second year as chairman.

Here’s

a video playlist.

She said the county put her on that board to move along the
library project, which had been in process for some time.
She said she had led negotiations with the City of Valdosta
for the Five Points process.
She mentioned the

Five Points Steering Committee,
of which she is also a member.

About the current library building and how the new one would be better,

she said,

Continue reading →

Joint Resolution in Support of Quality Public Education —Lowndes and Valdosta Boards of Education

Yesterday I asked

But what does the joint resolution actually say?
Karen Noll has supplied the answer, in the form of a
PDF
of the signed resolution,
transcribed below.
This thing makes the education paragraph in the

Occupy Valdosta Mission Statement sound mild-mannered.
We’ve already seen

the state’s response.
-jsq



LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION

AND

VALDOSTA CITY BOARD OF EDUCATION

JOINT RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF
QUALITY PUBLIC EDUCATION

Continue reading →

GA State attorney general tries to order private citizens not to oppose charter school amendment

Pushers of the charter school amendment must be desperate!
Blurring the line between public officials and private
citizens, state Attorney General Sam Olens wrote:



Local school boards do not have the legal authority to expend funds
or other resources to advocate or oppose the ratification of a
constitutional amendment by the voters. They may not do this
directly or indirectly through associations to which they may
belong….

As
Jim Galloway wrote yesterday for the AJC in

Sam Olens orders local school boards to stay out of charter school fight,

That means organizations like the Georgia School Boards Association,
and perhaps, the Georgia School Superintendents Association, would
be barred from speaking out against the proposed constitutional
amendment.

And would that include organizations like PAGE,
which produced
the slides
that

a local middle school teacher used last week?
What about that teacher, or

Dr. Troy Davis, speaking a few weeks earlier,
both on their own time?

Olens’ letter would apply to what

the VDT said was in the VBOE and LCBOE joint resolution,
at least the part about “The resolution explicitly states that the boards
are asking voters to not support the Constitutional Amendment relative
to state charter schools.”

But what does Olens mean, duly elected local school boards don’t
have authority to express opinions about educational matters
that would directly affect the people who elected them?

Why has Sam Olens suddenly gotten religion about this now,
after he was silent last year when both VBOE and LCBOE adopted

resolutions against the school “unification” referendum?
Where was he when both boards of education hosted numerous
forums opposing consolidation?

Will he next be telling the Valdosta City Council it can’t

pass a resolution opposing a referendum?
What exactly is the difference between that elected body and
an elected school board as far as expressing such an opinion?
And all of those resolutions were non-binding opinions.

Will Sam Olens next be telling the VDT it can’t
editorialize against the charter school amendment?

How desperate are the pushers of the charter school amendment?

Continue reading →

Local school systems jointly oppose charter school amendment

The Valdosta Board of Education, followed by the
Lowndes County Board of Education, adopted a
“Charter School Amendment Resolution” or a
“Joint Resolution in Support of Quality Public Education”,
depending on which ones minutes you go by.
What does the resolution actually say?

Brittany D. McClure wrote for the VDT 11 September 2012,

School boards to adopt resolution against charter school amendment.

“The Lowndes County and Valdosta City Boards of Education
request that the Governor and State Legislators commit their support
to adequately fund a first-class K-12 public education for students
in Lowndes County and Valdosta City and across the state of
Georgia,” the resolution states.



The resolution explicitly states that the boards are asking voters
to not support the Constitutional Amendment relative to state
charter schools.

Valdosta Board of Education did that at their

10 September 2012 meeting:

Continue reading →

VDT against charter school amendment

Even the VDT opposes the charter school amendment.



“Staff Writer” editorialized in the VDT 12 September 2012,

Will charter schools hurt public education?

So the state has consistently run down the public education system
in Georgia over the course of the last decade by drastically cutting
funding from programs, but are now complaining because student test
scores and graduation rates have decreased.

The state solution? Allow for basically anyone who has a building to
apply to run a “charter school” that would siphon money
away from public education. Students would be able to choose where
they would go, the parents or community officials would
“run” the schools, and they would not have to meet the
same standards as the current public schools, but taxpayers would
still be forced to pay for them.

State officials are fond of saying that charter schools aren’t
private schools, but when a school gets to pick and choose who they
let in and who they don’t, that’s the definition of a private
school. Only the elite whose parents want to run the schools will
have a chance, and the poor and disenfranchised will have no choice,
will not be accepted, and will suffer even more because the money
will no longer be there to educate them.

Here’s an idea: Restore all those drastic austerity cuts from
education to pre-Gov. “Sonny” Perdue levels, invest in
the public education system which is already in place and doing
quite well in spite of the state’s best efforts to shut it down, and
restore the true value of a public education to the taxpayers of the
state who are footing the bill and seeing fewer results.

I like that idea. Let’s vote No on the charter school amendment in November
so we can get back to funding public education.

-jsq

Kickoff speeches @ SPLOST 2012-09-28



Apparently

WCTV’s “at the South Georgia Medical Center Parking Garage”>
meant actually in the nearby parking lot, because that’s where we found
some city and county employees and a few volunteers

standing in the shade of a Valdosta Police van.
An invocation and six speeches from five speakers ensued,
all in support of SPLOST VII,
the Special Local Option Sales Tax on the November ballot.
Several of the speakers were not so positive off the podium about the
library and auditorium projects, and nobody from the library board spoke.

Here are

videos of all of the speeches.



Also

the VDT was there,
and
Jason Schaefer wrote for the VDT yesterday,

Committee kicks off SPLOST campaign,

The major theme of the event was a firm reminder that SPLOST VII is
not a new tax, just a continuation of a penny sales tax that has
been in place since 1987.

Fair enough.
However, Sam Allen’s second talk summed up what’s wrong with SPLOST VII:

Continue reading →

A parallel state school system that we have no control over. —Christie Davis



A local middle school teacher spelled out problems with the
charter school referendum: no local control over creation or operation
of the charter schools it would authorize; money siphoned off from
existing local schools; and charter schools actually perform
worse than traditional public schools anyway.


Christie Davis, a teacher at Hahira Middle School,
speaking at the Lowndes County Tea Party monthly meeting Thursday,
pointed out it’s not just the

preamble
to the referendum that’s misleading.
The actual wording of the referendum is also misleading:

Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended to allow state or local approval
of public charter schools upon the request of local communities?

She remarked:

It sounds very good that we should say yes.
It’s very misleading.
And the reason why it’s misleading is totally purposeful.
It says something about local communities.
We already have that right in our local community, our local boards, to go ahead
and implement a charter school, if we see the need.
However, they put it in there so that voters that don’t really know
what’s going on think they’re helping our local schools by voting yes.
However, by voting yes, it will be funding a parallel state school system
that we have no control over.

Here’s

the video:


A parallel state school system that we have no control over. —Christie Davis

Video by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange,

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 September 2012.

Thanks to Diane Cox, President, Lowndes County Tea Party, for the invitation.

She also got into the financial aspects:

Continue reading →