Tag Archives: Charter School Referendum

Adding another charter school authorizer reduces academic learning —Karen Noll

Received today on
Georgia charter schools do no better than traditional public schools. -jsq

The Stanford study,

Multiple Choice: Charter school performance in 16 states (p. 4),
also found that multiple authorizers:


Figure 15: Charter School Effect of Policy Variables

States that empower multiple entities to act as charter school
authorizers realize significantly lower growth in academic learning
in their students, on the order of -.08 standard deviations.

Currently we have
the local boards of education that authorize charter schools at a
very high rate, 94%. If the charter is not approved by the local
board then they can appeal to the Dept of Ed. For approval. So, by
adding another authorizer in the form of the UNCONSTITUTIONAL
charter school commission you simply reduce the academic learning of
the students! This is not about education this amendment is about
the money earned by some to keep power! Our constitution states that
we have an obligation to provide free quality education to all
Georgians. We have no obligation to line the pockets of the rich
with our tax dollars!

-Karen Noll

Charter school amendment: taxation without representation —Karen Noll @ LCC 2012-10-09

Karen Noll spoke to the Lowndes County Commission Tuesday
about the charter school amendment,
saying it would implement taxation without representation

Karen Noll @ LCC 2012-10-09
and would take more tax dollars from our public schools
to give twice as much money to special charter school students.

When you’re talking about my kids in the schools
and you’re going to take their money
and ship it to somebody else’s family and then there’s no accountability,
that’s just unacceptable.

Here’s

the video.

-jsq

Georgia charter schools do no better than traditional public schools

Let's look at Georgia's non-unionized public schools.
So far as I know, Georgia does not have teachers' unions.
But there's still no reason to believe charter schools in Georgia
would be any more magic

than in Chicago.

According to CREDO at Stanford University,
which has done

CREDO at Stanford University

state-by-state charter school studies,
they find

CHARTER SCHOOLS IN GEORGIA PERFORM
SIGNIFICANTLY BELOW THEIR TRADITIONAL
PUBLIC SCHOOL PEERS IN MATH:
No Difference Found in Reading Performance.
That's their press release.
Here's
the detailed study.

So if someone has a charter school idea that they think will perform

Vote No on Amendment 1
better than public schools,
they can talk to their local school board about that, and maybe
that local board will agree.
There's no need to authorize an unelected Atlanta board to force that charter
school on us.

Vote No on the charter school amendment in November.

-jsq

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 →

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

Democrats and Tea Party: both against charter school amendment



In the same month, both the Lowndes County Democratic Party
and the Valdosta Tea Party
had speakers explaining how bad the charter school amendment is.
Neither group took a vote, but it seemed pretty clear most of the
attendees at both meetings were against that referendum on the November ballot,
and mostly for the same reason: nobody wants an unelected state committee
taking away local control and local tax revenue.
Parental choice is one thing, and charter schools are another,
but nobody seemed to like Atlanta taking away local control.

As the
PAGE slides say,



This isn’t a Democrat vs. Republican debate.
Legislators voted across party lines to put the constitutional amendment on the ballot.
Republican and Democrat voters must defeat it together.

You can watch for yourself.
Here are the two presentations:

If you don’t want Atlanta taking away our educational control and local tax dollars,
vote No on the charter school amendment in November.

-jsq

The charter school amendment is about control —Dr. Troy Davis @ LCDP 2012-09-10

Lowndes County Schools Assistant Superintendent Troy Davis
gave his personal opinion:
“it’s about control”.
The charter school amendment on the November ballot is not about
charter schools, which any community in the state can create now.
It’s about control by the state of local schools and resources.

Dr. Davis pointed out Georgia already has 350 charter schools, up from
160 three years ago.


All but 19 were established and agreed upon by local communities.
There’s a successful one in Berrien County, established by the
Berrien County school board.
The process to create more is in place in every community.
If we wanted one in Lowndes County, all it would take would be for
one of the two school systems (Lowndes or Valdosta)
to approve one.

He suggested looking at the sources of funds for Families for Better Schools,
which is backing the amendment.
Top of the list is a Wal-Mart heir.
(It’s
Alice Walton.
Dr. Davis deferred to Al Rowell for that information,
and that’s also where I heard about Alice Walton.
And as I discovered,

the Walton Family Foundation put in much more
than that last year.)
He noted the bulk of the rest comes from for-profit school operators.
(They include

K12 Inc. of Virginia.)

He noted that the state of Georgia just passed this fiscal year
the third largest budget
in the history of Georgia, $19.1 billion.
Yet the public schools have been cut $6.6 billion (apparently since 2002).
And the Lowndes County school system lost nearly $8 million last year,
and $43 million in the past 10 years.
So he asked:

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