Went to a public meeting re: the debut of a new charter school

[Orrex]

I attended a public meet-n-greet last night by a charter school hoping to open a facility in my small western PA town.

It was held at the public library with minimal notice. I only found out about it because my wife mentioned it after work, and by the time I got there meeting was already underway. When I asked the librarian to direct me to the room where they were discussing "the charter school debacle," she chuckled approvingly at my description.

There were seven people in the small room including the speaker and the two who accompanied her. I was the only person not already supportive of the proposal. The speaker stood at the front of the room with the rest of us arrayed about a u-shaped layout of tables. She was pleasant and professional, and I have to say that she responded to my questions respectfully and without getting defensive. This contrasted with my expectation of a corporate mouthpiece.

Here are the two main themes of the presentation: they want to work as a complement to existing public schools, and they want to give parents/students a choice. She insisted that they are not competing against public schools.

I hadn't prepared anything in advance, so I chiefly restricted my questions to matters of funding. My district faces many challenges, but a budget surplus is not among them. When I pointed out that the charter school would in fact be competing for very limited public school funding, she maintained that this is not actually competition. I confess that I don't understand her reasoning in that regard.

I also pointed out that I am in favor of choice, but that I don't accept that public school funding should underwrite that choice, especially when other choices are already available (parochial schools, etc.) She stated that the cost of tuition for such institutions is a barrier, so that these aren't actually choices. I note that this argument has been attempted against so-called "choice" in selecting healthcare providers, so it's curious that another corporate entity would use that same argument here.

Overall very little was accomplished at the meeting, except a preliminary discussion of how to organize a petition to get the school underway. She was rather short on specifics, speaking instead of an "art-infused curriculum" and an "optimized educational experience." Lovely slogans, all, but hard to pin down or refute.

It seems likely that the school will debut in 2013 or 2014 because they're well-funded and strongly motivated. I'm concerned that their petition efforts are targeting local residents who don't have school-age children. It would seem more fitting to me to address the concerns of those whose kids will be directly affected by the program, rather than by people who will feel the impact indirectly, if at all.

The school board in my area is generally unresponsive to public sentiment, and the public is largely disengaged from these processes in any case. How does one resist this trend toward charter schools, especially when my esteemed Governor Corbett is so keen on funneling public money into private organizations?

Still, I'm glad that I was able to represent a dissenting view, even if I was simply a voice against the inevitable.

[busterbrown]

1. Questions.......?

1) Are they planning to take over an existing School?
2) Are they going to hire union teachers?
3) Is there anyone in this grand scheme who is going to gain financially.
4) “Art-ifused curriculum” What the hell does that mean? More money for Art Classes?
Why can’t an existing school do the same thing?
5) “Optimized educational experience”” What is that? Improved efficiency?
Why can’t an existing school be improved in that matter?
6) Back to 3, who are going to make money on this deal and exactly how?

Thanks,

[Orrex]

2. All good questions

From what was discussed last night, I can answer only one question definitively: they are not taking over an existing school. They'd be moving into and repurposing one of two currently vacant buildings in town.

Shame on me for not asking your question 2. Since no mention was made, I suspect that they wouldn't be highing union teachers. If they have another meeting I'll go back and ask.

I'll also ask question 3 if another meeting takes place.

Couldn't make any headway on questions 4 & 5, because these seemed like pre-packaged slogans designed to paint the school in the most progressive-friendly light possible.

Thanks for your suggestions--I'll keep them in mind for next time.

[gollygee]

3. The reason it is competition for money:

They say it isn't because they only get a certain amount per student, and the cost of educating the student isn't with the public schools anymore, so they money won't be needed for that student.

But what they won't say is that not all students cost the same to educate. Special needs students cost many, many times as much to educate, and the students they will accept cost comparatively little to educate. So just looking at the overall cost per student doesn't tell the whole story. If you take out all the students who don't cost as much to educate but you keep all the students who cost a great deal to educate, you won't manage. And the charter school will get the students who are inexpensive to educate, and a large amount of money (compared to how much it costs to educate them) will follow each student. So they get more money than they need (corporate profits), and the public schools end up operating at a loss.

[Orrex]

4. They discussed the admission/selection process a little

To hear her tell it, they won't screen based on the child's "at risk" status, nor on history of academic performance or disciplinary issues. It's open to all, they claim, on a first come/first served basis. You're correct that a child with special needs is afforded a larger chunk of funding, but the speaker last night insisted that they won't exclude students based on such need.

I'm dubious, to say the least.

[gollygee]

5. OK, let's say you have a child with a disability

Do you send your child to the public school, which is required by law to accommodate your child, or do you send your child to a charter school that does not have to follow those laws?

If the charter school does have to accept them, they won't spend the same amount of money on them because they won't have to.

And charter schools are known for saying anyone can apply, and then strongly cautioning parents that the school is not a good fit for their particular child.

[Orrex]

6. That's a great articulation of my concerns

I couldn't come up with a good way to phrase it last night, but you've stated it very well.

As you note, they assure us that they'll admit anyone, and indeed they state they are required by law to do so. They even selected as a spokesperson a former public schoolteacher/administrator who worked extensively with special needs children. But I just don't buy it.

Doesn't pass the smell test.

[Orrex]

7. I am pleased to report...

That the local school board voted against the charter school!

I was actually able to attend the final school board meeting about it a few weeks ago, but the vote didn't take place until last night. The meeting was very informative, and I was gratified to see that the board members clearly understood the implications of the charter school as well as its goals. I was even able to give a five-minute statement during public comments at the end of the meeting.

The group representing the charter school was surprisingly poorly organized, with very few specifics on how they would fund such trivial projects as a school nurse and special education faculty. They also planned to leech off of the already over-stretched public school bus system, so they'd have been a drain of actual resources in addition to siphoning funding.

Again and again at the meeting, the public school was identified as the "host." That naturally suggests that the charter school is the parasite, an apt description based on all that I've seen.

On our town's FB page, the usual rogue's gallery of low income hard-Right activists were howling about this travesty, attacking the school board for doing its duty. I pointed out in the comments that none of the people griping on FB had bothered to show up at the meeting, so they should probably take their bullshit and stuff it.

Next, the proposal goes to the state board of education, but the state has had a very dim view of charter schools lately, so there's a very good chance that it will be shot down again.

Good riddance!