Hillary Clinton Speaks Up About Charter Schools

[LiberalArkie]

From Diane Ravitch's blog:

We have been waiting for a member of the media to ask the Democratic and Republican candidates. Finally it happened, though not on national television. Journalist Roland Martin in South Carolina asked Hillary Clinton about her views on charter schools. Her answer suggests that she realizes the issues surrounding private management of public dollars.

“The original idea, Roland, behind charter schools was to learn what worked and then apply them in the public schools. And here’s a couple of problems. Most charter schools — I don’t want to say every one — but most charter schools, they don’t take the hardest-to-teach kids, or, if they do, they don’t keep them. And so the public schools are often in a no-win situation, because they do, thankfully, take everybody, and then they don’t get the resources or the help and support that they need to be able to take care of every child’s education.

“So I want parents to be able to exercise choice within the public school system — not outside of it — but within it because I am still a firm believer that the public school system is one of the real pillars of our democracy and it is a path for opportunity.” Clinton administration supported charters. We know a lot more about them now than we did in the 1990s. I would like to see the federal government cut funding completely for for-profit charters and for virtual charters. I hope the Feds set standards for all charters regarding financial transparency and accountability, discipline, suspension, and teacher qualifications, as well as their responsibility to enroll students with disabilities and English language learners that at least as high as the surrounding public schools. Public money requires public accountability.

Snip

http://dianeravitch.net/2015/11/08/44730/

[Doubledee]

1. I applaud the position

Last edited Mon Nov 9, 2015, 01:54 PM - Edit history (1)

but understand that, in her long history of political life she has said a lot of things and meant none of them. I udnerstand that this comment of mine is snarky, but the facts do speak for themselves.

Further I am unaware of any evidence that the growth of the charter school was any such noble experiment by our public school system as candidate Clinton states, only another in an endless series of profit making schemes with no concern for actually educating. A wella s, I add, a way to avoid integrated schools for some.

[LiberalArkie]

3. In the south it was just a way to get public money for private schools for the white kids.

But indeed she is making a good statement and I agree with her about cutting funding for them.

[daleanime]

5. +1

That's implied up here in the north also.

[leftofcool]

8. Absolutely!

Cut the funding for charter schools and increase funding for classes for kids who would rather work with their hands, electricians, plumbers, mechanics!

[Doubledee]

10. agreement is one thing

thinking her simply campaigning with no intention of following through is more her style.

[ibegurpard]

2. You mean she speaks up FOR them

She's using weasel words here. Trying to do her usual third-way dance between what teachers unions are (very rightly) concerned about and what her corporate sponsors want ( which is the elimination of public schools and taxpayer subsidies for private ones).

[greenman3610]

4. charter schools are often scams

but 20 years ago there was room for people of good will to ask whether there was another path to improving education. I wasn't one of them - my wife is a public school teacher and I feared what might happen with the public funding option.
Now however, we have two decades of results, and the issue is clear - charter schools do no better on the whole than public, and too often are used merely to reward right wing political allies, and raise a cadre of intellectual cripples who think the earth is 5000 years old.

[leftofcool]

6. Yes!

It is unfortunate that charter schools did not work the way they should have.

[LiberalArkie]

7. Hillary Clinton: Most charter schools ‘don’t take the hardest-to-teach kids

From the Washington Post article that the main topic referred to:

Clinton:

So I want parents to be able to exercise choice within the public school system — not outside of it — but within it because I am still a firm believer that the public school system is one of the real pillars of our democracy and it is a path for opportunity.

But I am also fully aware that there are a lot of substandard public schools. But part of the reason for that is that policymakers and local politicians will not fund schools in poor areas that take care of poor children to the level that they need to be. And you can get me going on this…. I mean, the corridor of shame right here in South Carolina, you get on there and you can see schools that are literally falling apart. I’ve been in some of those schools. I have seen the terrible physical conditions. That is an outrage. It is a rebuke to who we are as Americans to send any child to a school that you wouldn’t send your own child to.

Every since the 1990s, Clinton has expressed support for charter schools, but in Saturday’s remarks, she said something that is likely to irritate her supporters within the Democratic Party who are avid backers of charter schools as a principal means of reforming public education: that most charters don’t accept those students who are the most difficult to educate, or, if they do, they “don’t keep them.”

She doesn’t directly say these schools push out these children, but charter critics have frequently said that many charter schools — especially the high-profile “no-excuses” charters — counsel out students who are disciplinary problems or who might drag down their school’s average standardized test scores. And they say that charter schools and traditional public schools cannot legitimately be compared in terms of student achievement in part because traditional public schools have to accept all students and charter schools don’t. Many charter advocates strenuously disagree on both points.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/11/08/hillary-clinton-most-charter-schools-dont-take-the-hardest-to-teach-kids-or-if-they-do-they-dont-keep-them/

[ibegurpard]

9. And yet she won't just come out and oppose them

Weasel-words