Imagine Charter in IN placed on probation. FL Imagine Charter tries to bring up F grade.

[madfloridian]

From the Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette, which has done a great job of covering the new education "reform" efforts...we find that Imagine MASTer Academy has been placed on probation.

Wells St. Imagine placed on probation

The Imagine MASTer Academy board must take a number of corrective action steps this year, otherwise the school’s charter will be revoked, said John Jacobson, dean of Ball State’s Teachers College, which oversees the university’s charter school office.

If the school meets the goals set forth by Ball State, it will be released from probation, he said.

..."Ball State’s investigation was prompted by a series of stories in November by The Journal Gazette that detailed a lack of local control over the MASTer Academy and Imagine Schools on Broadway. The newspaper’s investigation found that the MASTer Academy board approved a series of measures outside public meetings that allowed the school to own and open two charter schools in Texas.

It's a long article and lays out many of the ways in which those on the board where unaware of what was happening.

Lack of local control has been an increasing concern when charter schools are being opened so quickly and run by distant Education Management Corporations.

Less local control of schools as charter schools increase. Long-distance control by CEOs.

In this phase of the charter movement, it is very important that the promoters make their schools look extra fine. This is done by creaming students and getting a lot of supplementation for programs from the venture philanthropists. In addition, they make sure the superiority of their schools is highly publicized. If you read the outline of the whole plan here, you'll learn that friendly editorial boards are very important to this faction.* You'll also learn that their goal is to gain more and more of the market share so the traditional public school system gets weaker and weaker. Make no mistake – wherever there are no charter caps, the goal will be to convert all public schools to a system of charters.

In the future, communities will not be able to be involved with any aspect of their schools. Say bye-bye to school boards, School Site Councils, teacher unions, school worker unions, and other community-member involved bodies. Say hello to a vestigial form of the school district that only takes care of the unwanteds: special ed and behavior-problem students. Decisions will be made by the CMOs (Charter Management Organizations) . CMOs like Aspire, Envision, Green Dot, KIPP, and Imagine will be the “big box store" equivalent of public schools. This is where America’s urban schools are headed.

And a Florida Imagine School was stunned to learn they got an F grade as a school as a result of their FCAT scores. This score allowed the state Department of Education to step in and monitor.

Imagine School strives to improve grade.

Imagine, in its first year of operation in Evening Rose off of Capital Circle Northeast, was one of two Leon County schools to receive an F when the grades were released last year. Since then, Imagine has restructured a few key elements within the school and has taken the advice from the Florida Department of Education team that has been coming weekly to supervise classrooms to ensure a higher score.

..."Imagine is one of Leon County's five charter schools and is part of a larger national organization with schools around the country. The school, made up of 66 percent white students and 12 percent of the student population getting free and reduced lunch, is known for using the Project Child curriculum, created by Sally Butzin, a resident of Tallahassee and director of Institute of School Innovation, that allows students to be actively engaged in clusters or centers. Students from around the county choose to attend the school, with the majority of students coming from home-schooling or private schools, said Turknett.

The failing grade has not led parents to switch schools. In fact, the enrollment has grown from 299 students to 486 this year, with the addition of a sixth grade.

Parent Kim Jackson, who has two sons at Imagine, said that she doesn't think the grade was a fair assessment of the school.

"I measure the success by our sons' improvement and attitude and they love their school," Jackson said.

Actually I agree with the parent....if a student is learning and they love the school it is a good measurement.

In reality it is far better measurement than the FCAT.

Trouble is that Imagine School is taking money from public schools which are not being fixed, just defunded and criticized.

If a traditional public school makes an F grade, there will be no one defending that.

[madfloridian]

1. Florida begins the "FCAT swagger" dance and song"...sickening.

All the pep rallies and cheers and such for a single test which the determines the future of every child and teacher and school.

That is what education has become?

All eyes on Warrington as the FCAT nears

Warrington Middle, like many other schools in the district, began its "FCAT Blitz" when students returned from the holidays.

This month, eighth-graders are having daily writing workshops to prepare for the writing test in February.

A class of students sits in the library with a teacher who hands out a prompt, "Should teens be forced to do community service?" Students quickly choose a side to brainstorm ideas, then brainstorm ideas for the opposing argument. Tutors brought on specifically for FCAT prep circle the room as students write their sample essays.

Earlier this month, students created an "FCAT swagger" dance and song and performed it at a pep rally. Some teachers have offered cash rewards to students who make perfect subject scores.

But the real madness begins next week when teachers get in gear for the math and reading tests in March.

At one school it got so bad that a principal spent 4 nights on the roof of the school.

That was supposed to push the children to better scores.

LAKELAND - Kathleen High School Principal Cecil McClellan could turn this into a lesson about commitment. McClellan has braved the past four nights on the roof of Kathleen to settle a bet he made to encourage students to meet FCAT goals. He said he picked the late October week to camp on the roof because it promised cool, comfortable nights with few mosquitoes. So far, McClellan has worried more about frostbite than mosquitoes.

"I've froze," McClellan said Wednesday from the roof. "But if you tell your kids you're going to do something you have to honor your word."

On Wednesday, temperatures dropped to 38 degrees, breaking the record for the coldest October day on record - 42 degrees in 1989, according to the National Weather Service.

Meanwhile schools like Imagine are waiting in the wings for their time. They will get the money that once went to the public school system, and they will pay huge salaries to their administrators.

Overall they are scoring no better than our traditional public schools, yet in the end they will get away with it because the DOE is on their side.

[saracat]

2. In Arizona several of our GOP educators actually "own" charter schools as they continually

push for the de-funding of public schools.

[sulphurdunn]

3. Common Practice?

"Imagine has restructured a few key elements within the school and has taken the advice from the Florida Department of Education team that has been coming weekly to supervise classrooms to ensure a higher score."

Is it common practice for the Florida DOE to send testing supervisory teams on a weekly basis to help boost test scores in failing public schools?

[yurbud]

4. Wall Street fucked up the economy--keep their hands off our kids education!

The same is doubly true of the GOP ideas of education ''reform.'' If they couldn't take care of the economy or war, two things they claim to be experts on, why are we still using their ideas for education?

[Mithreal]

8. Powell memo. Undermining education is key to longterm conservative goals.

Though Powell's memo was not the sole influence, the Chamber and corporate activists took his advice to heart and began building a powerful array of institutions designed to shift public attitudes and beliefs over the course of years and decades. The memo influenced or inspired the creation of the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Accuracy in Academe, and other powerful organizations. Their long-term focus began paying off handsomely in the 1980s, in coordination with the Reagan Administration's "hands-off business" philosophy.

http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_accountability/powell_memo_lewis.html

We sent Third Way Dems to represent us. They can't help themselves. Their corruption runs deep. It's not GOP versus Dem, more like Radical Centrist versus Progressive. The Regressives are just cheering from the sidelines when they are not explicitly joining in with the Radical Centrists.

[yurbud]

10. ''centrist'' is a serious misnomer they are as owned as the GOP, they just hang progressive curtains

instead of the Bible banging and fear ones the GOP uses.

[Mithreal]

11. absolutely, pragmatic is more in style this season

[mopinko]

5. and how many failing public schools are facing the same sanctions?

hmm?

[UTUSN]

6. I immediately thought "BFEE" but Neil Shrub's scam is named "Ignite" (education softwared) n/t

[alp227]

7. Well I agree with the parent's statement but given the FCAT score, where's the learning?

:shrug:

This is the ing double standard: Charter schools fail, "move on along let's go". Public schools fail, they get defunded and ghettoized.

[madfloridian]

9. Good point.