Whitmire & Clinton On Charters, Bradford V. Weingarten, Campus Issues, Teacher Shortages, Philosopher Welders!

Whitmire on charters and hornets nests. He makes a point we made in the Bellwether slide deck on charters, the growth means charters and districts are going to be bumping into each other more for good or ill.

More Hillary Clinton charter fallout (which is almost entirely irrelevant after Paris). Wash Post editorial board here. Matt Barnum with a measured walk through of a statement that while problematic wasn’t entirely off-base.

We’re getting reports that Derrell Bradford didn’t like Randi Weingarten’s recent op-ed on charter schools and school discipline.

This is revolting.

Michael Dannenberg on campus unrest.

Seems like philosopher welders are going to be easier to find than philosopher kings? Phillip Burgoyne-Allen takes a look at an Obama – Rubio convergence on education. The teacher “shortage” seems to move reporters more than it does school districts. A North Carolina Opportunity Culture teacher shares her story.

Bulldog fights bears.

6 Replies to “Whitmire & Clinton On Charters, Bradford V. Weingarten, Campus Issues, Teacher Shortages, Philosopher Welders!”

  1. The link to the Whitmire article goes to an article about an asteroid buzzing the earth. Interesting and terrifying, but not what I was looking for!

  2. Thanks – a glimpse at my free time reading. But fixed. And of the various notes people sent on this yours was the most amusing and least annoyed.

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  4. As is usual, the commentators at The Washington Post get it better than ed writer Jo Ann Armao (who once told a teacher that he didn’t know anything about education).
    One example:

    LaborLawyer
    11/14/2015 10:36 AM EST
    No surprises here — the WaPo’s infatuation with charters and hostility to unions (particularly public sector unions) is as longstanding as it is inexplicable (and no, I’m not a union “mouthpiece” — during 30+ years practicing labor law I represented govt and management, never unions or employees).

    Clinton is hedging on her earlier support for charters. Perhaps she is bowing to political pressure. Or, perhaps she is recognizing that today’s charters are not what early charter supporters imagined but rather an alternate taxpayer-supported school system that provides a non-chaotic but otherwise inferior education experience for concerned/functional inner-city parents.

    As usual, this WaPo pro-charter editorial ignores the compelling argument that charters, because they enroll their children via parent application rather than geographical default, inevitably enroll only the children of parents who are concerned enough to learn about the charter and functional enough to complete the application and provide daily transportation. In the inner-cities, where most charters are located, there are many parents who are unconcerned and/or dysfunctional. The children of these parents will all end up in the neighborhood public schools.

    Bottom line: The charters will enroll only children of concerned/functional parents while the neighborhood schools will enroll some children of concerned/functional parents and many children of unconcerned/dysfunctional parents. The charters will therefore have better students than the neighborhood schools. And, this skimming occurs independent of any selective admissions criteria, expulsions, or counseling-out that charters might engage in.

    Finally, the charter students are themselves denied an optimum education. The charter teachers, curriculum, facilities, and support services are usually inferior to those of the neighborhood schools.

    Why not just reinstitute tracking in the neighborhood schools?

  5. Derek Bradford is so quick to mount his high horse and play the race card that he misses the saddle by a few feet.
    Typing of Bradford, it is always great to point out that he doesn’t want children to have the expensive private education he received.

  6. The article about teacher shortage is decent. I understand there is not a lot of money going around but there also seems to always be a shortage of teacher. This seems interesting when it can be difficult to find a teaching job. The articles say there are teacher shortages but are not specific to where so interested teachers can apply and be hired. I think either these districts need to do a better job of posting and advertising their positions or the news is building things out of portion.

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