Charter School Debate Round Up

"Jazzman" (0.00 / 0)

Once again, the anonymous pundit Blue Jersey gives a forum as "Jazzman" obsessively beats the charters school like a drum...on and on and on. This week I hear that he is a former charter school teacher -- where? At one of the schools he constantly singles out for smerain and innuendo? Why did he leave? Was it of his own volition? Anonymity is fine in journalism until it becomes obsession on one topic....and when that anonymity is revealed to hide someone with a personal grudge, good journalistic practices call for that bias to be exposed and the forum to revoke that soapbox.

If Jazzman's bio read "a former charter school teacher who taught music at XX from 20Xx to 20XX and left/was asked to leave/was laid of, I think everyone would read these diatribes with a more educated eye. Maybe he taught at the beginning of the charter school movement when thigns were still being finetuned.

Again, many charter schools are run by dedicated progressive liberals who don't need to visit Blue Jersey to see this personal grudge beat like a drum every day.  

---

by: Teducation @ Mon Jan 16, 2012 at 15:55:54 PM UTC

Ummm... (4.00 / 2)

Did you just anonymously call out the Jazzman... well... for being anonymous?


"Where ever you go, there you are." - Buckaroo Bonzai

---

by: William Weber (WjcW) @ Mon Jan 16, 2012 at 16:23:41 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Mr. education (0.00 / 0)

Please learn to spell or to proofread.

---

by: SmartyJones @ Mon Jan 16, 2012 at 16:32:46 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

My "grudge": (0.00 / 0)

From the link to my blog I give above:

I'm going to stop right here and make a few things clear: I am not criticizing LCCS. It's probably a great school, and certainly the deserving children who attend there should be proud of their accomplishments. Further, I am not criticizing charter schools. As I've stated here many times, I believe they have their place; I started my career in a charter school.

Now then: who's the one who's being "obsessive"?

If you don't trust me, that's fine; read Dr. Baker. Or is he "obsessive" as well?

http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com

---

by: Jersey Jazzman @ Mon Jan 16, 2012 at 16:33:29 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Ah, the irony... (0.00 / 0)

Anonymity is fine in journalism until it becomes obsession on one topic....and when that anonymity is revealed to hide someone with a personal grudge (...)

Are you describing yourself? After all, you've been posting on Blue Jersey for only a matter of days and then only one subject. As for your use of the word journalism, I don't recall Jazzman claiming to be a journalist. Are you one?

---

by: Alex @ Mon Jan 16, 2012 at 18:02:59 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Charter Performance (0.00 / 0)

Interestingly, above, even Baker says that all factors in, charter schools are no better or worse than their government-run peers in testing results. But the cost is less, that is not at any debate, correct? And parent satisfaction surveys are much higher, that is not at any debate, correct? So, if all averaged out, the results are the same, why would happier families at a lower cost to taxpayers make charters the answer in failing urban districts?

---

by: Teducation @ Tue Jan 17, 2012 at 20:04:14 PM UTC

To answer your question, yes the cost is debatable (0.00 / 0)

Of course satisfaction surveys come back high, when all of the students who were difficult to educate have already been counseled out of the school (or not enrolled to begin with).

I believe Bruce Baker is generalizing when he says no better or worse. (I apologize to him if I'm wrong.) The most frequently cited study says charters only outperform their counterparts 17% of the time, yet do worse than public schools 37% of the time. Roughly half do no better than publics.

It seems that you do not understand that students do not actually all cost the same to educate? When charter schools start educating similar groupings of students as their traditional public school counterparts, you might be able to say that charter schools educate students more cost-efficiently. By the way, when you say the cost is less, are you including the private money pumped into them? Are you carrying over the costs of free-lunch programs, special education services, and transportation, which vary greatly between charters and their public school peers? To answer your question: yes, whether charters can run themselves for less money is debatable.  

---

by: kellypage @ Tue Jan 17, 2012 at 22:25:21 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

"jazzman" (0.00 / 0)

Kelly,

To me, if parents/taxpayers are happier in charters, why not give them the choice? What about the OSA? Give parents a $7,000 voucher and they exit a (probably overcrowded) failing school that where we (taxpayers) are spending $20k plus. That is a progressive answer to the same old cycle of poverty and hopelessness. Charters, vouchers....whatever it takes, try SOMETHING, it has to be better than the hellholes we are forcing kids to go to in Camden and Newark. What if it was your kid starting first grade next September? Would you be satisified with the "uh....uh....pay teacher's more" NJEA answer? Or would you want a charter or a voucher or some other CHANCE for your kid?  

---

by: Teducation @ Wed Jan 18, 2012 at 04:23:32 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

just anything won't do (0.00 / 0)

You say "try something," as if charters and vouchers haven't already been tried in heavy volumes in other states for a few decades... and failed, miserably.  Just trying any old thing we can think of isn't good enough.

There are a number of better options to try, including expanding the Inter District School Choice Program.

"To me, if parents/taxpayers are happier in charters, why not give them the choice?"

And, to you, what about the kids left behind in schools with higher concentrations of more expensive to educate kids, with less resources to do so? Hmmm, what about those kids?

I think we have a very different understanding of the word "progressive."

---

by: kellypage @ Thu Jan 19, 2012 at 03:47:03 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

"Jazzman = special interest with financial motive !! (0.00 / 0)

But, see, you are drinking the non-progressive Jazzman koolaid, from whatever mysterious bad taste his mysterious charter school employment left in his mouth. Simply, the OSA as currently proposed leaves MORE money in the sending school system per child. The kids "left behind" have MORE money and resources to educate them. How are you defining "harder to educate"? Special ed is a separate funding mechanism. Smart, less smart, difficult, easy...as long as they hit the poverty standard ALL children can choose to enter an OSA lottery. If anything, as is documented in Florida, the struggling and more difficult children are the ones whose parents CHOOSE to try something else. Make sense?

Charters and vouchers have enjoyed success in many places, and almost universally to higher parent satisfaction and less cost to taxpayers. Simply continually repeating they fail does not make it the truth.

To progressive types as myself who want to see our less advantaged familes move ahead and enjoy the same school choice civil rights the affluent class does, it is very frustrating to have charter/private school haters publish things like this column. The tiniest metrics of a voucher program can be teased out and spun and bullhorned to make them look like some systemic conceptual failure. Yet the simple efficacy of a teacher, meticulously measured through each student's tested and graded performance, is an unsolveable mystery for the improvement of education instruction, if you are to believe Jazzman (NJEA member with a wallet to protect). Progressive to me means ignoring special interests with financial motives, and concentrating on society.
Progressives want a better life for our less affluent children. The current system is failing New Jersey inner city kids -- not now, but for decades. The NJEA's answer is that 94 percent of the system is swimming just fine, so ignore those six percent who are drowning. Now, suddenly, out of the blue, the NJEA this summer decides there is a problem, and comes forward with merit pay, tenure reform and teacher evaluation reform bills. Okay! Acknowledgement of a problem!! So, when are those deckchair on the Titanic reforms going to actually improve inner city schools? 2030? 2050?

We have successful schools in these neighborhoods now. Let's save kids in 2012.

---

by: Teducation @ Thu Jan 19, 2012 at 20:49:27 PM UTC

[ Parent ]