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 The Liberal Patriot Blog is dedicated to collecting and sharing information about National and State [New Hampshire] Political Action, News, and Events.

Friday, January 27, 2006

A walking contradiction....

I
n September of 2004, there were two. By the end of the last school year, there were six. But over the summer, one closed because it didn't have enough money. This week, another opened and several more are in the works.

Charter schools seem to be catching on statewide, and more students from Berlin to Goffstown are enrolling in the small, highly focused public schools. But while the schools report academic success, paying the bills has proven more difficult. And it only promises to get harder unless state lawmakers make major changes, an option that not everyone involved sees as probable.

It has been three years since the state secured $7.2 million in federal grants for a 10-year pilot program to establish up to 20 charter schools in New Hampshire. The grants were to be divvied up among the schools, depending on their enrollment, and used to pay start-up costs for three years.

But the schools, many in their second year, have come to rely on that money. With only $3,500 per student from the state, and per-pupil costs between $6,000 and $10,000, school officials say they use that money to fill the gaps. Towns do it with local taxes, but because charter schools are open-enrollment schools, meaning anyone can attend, they don't have that option.

All charter school officials interviewed for this story said they're worried about their schools' uncertain financial future. With the grant money scheduled to run out next year, they said, they've started to put together contingency plans and look to the state government.


"The state has put us in a precarious place," said Emily Hamilton, director of the Seacoast Charter School in Stratham.

Part of the "enchantment" with charter schools is that they pledge to teach kids better for less money, said Sue Hollins, a charter school enthusiast and head of the New Hampshire Center for School Reform.

from stateline.org

It’s hilarious to me that anyone thinks they can do a better [or same] job educating kids for LESS money than our massively under funded public schools. What makes this article even more hilarious is that the charter school people are hollering for MORE MONEY to support their plan to educate kids with less money. They are just proving the point that public school advocates have been making since the inception of the idea of charter schools. You can’t educate kids for cheaper than is already being done EVEN when you hire non-union uncertified teachers.

The money wasted on this experiment could best be used in the PROVEN public school system. Charters schools will be asking for more money up until the minute the book closes on their failed experiment. The only CHEAPER part of charter schools is how they seek to redefine teacher’s pay and benefits more in the line with a hourly wage earning daycare worker than that of a skilled and well trained professional. Guess what kind of teachers they get to take those jobs?

Many of these dismantle-the-public-school “reformers” would like to see any kid coming out of high school be eligible for a $15 an hour job teaching. You DON’T see these wealthy families sending their Harvard bound children to “charter” schools.


Comments:
Nicely said, Jon.
 
wjcowie - It makes me sad that you've bought into the right wing "gubmint bad" line of thinking. Public schools are good, or at least they used to be. I recieved a fine public school education - back in the olden days when there were art and music classes, as well as athletics. We were taught Civics, too.

The right wing is intent on dismantling the public education system - so that only the wealthy will get a good education, and the rest of the drones can work at Wal-Mart or serve as cannon fodder. It's the right wingers who don't care about education. If we really cared about kids - we'd spend every dime it took to give 'em a good education. That we begrudge every dime tells you how much we value our children in the USA. The wingers love charter schools, because it takes funds away from public schools, and many charter schools are religious. Charter schools should not recieve public funding, in my opinion. Religious education can go fund itself.

Okay - as for "gubmint is bad" - the government is OURS. We own it. It's supposed to represent US. For a variety of apathetic reasons, we're chosing to ignore that, and behave as though gubmint is some monolith that has nothing to do with us. It is us. And it's up to us to seize control.
 
Oh, yeah - a sales tax is regressive and will hurt poor folks. The wealthy will be able to shop outside of the tax, but the average joe's and josephines will not. A graduated income tax is the most progressive tax - and would require NH's many millionaires to pay their fair share.

Okay, off the soapbox for now.
 
Will - I hope I didn't come across as being grumpy with you. I'm not mad at you. I'm just a grumpy old "liebrul."
 
What I meant but "public school works" is that fully funded public schooling is shown through numerous studies to be VERY effective in teaching kids and in preparing them for college and good paying jobs.

I, of coarse, home school my kids. So what's the disconnect there?

My idea was that Public School is a proven system that works effectively as compared to the hair brain scheme of public school. It is not perfect but it is also not a plan to dismantle society so that rich people can keep more of there money.

Also good government can and should help people... but ideally free associations of free and informed individuals is better.

Also when "no/less government" is just a scheme to leave people hungry, children uneducated, and generally allow a few people to take all the money and power use it to trample others it's a VERY BAD IDEA.
 
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