Worst person alive might go to former judge Mark Ciavarella, the Pennsylvania judge who sent thousands of kids to private juvenile jails for minor offenses and received kickbacks for it, ruining and arguably ending young lives. In California we have our own scandal, where foster kids are over medicated by doctors with conflicts of interest,…
Month: August 2016
2 Things You Need to Know about the “Charter Movement”
Everything you hear about charter schools is true. And everything you hear about charter schools is false. That’s what 20 plus years working with them has taught me. They send high numbers of low income kids to college, they pick and choose students, they are safer. They disproportionately suspend certain kids, they save taxpayers money,…
OUSD’s Year in Review and the Challenges Ahead
By most accounts Oakland Unified is doing pretty well. Our schools are as fully staffed as they have been in recent memory, public support is at historic highs, academically we are making progress and progress with some of most historically underserved students, and financially we are as strong as ever, with an improving bond rating.…
The Best NYC Charter School Story You Haven’t Heard
A predictable war of words has erupted around interpreting the latest set of NYC test scores. The charter sector has touted its successes, with Success Academy Charter Schools front and center, and the mayor has increasingly pushed back, critiquing the results, Success Academy itself, and broadly tarring the sector. Missed in the battle of the elephants…
Humpty Dumpty and “Public” Charter Schools
Some people in Oakland don’t like charter schools, most of them seem to live in the Hills, and have good neighborhood choices. Meanwhile many Flatlands families are voting with their feet, choosing public charter schools. Lost in this debate is the fact the families at charters are more likely to be low income, people of…