I hope Joe wasn't too serious about the use of "dark side." Star Wars, the dark side of the moon, "it was a dark and stormy night" - surely we don't have to assume the word always has racial associations. Especially because Charlie was referring to possible discrimination "on the basis of religion and ethnicity."
As a non-parent, I'm uncomfortable with the charter movement for similar reasons. My comments will probably seem ridiculously uninformed, but here goes. The argument I hear for charter schools is that they don't have to follow all the policies and practices of regular public schools. Like what? If these are constricting policies and practices, why are any public schools required to follow them? Furthermore, if public money supports these schools, what protects me - the childless taxpayer - from having to support curricula that I may see as racist, homophobic, anti-feminist, WASP jingoism? The Hmong families were quite right to be angered and to want an alternative, but why should they have to get their own charter school in order to have their needs met by the public school system? I'm sure there are many fine charters from which the districts could learn - so why aren't they required to? The idea that public education has to be fragmented in order to be fair and responsive is disturbing. Gail O'Hare St. Paul From: Tim Erickson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [StPaul] Charter School Dispute? To: "St. Paul Issues Forum" <[email protected]> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >My question is: "Is this considered a Public Charter School and is it being >subsidized by the Public School system? Based upon my reading of the articles, it was very clear that this is a public charter school, being run with public school dollars. Here is a quote from the fired administrator, from the article on Friday: "My intentions are to administer a public school, open to all, and with public money," Nunneley said. "The fact that it's a charter school doesn't cancel that responsibility to be open to all children. And it's my obligation to serve them." Charlie Swope characterized the dispute as one between evolution and "intelligent design" theory. My own reading of the articles suggest, that while this might be part of the overall discussion - the dispute is more complicated than that. I find that most issues are more complicated than they appear in the newspaper. Based upon my own experiences at Capital Hill - I suspect, that there are a couple of factors are involved. One of which IS "academic rigor." Its is my understanding that this school was set up to serve "gifted and talented" kids. Within "gifted and talented" programs there is sometime tension between the needs of certain academically advanced students and other "bright" kids who have different styles of learning. I experienced this at Capital Hill, where at one point a major debate broke out over Math curriculum - with some parents taking a very militant position in favor of traditional math curriculums that focus on rote memorization over the new integrated math being adopted in many of the districts schools. While this dispute had nothing to do with religion, it was approached by some with "religious" fervor. Best wishes, Tim Erickson Hamline Midway [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------ ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2005 19:31:46 -0800 (PST) From: M Charles Swope <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [StPaul] Charter School Dispute? To: Tim Erickson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "St. Paul Issues Forum" <[email protected]> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I think the Nova charter school controversy exposes a dark side of the whole charter school movement. The articles I've read indicate that a desire on the part of an influential parent group to provide what they term a "classical Christian" education is at the heart of the matter. They want a sectarian school funded with public monies. Other charter schools are designed to attract students of particular ethnic backgrounds. Charter schools may do some good (though some studies have concluded they don't produce results better than ordinary public schools). However, they also seem to be engaged in segregating students on the basis of religion and ethnicity, exactly what we've fought so hard to remove from the public school system. Is that what the charter school movement is really all about? Segregation? Charlie Swope St. Paul ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2005 23:20:16 EST From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [StPaul] Why are so many choosing charters To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [email protected] Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Charters have become very popular in Minnesota and around the country with low income people who have the fewest options in public education. Both in St Paul and in Minnesota, charter public schools serve a higher percentage of low income and people of color than do district schools. A variety of folks are creating charters because they are frustrated with district schools. For example, parents in the St. Paul area have created charter schools that * offer Montessori education at the high school level, because local districts do not do this * are offering an arts focused high school, because local districts have not created such a school that is open to all kinds of students * offer bi-lingual programs after most local districts did not do that. I personally witnessed a local district site council reject ALL of the recommendations - some of them excellent - from a group of Hmong parents who attended - because the principal and faculty already had decided how they wanted to spend every cent of the more than $130,000 in compensatory education dollars - dollars that came to the district, in part to help it deal with Hmong and other students who do not speak English in the home. Some of these parents later set up a charter because the school in question, despite having more than 25% of its students from Hmong families, did not have a single person in the office who spoke their language. This was one of the parents' requests - for a portion of those dollars. There are some fine district public school programs - but many parents are frustrated. And by the way, there are some outstanding charters from which districts could learn a great deal. It is interesting that a note tonight refers to the "dark side" of the charter movement, and seems to equate dark with negative. Dark is not necessarily negative - see Langston Hughes wonderful poetry praising dark. But one of the forms of racism in this country is the way dark often is equated with negative - ie black ball, black day, dark side. Our Center has helped people over the last 15 years improve district public schools and start and improve charter public schools. One of the reasons people start charters is that they do not want to send their children to schools where dark is viewed as dangerous or negative. Joe Nathan Highland Park & Center for School Change Humphrey Institute _____________________________________________ To Join: St. Paul Issues Forum Rules Discussion Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ____________________________________________ NEW ADDRESS FOR LIST: [email protected] To subscribe, modify subscription, or get your password - visit: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/listinfo/stpaul Archive Address: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/private/stpaul/
