New York is exploding.  Not only with the mayors race which is centering now on the Bloomsberg educational policies, but the debacle of test scores across the state, those same ones that failed 70% of all kids in New York State, have driven passions up to a feverish pitch.

If you thought Rodel has always been on the right track, you need to see what is happening in New York State.

For those who don’t still know, the idea behind school reform is that you implode the public educational system, destroying it so badly, that private schools or charters, can move into the vacuum and educate children for a profit…. That is the underlying premise behind educational reform.  If a school is doing well, you say it isn’t, you force it to do test after test until it really isn’t doing well, and then you close it.

Philadelphia, Chicago, and DC all shut down tremendous numbers of public schools this year.   They intend to give the empty buildings to their friends for free, and allow them to open schools on those premises.  Their friends stand to make a lot of money.

Charter schools thrive on choice.  Every parent wants to choose the best for their child, and charter schools sell that well.    “Our student are good “they say, “for if they get low scores we kick them out.  That is why our scores are so high…”

And it is true.  If one looks at Delaware’s highest scoring school, it is a Charter. but it is a Charter with hardly any blacks, and hardly any children on free lunch… So duh… it’s scores are higher.  The problem in such a comparison, is that public schools, with the same amounts of rich white kids sprinkled with a few Asians, do better than charter schools of the same mixture.  Public schools have more resources; public schools teach better.  Likewise upon looking at the low end, where almost all the students are on free lunch, public school low income students, score significantly higher than do their counterparts in Charter Schools.  Again, more resources.

But charters still argue with choice.  If your school is failing they say, why should your kid be forced to remain in a failing school? That argument is very deceptive and certainly rings true upon first hearing…. Why would we keep a genius in a bad school, when a great one opened up a block away?

The answer to that question is simply not every child is a genius.  As there is a ying to a yang and a Laurel to a Hardy, their is a Sith Lord to the aura of choice… (Dark Side; get it?) 🙂

That is that 40% of kids in Charter Schools get kicked back to public because they are bringing down the test scores.

So… 40% is the same as 2 our of 5, or 4 out of 10….  Choice is ruining the lives of 2 out of every 5 kids, … They got pulled out, and pushed back; losing a whole year because their parents “choiced” them into a school that taught by test scores…

So offering choice, ruins the lives of 2 out of 5 students.  That is two who are ruined to three who make it.  Now if there is nothing wrong with the public school to begin with, we just created a negative situation out of one where none occurred.

2 people our of 5 would have learned had that Charter not opened.  Actually all 5 would have learned.  But now, 2 people out of five are remedial, simply because the Charter School wants to lie about their high test scores…

So when someone pulls a Diller and starts screaming that children need a choice…. let them explode and while their insides are dripping off the ceiling, … say “by your figures, two out of 5 students will  be forced to transfer out to keep your schools test scores up. Where is their choice? Those people don’t have a choice.  They can chose to go into a charter school, and you’ll get to keep the money, but they can’t choose whether or not they get to stay.

Better to have all students succeed in a good public school, than force 2 our of 5 to become the Lost Society…