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As anyone who has engaged charter supporters in their quest to determine what is best for education in the long run, knows these myths are false…..
- Charters teach better.
- Charters score better on standardized tests
- Charters have few discipline problems
- Charters have a high demand for seats, you can’t argue against high demand.
None of these hold up under scrutiny… One quickly finds that in Delaware, whenever anyone argues for the continuation of Charter Schools, they are arguing for the continuation of one single charter school: The Charter School of Newark. or CSN for short.. (One almost wishes they would add Yorklyn to their title so we could experience fond memories whenever we called it: CSN & Y…)
There is only one argument for charters that has any merit, and that merit is not logical, but a strong one politically… People want to send their children to charters so why get rid of them…
True, Newark Charter (sorry Yorklyn) does have a waiting list, and so does Red Clay’s Wilmington Charter…
But what about the great and prestigious Academy of Dover?
Mr. Blowman noted that the school’s enrollment has declined steadily over the years, from 308 students in school year 2013-14 to 247 students this school year.
So… Here is the bottom line….
IF……
- Charters can’t teach better.
- Charters can’t score better on standardized tests
- Charters can’t have few discipline problems
- Charters can’t have a high demand for seats,
Why do we still have this failed policy in place??? For just one school protected by the legislator who wrote the original legislation allowing Delaware to expirement with the then new innovation then called the Charter School theory? He is, after all the head of the Senate Education Committee and he will have to be voted out or overridden by all other members to effect any change…
Why are we letting one person run the rest of Delaware’s public schools into the ground? Even with one fifth of their income stolen from them, Delaware public schools are still the main choice of Delaware parents… Charters can’t even keep the minimum required number of seats filled?
This is why all need to send a donation to Dave Sokola’s opponent, Meredith Chapman. If you live in the eighth, which runs the western border from Newark Charter School up to Hockessin, you lucky few get to vote to replace him.
In a battle of hearts and minds between the lobbyists of reformers and the advocates for making young black lives truly matter, the NCAAP just resolved to call for the end of Charter Schools… The significance being: that the truth is growing daily inside people’s brains that the only reason to have two separate and unequal school systems (one for the affluent and another for the poor), is to segregate.
There is absolutely and unequivocally no other reason.
Final Rules on Teacher Preparation — page 91-92; US Department of Education.
As tiny pieces of evidence slowly matriculate like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle which slowly begin to show the image of what is to come, another critical piece of the puzzle became available to the public today….
What a full blown audit of Newark Charter School would give us, would be the equivalent of looking at the image on the box the puzzle came in, as opposed to trying to guess blind what the puzzle would look like when finished…
We can either do the audit now, or we can do it later. But as the pieces of the growing puzzle now show, there is a very strong oder of malfeasance emanating from the structures off Elkton Rd., just this side of the Maryland State Line.
A well-esteemed state auditor was pulled off the investigation of this school by her political boss. Instead of the investigation going forward, it was halted. Letters to the charter schools were sent privately outlining what had been found. You can see some of those letters here….
Newark Charter School is in violation of the IRS mandated law that all charter schools file IRS form 990. Newark Charter School has never filed… Doing so would leave a track record allowing one to track money disappearing from year to year. One can see why there is a lot of political heat applied to anyone attempting to investigate the insides of that furnace….
Furthermore, under the new audit law passed last year… any Charter School failing an audit, can be audited by the State Auditor. Otherwise they can employ their own auditors who they can control….
Which would make signories of the lawsuit against Christina School District for even more funding than legally required, all guilty of a gross mishandling of money they already have….
In other words, the thieves did not want it known they were stealing money, until the money was first delivered into their hands…
So… if you really want to fix this, what do you do?
First and foremost: cut the head off the body.. Defeat Dave Sokola in his Senatorial Election for District 8 in North Newark to South Hockessin. If you live there, vote for Meredith Chapman for State Senate. If you don’t, please go here to donate… Meredith Chapman for Senate.
Why is this critical? Because in the Senate this year a tough audit bill on charter schools was winning and Dave Sokola, the more senior of the legislators and one to whom many legislative favors are owed, substituted the bill allowing guilty charters to “hire” their own auditor. This left no doubt for all to see that any attempt to make public schools better and charter schools more accountable, will be shot down as long as he is in legislature…
You HAVE to take out the gun doing the shooting… Please donate… Please vote for Meredith Chapman…
Secondly and more to the point. you need to began the clamor of an audit of Newark Charter School. Why do they need more money than public schools when they are the largest Charter in Delaware? How are they financing the two new buildings they have built and staffed off the per student funding from Christina? Why are they charging parents for their child’s field trips and student activities to the tune of $440,000 and then billing the state for at same amount (Delaware Checkbook) ? What are they doing with that extra money? Is it legal? Is it extortion of the parents? Can public schools also charge parents of their students $440,000 per each 2000 students? Is there a double standard? Why did they continue to flaunt the IRS standard requiring they file a IRS 990, even when explicitly warned by the IRS not to do so? Is everything really “ok” there, or are they in very huge deep trouble and are simply moving the same shell around to whomever is looking next?
All these demand a full audit of the Newark Charter School and obvious from the release coming from one of our own state legislators elected to Delaware’s House of Delegates, we cannot trust the Republican Tom Wagner to fulfill society’s obligation and tear into the financial labyrinth that obfuscates Newark Charter School’s accounting. The number one reason for doing any audit, is that is always cheaper to find a problem early on and then correct it as opposed to let it go unattended, finally costing millions to correct damage that could have more cheaply been nipped in the bud….
Delaware taxpayers need to demand a full audit of Newark Charter School … and hopefully will be able to do so when Dave Sokola is no longer there to squelch it….
Thirdly: if there is nothing wrong with Newark Charter School, and everything is on the up and up, a full blown audit going back to 2008 would certainly do very much to dampen the anti-Charter movement growing like a flash fire in this state… “Ok”, all would say, “so the biggest charter is NOT corrupt, we can move on then”… It would be the best thing that could ever happen to the entire Delaware Charter Network….
So then…. With what they know…. why are they fighting it so stringently? Why did they ask that the State Auditor of Accounts not investigate their finances though required by law to look at all public entities? Why did they lobby for a bill to allow their own auditors, ones they can direct and force to hide things is necessary, instead of impartial ones? Why did they demand and get a very awesome public servant pulled off the ongoing audit of all charters, and have her removed from the force and kept under a gag order?
When one is doing wrong, they always telegraph by their actions exactly where it is they do not want you to look…
All signals point that place to be Newark Charter School… That is where all the dirt is hidden… That will either bring down the entire charter myth that they are indeed good institutions, or it will exonerate many of doing their best under the hard circumstances they encountered…
What we need is a bill passed thorough legislature, ordering the Christina District to hire the auditor and receive the report of Newark Charter Schools finances from 2008 to now… After all, it is all Christina’s money keeping that Charter School afloat; it should be them to whom the auditor must answer and appease…..
Although not named as the primary litigant, for all intents and purposes, this lawsuit will herein be referred as the “Newark Charter’s Lawsuit Against The Christina School District”, or “Newark Charter’s Lawsuit” for short….
Those who know,… know why. No further explanation required or will be given.
The lawsuit seeks to do several things.
First, it wants to freeze the $7 million of Christina’s Current Funding it disputes. This is to prevent it being spent before the court can deliver a verdict. Doing so would have a negative effect on Christina’s 22,000 children by depriving their district of funds needed for operation of specific tasks pending the court trial.
Second, it wants those funds to eventually go to charter schools because that was the certification as of September 1st. You may remember that certification was reversed when the public got outraged and …. well, basically after the DOE got caught with their pants down, and really, had no choice, other than change the certifications back to their original levels.
Third, it wants the Christina District to pay all of its legal fees.
Fourth, it wants to add other monetary damages it discovers during the trial, or makes up on its own…
That is basically it. The suit does include the DOE and the state superintendent for overriding the certification originally made which the court must now decide either was a legal correction, or one made outside the law. The lawsuit of course also includes the Christina District and its financial director.
ANALYSIS
The bone of contention is whether or not, a levy approved by voters in a referendum for one specific item, can be used for any other item later at anyone’s future discretion… The Christina District passed a levy still in effect for four specific things… That money is collected separately and is separately paid to the exact penny for that single group of items. Brandywine District just recently passed a levy to put artificial turf on its field… It was on the ballot specifically for that single item, and was approved by the voters of that district for that single item. Charter schools say they are entitled to part of that payment under per student funding. District schools say that is unconstitutional because the voters did not approve of that money for anything other than that single item… The DOE has always sided with Christina District since 2003, even during extreme pro-charter administrations. .All this attempted lawsuit appears to be,… is an ill-defined attempt to get charters’ fingers on funds they are not entitled to..since those moneys are not part of regular operations of the district, but are allotted instead for a specific function that was “over and beyond” the regular operations of the district. Expect the court to rule it to be unconstitutional to go against voter’s wishes….
As to the holding of the money, most of it is for a specific function… Holding the money would put that function in jeopardy. Switching funding from future use to augment those programs could be accomplished by the district, but it should be unnecessary because the voters themselves said this was their sole reason for voting to be taxed that amount. .. The proper court decision would be to NOT invoke an injunction upon using those funds, because that would be unconstitutionally violating voters’ directives; later, if the court decided to favor those charters making the lawsuit, the district would then pay the amount from different funds and the Charters could still get their money. There is no harm in denying the injunction, and there is harm to innocent parties for honoring it. Expect the court to rule not to allow the injunction.
The principle legal claim by those suing is that equity is not being provided to those students going to charter schools… Their claim is that since Christina is not allowing that specific funding to be split up and follow each Charter student to their school, those students going to Charters get less per student money than do those remaining in public schools and therefore it is not equal… The correct argument against that, is that these moneys are not going to Christina’s students either… Just as the turf money at Brandywine does not go to augment those public schools’ educational expenses, nor should it go to those fleeing to charters… Since none of that funding goes to either public or charter (private) school students, equity is preserved.
The plaintiffs counter argument will be that whereas grass is on the field, these payments are for programs in the classroom and therefore are part of the expense of running a school. The obvious counter to that, is to point out that since Newark Charter has a new school building, that too is an “extra” they can provide their students. That is also an external form of “non-equity” that enables Charter Students to have a better environment than those public school students in Christina’s older buildings. Should some form of equity revert back to Christina for that? Of course not, and neither should it go the other way… Some advantages are endemic to certain entities. and these programs supported by the Christina District’s voters, are a perk these voters of the Christina District insisted on paying for…
Furthermore the Charter Schools are alleging they were harmed by Godowsky’s reversal of their allotment. They were promised one thing, and given another… To some extent this is true. Two operatives (with or without Godowski’s knowledge) changed the allotments by raising them for Charters, then informing the Charters their allotments had been raised, but neglected to tell any of the Public Schools about the changes. The public schools got walloped by the surprise, and had this decision not been properly reversed on September 7th, the public schools most certainly would have sued the DOE on the exact same grounds these Charters now are…. The ineptness of the DOE and its leadership (done either with or against Godowski’s knowledge) may have caused some future funding shortages in some charters… If those claims are real (ie charters hiring additional staff) then the party responsible for repaying the damage should rest solely with the ineptly run DOE, and not with the Christina School District.
Judging by the weakness of the claims, and the huge mental stretches at the complaint’s beginning in trying to establish legal precedents for pushing the suit forward, it appears that the law firm Saul Ewing is simply taking Charters on an expensive ride…
Parents. Students.
Get back!… Opt out of taking the Smarter Balanced Assessment until that teacher is reinstated… If not reinstated.. don’t take the test…
A) The test is stupid. (literally)
B) The test has no bearing on your abilities. Schools look at GPA’s.
C) The test is one thing you control that Meece doesn’t… You choose not to take the test, he is the laughing stock of the entire Charter Network..
D) The peace of mind that comes after you’ve opted out is incredible, probably one of the nicest feelings you will ever feel… it’s like being on a white sandy beach, with aqua waves periodically pounding the surf, a cold drink in your hand, a breeze across your well oiled skin, feeling neither too hot or too cold… just right… Oh, and did I mention the palm trees over you to shade you from the excessive sun? This vision is almost as great as the feeling you get when opting out of the Smarter Balanced….. It’s literally amazing…
E) If you Opt Out and change your mind (like when they reinstate your teacher whom who love and adore and who will do more than Meece ever could to help you succeed in college) they are so desperate to have you take the test, they will probably give you bonuses of over thousands of dollars each (j/k but they will certainly let you in with complete forgiveness)…
Opt out of the test this week, and see, see just how much power you have in your hands … Opt out of the Smarter Balanced…
Data shows tests like the SAT are biased against students from low-income households.
Poorer students tend to perform worse on the test. The difference might be the costly prep courses, books and tutors, some experts say. Blacks and Hispanics also consistently score lower on the SAT than whites.The new thinking is that dropping the SAT requirement might encourage more low-income students to apply. But does it really increase diversity among enrolled students?
We have have the first trials…. Here are results of minority representation in each of these 4 year colleges before and after the test score became optional for admission…………
In 2011 Wake Forest dropped the SAT test as a requirement to entering their colleges. Before Wake Forest made its admission process test-optional for freshmen entering in 2009, about 18% of the students were non-white. The following year, the number jumped to 23% and it now stands at 30%.
The share of students from low-income households who are eligible for Federal Pell grants also shot up to 11% last year, compared to 7.5% the year before the policy was implemented, according to data provided by the school.
In other words the inherent bias of the test was preventing many students from achieving Pell Grants and being accepted into a school in which they could otherwise succeed….
At Marist College in New York, which dropped the requirement for the freshman class enrolling in 2011, the share of minority students has jumped from about 14% to nearly 18%.
At Franklin & Marshall College there has been a more modest increase in the share of minority students over the past decade. The school, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was one of the first to go test-optional. But it has seen a bigger jump in enrolled low-income students than some of the other schools: from 7% to 18%.
None of these schools had to water down their curriculum due to people entering schools based more on both their GPA’s and teachers’ recommendations, and less on a standardized test score that was inherently biased against them due to environmental factors of their upbringing…
The ability of poor and minorities to succeed in college is independent of their SAT test score…
If fact, these test scores were preventing good solid citizens from achieving their dreams ….
One would assume the Smarter Balanced Assessment actually takes that one step further…
Instead of simply limiting college choices, it now carries this same stigma right down to the tests in lower 3rd grade where these biased results now insist one must be dumber and not on par with those students with whom one in class equally competes, who all happen to be lily white and have rich parents…
Opting out of the Smarter Balanced should be mandatory for every poor and minority child in Delaware… It is the ONLY way to achieve your dreams it appears……
Remember the bally-hoo over Obamacare? It has performed better than have Charter Schools.
Remember the bru-ha-ha twixted up over Benghazi? Even that has weathered better than have Charter Schools…
Remember the IRS scandals over investigating the Tea Party? Those were nothing compared to the malfeasance being reported daily in Charter Schools across America.
Remember the Maine? No, …no one was alive then who is alive today….
But despite the last exception, Charter Schools have performed worse than anything in American History… Even the futures on American Indians performed better across time.
A quick review of the record shows that Charter Schools underperform their public counterparts. Charters under-educate their students. Teachers have better knowledge and credentials at public schools. Cost per student is cheaper at public schools.
The only valid reason for continuing Charter Schools is to allow whites to go to school where Blacks can’t get in.
Other than that, there is no viable reason for maintaining a failing program that sucks valuable resources away from the viable solution solving the problem….
It is time to end Charters… period…. “White purity” is not a good enough reason to keep them going…..
In writing a comment reply I almost tacked this on because it readily became apparent to me why despite Delaware’s education apparatus being in fairly good shape, we are beset with a battering of how f’d-up our local schools are… As any parent knows, their school is not f’d-up and ESPECIALLY when you put an assortment of parents across the state in a room and ask questions, you readily discern there is a dichotomy between how they feel about their child’s school, versus the generalities of the state’s running this or that educational program…
The gist being that generally all education is f’d-up; but somehow their schools are awesome…
It is time to shoot the messenger….
Dave Sokola initiated the charter school process back when the first Clinton ran the White House… Particularly now that charters have a black eye, he has used the Educational committee to sneak lobbyist-written legislation through passage and a fellow Newark buddy’s signature to give Charters exceptional rights and access which no one else has…
What ever his reason, that is on him.. (It is not “the children”; his policies have made their lives hell).. But as Delaware citizens we have a choice this November to put our school bickerings on a back burner and move forward with improving the quality of education directly at the student level,….. OR we can continue to have the same confrontations that always say the same things on both sides, that are a back and forth of nothing that has not already been said…
Talk is cheap… As with your children, as with the upkeep of your house, as with the constant health of your car and your own body, if you want to get something done, you have to take the initial action yourself.
There is a wonderful human being named Meredith Chapman now challenging Dave Sokola for his 8th District Senatorial seat… a territory that covers the northeast corner of our state from Newark to Hockessin .
If she is able to knock off Dave, then our constant blather of racist inspired public school battering (they simply don’t want to go to school with blacks…Period), evaporates… In its place we have a clear day with bright sun to actually turn attention to what helps children…
We know.
Exactly.
What helps children…
If we seriously want to improve education, we need to have an 11:1 student teacher ratio in grades k – 5 and in grade 9 in all schools where over 50% of the student body is at or below poverty level….
This applies what works best to those areas that need work… Nothing else is as effective… Nothing. The best way to motivate people to learn, is to have someone they admire who knows them and mentors them to learn. In wealthy districts that role can well be filled by parents. Therefore wealthy districts don’t need as much attention.. But when you have a child entering the school system behind by a 5000 word vocabulary, you have to do something first to catch them up, and then you have to continue a process that continually advances them forward so at some future point in their lives, they enter the workplace on parity with those who were given a now very lucky head start in life…
There are four other things that must be done but in truth all those four are done solely to allocate necessary resources to the only tried and true method of teaching…. One on one involvement…. 11:1 is manageable.
This will NEVER happen as long as Dave Sokola is in the Senate… You’ve had 25 years of watching him go THE WRONG WAY!
And like a pinned flea, so far he has squirmed his way out from being caught, and slipped to bite public education at their hair follicles again and again… Across 25 years our fingers just couldn’t seem to grasp the blood engorged body to pull it out of the coiffured entanglements of our educational apparatus… So we accepted it instead… and after every bite, we scratch our skin raw..
We got bitten again, again, and again, and again, and again… (Did I hit the right number or legislative pieces? )..
This time we have tweezers in the form of Meredith Chapman. Time to get that little bugger OUTTA THERE!….
kavips 