"[S]ome charters are known to discourage less academically inclined students from enrolling." — Los Angeles Times
The corporate CMO charters and their billionaire backers have spent millions of dollars trying to degrade our communities and teachers. While the entire process inflicted on us by Yolie Flores Aguilar, Inc. is anti-democratic and biased towards those with the most financial backing, the next few days will allow communities a modicum of input. The facts are, corporate CMO charters, and charters in general, under-serve SWD, Special Needs and Special Education children, and English Language Learners. These are not fear tactics, as the wealthy charter backers keep claiming — they are well documented facts. Since they can't refute these facts, they just keep carrying on and on about unions are trying to scare people. The unions aren't trying to scare anyone, except the charter operators who are scared when the truth shines on their discriminatory practices.I'm not in a union, and am not paid by a union, but unlike those pushing privatization, I read. I read things like the recent documents from the Modified Consent Decree exposing corporate CMO charter-voucher school discrimination and exclusivity. Very telling is the statement that children with disabilities are "significantly underrepresented" at CMO run charter schools. The executive summary of the report, and the data tables from the report. Charter school operators are concerned special education programs for children cut into the massive salaries for their executives. Until these corporate run schools are obligated legally, ethically, and morally to educate every child they shouldn't get a penny of our taxes or the buildings we paid for! As social justice activists, public school advocates, and progressives, we implore charter schools and other outsiders to stop putting EXECUTIVES and CEOs before children!
Before voting on any plans, look at the percentage of Special Ed, SWD, and ELL students Camino Nuevo, Celerity, Alliance, Green Dot, and other charter schools serve in comparison to Public Schools. The difference is staggering! These organizations should be ashamed of themselves, especially Green Dot, which gets millions upon million in extra funding from billionaires and millionaires like Broad, Gates, the Waltons, Fisher, and Hastings, but despite all that extra funding that public schools will never get, Green Dot's exclusionary schools have an average of 7.4% Special Education students compared to 11.3% for District schools! Shame on you Green Dot. You want to claim the mantle of how education should look? Educate every child! It's that simple.
Those are facts, not scare tactics. I defy any CMO corporate charter supporter to refute them with documented evidence to the contrary! These outsiders have no ties to our communities!
Everyone should visit UTLA's School Choice Parent/Teacher Advisory Voting Guide (Feb. 2nd & 6th) To learn the details on the process and which teacher/parent plans should they should vote for. Remember the teacher/parent plans include educating every child! As a community member in proximity of Gratts ES, I'll be voting for the community plan written by teachers and parents instead of outsiders backed by big money.
4 comments:
Great post, you missed a couple points about WHY/HOW Celerity and Greendot exclude.
First Celerity requires parents to show up to an admissions meeting to get the application. The meeting is held just twice and both times at night, good luck getting the working poor. http://www.celerityschools.org/admissions.html
Second, until this year some Greendots have admission application asking for writing samples, even though the writing sample cannot be used in making an admission decision. The writing sample does intimidate ELL and Special Ed as well as the average low self esteem teenager. http://www.greendot.org/venice/admissions/enroll2009.htm I am pleased to say that in a quick research review, it seems these policies have ended. But for the next four years Amino Venice and other Greendots should have an asterisk next to their scores.
I am sure with some quick research, you can find some irregularities with the admissions process of every charter.
I live 2 minutes by surface street from Evelyn Gratts Elementary School. I went there this morning to vote as a community member in Yolie Flores Aguilar, Inc.'s grossly misnamed "Public School Choice" advisory process. Because I support our local school plan, I voted for the Local District 4/Gratts ES plan. After all, I believe every child in our community has a right to an education. Since it's well documented that charter schools exclude and discriminate against children with special needs, I could not in good consciousness even consider the Para Los Niños plan. Anyone can look up Para Los Niños abysmal SWD/Special Education numbers at their existing schools in the Consent Decree Data tables.
When I was there I saw two busses quickly fill up with people who just voted and leave. Were those two buss loads of Ben's ballot stuffers I saw when voting at Gratts ES this morning? Only the corporate charter schools with their billionaire backers can afford to charter busses, so I'm curious to know. News flash to FIS, ABC, LAPU/PR, when you buy the votes, it isn't democracy.
Communities NOT charters! Vote for schools plans that educate every child. There's no excuse for charters to exclude and discriminate against SWD, SE, ELL! http://bit.ly/c2oR88
I would like to hear from other community members about this process. So far it seems like a disaster, however.
Camino Nuevo Charter Academy has a higher number of special education students, Title I students, and ELL students than both Magnolia and Vermont, the two overflow schools for CRES #15. Saying all charters are evil, greedy, and selective is like saying all district schools are failing, hopeless, and unchanging. High quality charter schools should be a viable reform model for our weak education system.
Post a Comment