60 Minutes Puff Piece On D.C. Charter

[Dinger]

Corporatized, charterized, schools, soon to be privatized, no thank you. Kids and teachers up till 10-11:00 p.m. Isn't that special. Kids taken from their homes with family visits on weekends. What's next, take babies from the incubator to the pre-pre-pre-charter, with monthly visits home? "Private" and public money funds this. Not one damn word about who/what the private money came from, or how funneling public money to this school helped the failing public schools, not a damn word. How does this help the public schools that were having problems? How? How does this help fight poverty, violence, abuse, etc? I thought that was the teachers' job? I believe that the school-community-home link can be improved, encouraged, and strengthened in a better way than closing schools, taking funding from them, pulling kids from their homes, firing teachers, bribing families with "scholarships", union busting etc. duncan can take his militaristic, corporate , privatizing, union busting margaret spellings in drag approach to education adn shove it. Rant over, for now.


http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6503387n

[MichiganVote]

1. Did I miss the special needs kids in wheelchairs? Autism? Speech and Language issues?

Gee I must have missed the kids with down and dirty emotional and severe behavioral problems. How about the kids with severe cognitive impairments? Charter smarter? I doubt that.

Why is it that in order for educators to be recognized as dedicated they have to stay away from their families and personal lives until 10pm at night or later?

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. Glad I missed that

And what is this deal about charters requiring their teachers to be available in the evenings and on weekends? I'm thinking they probably don't pay them for that extra time, but just expect it. Which leads to the question: Why the HELL do these teachers allow it??

[Catshrink]

3. Really.

Do they expect doctors and lawyers to be available on evenings and weekends? I could see an oncall tutoring line or something but to expect every teacher to be available 24/7 is a bit much.

[mzteris]

7. maybe they have a real passion for teaching

these kids and aren't fixated on pay.


(And you know I support higher - MUCH higher - pay for all teachers.)


Not trying to be snarky, but the charter public schools teachers that I know - who don't make as much - say consistently that the freedoms they find in teaching in a charter far outweighs the pay issue. that and the lack of politics. and the lack of red tape. and . . . well - these charter public school TEACHERS love their jobs. What can I say?

[Orlandodem]

9. They looked like young teachers who don't have spouses or family of their own.

I tried to look for wedding rings or other signs that might suggest they have a life outide of the classroom.

I would not allow any administrator to tell me I have to be at work during the evenings and weekends. I've got a wife and kids.

[AnneD]

4. That education model has been tried before.....

They called it Indian school and it basically killed several cultures and damaged many lives.

This looks like a nanny state to me.

[Dinger]

5. What A Tragedy Indian Boarding Schools Were

Abuse, killing of cultures, forced child labor, and more. That should NEVER happen again, ever.

[Hannah Bell]

6. comments there are kind of strange, too.

[Dinger]

8. Yes They Are (nt)