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CHARTERS COMPLAIN ABOUT POOR FUNDING
As Indianapolis districts boost teacher pay, charters say they are struggling to compete
Charters divert dollars/resources away from the public schools which serve over 90% of Hoosier children and then complain about not having enough money to give competitive pay to their teachers. Perhaps they should stop spending their dollars on questionable marketing practices.
From Chalkbeat*
When Victory College Prep Academy did an analysis recently of how salaries at the southside charter school compare to district schools, it revealed some stark differences: Educators there are making roughly $6,000 less per year, on average, than they would make at an Indianapolis Public Schools campus when raises go into effect this fall.
“We started asking ourselves, where can we find money in the budget to get closer to their number?” said Ryan Gall, executive director for Victory, which enrolls about 900 students in kindergarten through 12th grade. “We have to do something.”
TRUMP/DEVOS ATTACK PUBLIC SCHOOLS
The people who currently run the government apparently hate the government and everything in it, including public schools.
How do Trump and DeVos know enough about public schools to hate them so much? Neither of them...or any of their children...ever attended a public school.
PA: DeVos Stumps For Trump, Masters Lying
From Curmudgucation
So this is apparently the school choice lie that Trumpists are going to lean on:
“They want government control of everything — your health care, your wallet, your child’s education,” DeVos said. Democrats “want complete control over where, how, and what American students learn,” she said. “They want to close every charter school, take away every educational option from low-income families, limit choices everywhere for everyone.”That was Betsy DeVos, the actual secretary of education, out on the campaign trail instead of in her office again Wednesday. A government official raising the specter of government doing things, because thats where we are now, being represented by people whose most fervent desire is to burn down the house they've been given stewardship over.
In State of the Union, Trump makes clear his aversion to public schools
From the Answer Sheet
If for some reason you haven’t been clear about what President Trump thinks about traditional public schools, consider what he said about them in his State of the Union address Tuesday night.
There was this: “For too long, countless American children have been trapped in failing government schools.”
What’s a “government school” to Trump? A public school in a traditional public school district.
MONEY FOR VOUCHERS
Vouchers, choice, and the misuse of tax dollars
From Live Long and Prosper
Indiana's voucher program began as a plan for low-income students to "escape" their "failing schools" and go to the private schools that wealthier people have always been able to afford. In order to qualify, then-governor Mitch Daniels insisted, a student must have spent at least one year at a public school.
Since its inception in 2011, it has changed into a middle-class entitlement program. Most students who get Indiana "scholarships" are students who have never attended a public school. A third of students who get Indiana "scholarships" are students who do not qualify for free or reduced lunches. Less than one percent of Indiana's "scholarship" students are "escaping" from a "failing school."
INDIANA CONTINUES TO MISUSE STANDARDIZED TESTS
Indiana lawmakers passed a 2-year hold harmless. Here’s what that means.
The achievement tests that Indiana students take each year were not been developed to evaluate teachers or schools.
The state continues to misuse standardized tests to punish students, teachers, and schools.
From Chalkbeat*
Schools won’t be punished for low test scores earned during the first two years of the state’s new ILEARN test — a move by state lawmakers Monday that will render schools’ 2019 and 2020 state grades essentially meaningless.
The House approved the hold harmless legislation 89-0, passing the bill through both chambers and showing strong support for Indiana’s first-ever multi-year exemption.
TAX DOLLARS TEACH RELIGION
Those Christian Textbooks Adopted in Schools That Receive Taxpayer Funding
From Diane Ravitch
In 2017, the Orlando Sentinel published a powerful three-part series about unregulated and unaccountable voucher schools in Florida, called “Schools Without Rules.” In Florida, voucher schools receive $1 billion each year of taxpayer funding.
In 2018, the Orlando Sentinel published an article about the textbook companies that supply teaching materials to voucher schools and homeschoolers. Their books incorporate religious values into their content.
Prominent among them is the ABeka company in Florida.
Their textbooks reflect a religious approach to science, history, and other subjects.
Private schools' curriculum downplays slavery, says humans and dinosaurs lived together
From the Orlando Sentinel
...dinosaurs and humans lived together, that God’s intervention prevented Catholics from dominating North America and that slaves who “knew Christ” were better off than free men who did not...
The books are rife with religious and political opinions on topics such as abortion, gay rights and the Endangered Species Act, which one labels a “radical social agenda.” They disparage religions other than Protestant Christianity and cultures other than those descended from white Europeans. Experts said that was particularly worrisome given that about 60 percent of scholarship students are black or Hispanic.
*Note: Financial sponsors of Chalkbeat include pro-privatization foundations and individuals such as EdChoice, Gates Family Foundation, The Walton Family Foundation, and others.
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