RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Community Annoucement: Prospective Charter S...

Yes, normally charter schools do out perform traditional public schools, but you have to look a little deeper to make certain their “admission and retention” policies did not simply filter out those students who may have otherwise brought the charter school test scores down to merely being “on par” with public school scores.  I am not saying that joint investments in schools cannot work, but workers (teachers and staff) need to be protected so  that it is not a McDonald’s version of employment and students need to be protected so that they are not pushed out when they struggle academically or behaviorally.  You know statistically speaking public school teachers are some of the most underpaid professionally educated people in the United States. 
As a professional educator for teachers, I know teachers invest on average 4 ½ to 5 years of undergraduate preparation and have to maintain their knowledge of pedagogy and content knowledge through continuing education throughout their career as part of their employment requirements.  Are there a few who get tenure and burn out? Yes, but that doesn’t mean that we should turn a professional job into a McDonald’s “right to work” which means “right to fire at will” situation. 

 

Public school, at least PK-12, is meant for everyone not just those who fit a particular continuum.  Ask for the fine print on admissions, test procedures (i.e. do they include those with special needs in their assessments stats).   Okay I will leave this be – again I am all for flexibility, but make certain that the community owns and controls what is needed to protect their students, not the “Company.”

 

Cheers and good luck,

Jamaine Abidogun

 

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of MsJoe21St@aol.com
Sent: Saturday, August 20, 2011 4:21 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Community Annoucement: Prospective Charter S...

 

I understand your conflict if interest as one those unionized public school teachers who feel threatened by charters and want to earn paychecks without performance-based accountability.

 

In the District of Columbia, Charter schools outperformed traditional public schools on standardized tests. You can research that.

 

MsJoe

 

 

 

 

In a message dated 8/20/2011 4:51:43 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, JamaineAbidogun@MissouriState.edu writes:

All I can say is “Buyer Beware” as so many private institutions raise their hands to take federal and state monies for education, parents and community members need to read and understand the fine print.  In many “charter” or “academy” semi-private institutions (i.e. owned by corporations, but partially funded by state & federal money), there are stipulations that public schools cannot apply because they directly violate the fundamental right to public access to education. For example, many of these schools have a required gpa that students must maintain or they are dropped from the school. This serves two purposes – one to inflate their success rate – because they pressure the parents to take the student out or face the possibility of a black mark against their student’s record. Therefore they are not listed as “dropped” but as transferred and their gpas do not show up in their stats. Second it actively promotes the idea of elitist education, “my child deserves better than the rest.” Which often translates to only those who can afford private tutors, special programs, and extensive support systems will succeed.  This is rhetoric to make parents belief that public schools cannot provide adequate support.  In truth, the public schools are getting less and less as money so their support programs are cut and that money is funneled away from the public sector and into the hands of this private education sector, who then charge for additional services.  Many public schools have had to charge for additional serves of late (when they can offer them), because states and the federal gov’t are more and more contracting out to these private companies.  It is a vicious circle.

 

Read any of Jonathan Kozol’s or Henry Giroux’s works on this topic – They have documented the problems with turning public education over to private companies for decades.  The problem isn’t public education in and of itself. The problem is extreme disparities in the distribution of state and federal monies to public institutions across the board.  For example Kansas provides a flat per capita to school districts per students. So if it is a small rural school, they cannot possibly maintain an infrastructure on the same level as a larger town or city.  In Missouri local taxes underwrite a large portion of education, especially physical plants, so again poor towns and counties suffer compared to their richer neighbors.  Finally, look at the red tape in No Child Left Behind (NCLB).  School districts have to apply for much of the funding tied to this legislation and if they don’t have a person assigned fulltime to writing up grant proposals and demonstrating that they have met NCLB criteria, they don’t stand a chance of getting the funding they rightfully qualify for.  Don’t be fooled by charter schools, they are first and foremost profit making companies.  Resist the elitist and selfish temptation to somehow protect your child at the cost of increasing the educational neglect of others. Remember there are only so many education dollars. If the charter schools get the money, then the local public schools do not. In my opinion, private schools are fine as long as they don’t rob public schools of funding in order to operate.

 

Food for thought.   

 

Thank you,

Dr Jamaine Abidogun

 

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of MsJoe21St@aol.com
Sent: Friday, August 19, 2011 8:01 PM
To: ACCDF@yahoogroups.com; Camnetwork@yahoogroups.com; Nia_for_Ghana@yahoogroups.com; lesa-usa@yahoogroups.com; dclesan@yahoogroups.com; ebnjekam@yahoo.com
Cc: USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com; africa-oped@yahoogroups.com; rwanda-l@yahoogroups.com
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Community Annoucement: Prospective Charter School in Baltimore City

 

Hello Parents in Baltimore City, Maryland.    Please say tuned for a Coffee Discussion on a proposed World Class School in Baltimore City that can compete with the best of private schools.  You will meet a multidisciplinary team of committed professionals and Mrs. Carolyn Kennedy whose combined skills in social work, community advocacy and education will help you make informed decisions for your child. We would appreciate letters of support from parents. Interested parents can be members of the founding team and constitute the Advisory Group. Your child deserves the best of private school quality education with 100% public funding. Please, send us a direct mail with your feedback.   Thanks and God Bless. MsJoe       ============================================================================     Executive Summary   “In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.” Decision of United States Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education   Both general and specialized educations have assumed greater importance for the civic, social, and economic strength of the nation; for the personal development of individuals; and for the search for solutions to global problems affecting humankind across the world. Our nation's future depends on the priority given to the development of new knowledge and investments in human capital in the knowledge-based 21st century.  Yet, test scores consistently show achievement gaps between African American and Hispanic students, who are underrepresented in advance placement courses, and their higher performing peers. The founders believe students of all racial, ethnic and economic backgrounds can achieve in competitive standards in the words of Tucker and Codding “standard is not a cut point on a curve but rather a clear target for everyone to shoot at, a target that all students can achieve if they work hard enough.”   Kisepel International Scholars - Bilingual Montessori (herein after known as KIS) provides early college preparation with a solid foundation for global leadership. KIS offers a student-centered approach to education using the acclaimed International Baccalaureate (IB) framework. The content and performance standards are aligned with the Maryland Core Learning Goals.  Beyond academic rigor, the IB addresses the development of the “whole student” - the intellectual, social, physical, aesthetic and cultural.   In the first four years, KIS will operate the IB Primary Years Program from pre-kindergarten to fifth grades. The School will open with pre-kindergarten through second grades in 2012 and add one grade in each academic year. In the first year, the estimated number of students is 180 and 360 students in the fourth year.   Children living in poverty face many daunting obstacles outside the classroom that can hinder `their success in the classroom. Unaddressed social and health care needs, inconsistent housing, unsafe environment, lack of educational amenities in the neighborhood and home interfere with learning and cause low attendance.[1][1] KIS is a parent-driven model that highlights the insights, energy, and aspirations of parents as equal and vested partners in education. The founders designed a community school that bridges the gap between the provision of antipoverty, wrap around services and a world class academic program.   Today’s global economy, interdependence, instant communication and information technology are major determinants in contemporary life, extending beyond national boundaries with employment opportunities. Our markets are becoming increasingly open with goods, ideas, and investments moving freely around the world. To remain competitive in the global market, with vigorous institutions reinforcing adaptation to new knowledge, United States must offer equal and tangible opportunity to all students. Young people must acquire the skills, knowledge, and values to participate in national and world affairs. However, the abilities to understand and apply knowledge cannot be attained only through world history, foreign language classes, multicultural events, or cultural sensitivity workshops. These knowledge, skills and values are incorporated in all aspects of the curriculum and extracurricular activities.  KIS’ educational content and scope is international in conception, in content, and in execution. It focuses learning by reflecting it in the mirror of global understanding and economy sustained by global information technology. The significance of international education often resides in the opportunity to partake in an intensive language program coupled with the prospect of developing skills that result from complete immersion in a foreign culture.[2][2] KIS offers two dual language immersion programs. Students will have the option to enroll in either the English-French or English-Spanish Language Immersion. From kindergarten, a student can take the regular or an advance course in each subject based on abilities.  Information technology is infused in all subjects.   In the fourth and fifth grades, students will study rhetoric as part of our Character and Leadership, which will include foreign student exchange in the fifth grade. In rhetoric classes and activities, KIS seeks to inspire, harness, and channel the natural instincts and intellectual curiosities of our young scholars and welcome their instincts to wonder, explore, and take positive action as a fundamental part of their adolescence development and early foundation for intellectual freedom, honesty, and integrity – traits that drive idealists and visionaries who have shaped our world.   Each student will have an I-GOAL (Individual Gateway On Acquiring Lessons.) It consists of academic benchmarks and desired social and personal attributes in the student’s profile. Respect and acknowledgement for each student’s individuality, background, and learning styles will establish the basis for trusting relationships because trust is essential for collaboration, learning, and growth to flourish.   KIS will use Inquiry, which allows a range of teaching methods, as a principal pedagogical approach. Inquiry is personally connected with the development of the student’s comprehension of the world. The explicit expectation is that adept inquiry will lead to responsible action, initiated by the student as a result of the learning process. The action may extend a student’s learning or may have broader social and community impact.  Teachers will receive ongoing professional training with opportunities to interact with other IB teachers around the world, which is another element that makes the IB experience unique. KIS will use site-based management and performance-based accountability to evaluate employees and programs.   Ultimately, the most effective accountability strategy will rely on those closest to students: staff and parents having the authority, information, and training to assume the responsibility of directing teaching and learning. The school, home, and community are seen as interdependent and essential components of institutional development that will be adopted and put into practice in order to significantly improve the contributions that schooling makes to the welfare of students, the City of Baltimore, and society as a whole.       Mission and Focus

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com

---

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com

---

[1][1] Look at Community Schools. Center of American Progress

[2][2] The Value of International Education to U.S. Business and Industry Leaders: Key Findings from a Survey of CEOs. IIE Briefing. Paper.Published in October 2009.