Yeah I've watched the machine Dem candidates in my district & surrounding ones take the softshoe "charter schools are public schools" route many times. They're all going to end up getting primaried from the left though, which I absolutely welcome and will happily put in hours for those candidates.
― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Thursday, 12 November 2020 15:21 (three years ago) link
Actually speaking of which I'm looking up 2021 City Council races right now and thinking about who to volunteer for!
― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Thursday, 12 November 2020 15:22 (three years ago) link
I'm here for the Teena Marie clips.
― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 12 November 2020 15:25 (three years ago) link
Both sides-ism: they all support charter schools :(
― Nhex, Thursday, 12 November 2020 15:27 (three years ago) link
Democrats have moved away from the Obama era courting of charter schools over the last few years - remains to be seen how that goes from here.
― onlyfans.com/hunterb (milo z), Thursday, 12 November 2020 17:47 (three years ago) link
I just looked up every candidate for the neighboring district to mine and the person who's probably going to win the primary has already clearly stated support for charters. I just signed up to volunteer for a queer progressive candidate nearby.
― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Thursday, 12 November 2020 17:54 (three years ago) link
lol at the both sides upthread.
might as well say
"both the left and right are anti-government! conservatives hate big government and liberals hate fascist, authoritarian governments!"
― Lover of Nixon (or LON for short) (Neanderthal), Thursday, 12 November 2020 18:27 (three years ago) link
― onlyfans.com/hunterb (milo z), Thursday, November 12, 2020 12:47 PM (forty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
*Some* democrats have. Most notably the ones people like Pelosi are trying to distance themselves from.
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, 12 November 2020 18:31 (three years ago) link
fuck charter schools
― Lover of Nixon (or LON for short) (Neanderthal), Thursday, 12 November 2020 18:32 (three years ago) link
-Ben and Jerry's
xxp - I mean as a general party mood. Biden came out in the primaries for a ban on for-profit charters and against any federal money going to charters at all.
It's not a full rejection of charters, but it's better than the Obama era - if it holds. (big if of course)
― onlyfans.com/hunterb (milo z), Thursday, 12 November 2020 18:38 (three years ago) link
"For-profit charters" is a weasel term that means nothing. They're nearly all for profit, it's just that some of them place a non-profit structure in between the govt and the profit takers.
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, 12 November 2020 18:43 (three years ago) link
To be honest, I am extremely conflicted about charter schools.
I was educated in the public school system and feel very strongly that investment there can have a huge potential payoff given that's where most of our students are.
However, I was also educated in a school district that was over 90% white in a state that pumped a gigantic amount of tax revenue into public education; the fact that I had the capability to excel in this environment and the support of most of the teachers I encountered is more luck and happenstance than planned or even normal.
I also don't know how to parse the data around the performance of minorities in charter schools compared to public schools. It seems like there are splits between schools that benefit their students and schools that don't; half the studies and analyses seem to talk past each other and I am not immersed enough in education policy to confidently call bullshit. My friends in education are all over the place on the issue; teachers tend to hate charters while administrators tend to like them, but in MA the level of regulation on them is such that more teachers here I encounter have positive things to say about charters than education people I know elsewhere. There's also a part of me that feels like the Black/Latino student who ARE achieving success via charters are sometimes ignored or treated like race traitors by angry White liberals who would rather see things slowly get worse for all BIPOC rather than see some of them make a choice that improves their own situations; to be clear, the aforementioned lack of experience and not knowing where to start with the competing studies makes me extremely wary of this impulse but I'd be lying if I said the thoughts weren't there, bolstered mostly by looking at American history.
― DJP, Thursday, 12 November 2020 18:47 (three years ago) link
How does it work?
― Van Horn Street, Thursday, 12 November 2020 18:49 (three years ago) link
I can understand all those thoughts, and I have a lot of thoughts about them myself, and it's definitely an interesting and complex subject. But aside from those thoughts, there's no question that their growth erodes teachers' unions.
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, 12 November 2020 18:50 (three years ago) link
― Van Horn Street, Thursday, November 12, 2020 1:49 PM (forty-seven seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink
TBH I can't guarantee that "nearly all" is true, but many of them simply hire for-profit "management companies" and all kinds of for-profit vendors, to the point that the school is largely de facto run by for profit companies and the non-profit is not much more than a conduit.
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, 12 November 2020 18:51 (three years ago) link
My usual line on charters is that I don't fault any parent for choosing one based on their circumstances, and that there are certainly individual charters that are great, but that the phenomenon overall is net negative for public education and most of the successes cannot be scaled.
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, 12 November 2020 18:52 (three years ago) link
My nieces attend a charter school whose owners broke promises about Black enrollment a decade ago; these schools tend to open in minority-heavy communities because real estate is cheaper. Educationally it's solid, but several of the county's best public schools surround my sister's house.
― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 12 November 2020 18:56 (three years ago) link
xp Close to my feelings. The whole industry stinks of "public-private partnerships" (aka robbing public funds so corporations can profit) and the Republican mantra of "fuck you, i got mine" to abandoning public schools, but palatable enough to the Democratic donor class that wants to fence off their own kids.
― Nhex, Thursday, 12 November 2020 18:56 (three years ago) link
I mean if it was my kid and the only good option was a charter I would damn well put them in the charter for sure.
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, 12 November 2020 18:57 (three years ago) link
The more I read about it, the less it makes sense to me.
― Van Horn Street, Thursday, 12 November 2020 18:59 (three years ago) link
I read TSF's post as mordantly saying the same thing that everyone is counterarguing to it, but maybe I was being naive
― @oneposter (⛰️) (sic), Thursday, 12 November 2020 19:06 (three years ago) link
Totally agree with your conflicting feelings, DJP. I like the idea of trying new things to improve education with charter schools, but there is a ton of grift going on in that sector, and there are some straight-up sleazy charter schools that should be shut down.
― DJI, Thursday, 12 November 2020 19:09 (three years ago) link
Dumb question: isn’t trying new things with education not possible with the already established public school system?
― Van Horn Street, Thursday, 12 November 2020 19:14 (three years ago) link
when DJI and DJP post in the same thread it does weird things to my brain
― Lover of Nixon (or LON for short) (Neanderthal), Thursday, 12 November 2020 19:14 (three years ago) link
In the minds of many people, including liberals, public schools = dirty poor brown people
― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 12 November 2020 19:14 (three years ago) link
I was going to say upthread, and then edited my post down: The extent to which charter schools have poured into communities of color, esp in historically Black NYC, which is the only landscape I'm personally familiar with, it is in part the city's and the DOE's own fault for under-serving Black communities for EVER. I don't blame parents (NB I do blame white parents who move into the area and then don't send their kids to public schools though!). I definitely blame elected officials who take money from charter networks. Even if you want parents to have adequate options, you don't have to profit from shadowy corporate interest actors.
― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Thursday, 12 November 2020 19:18 (three years ago) link
If you're interested in this subject, the podcast Nice White Parents is very good.
― jaymc, Thursday, 12 November 2020 19:19 (three years ago) link
in orbit otm.
― Lover of Nixon (or LON for short) (Neanderthal), Thursday, 12 November 2020 19:20 (three years ago) link
Public schools are one of America’s two good ideas, along with birthright citizenship, and I hate to see them undermined in any way.
― The Bosom Manor Michaelmas Special (silby), Thursday, 12 November 2020 19:20 (three years ago) link
You forgot <insert a typical Ken Burns subject matter>.
― Van Horn Street, Thursday, 12 November 2020 19:23 (three years ago) link
I’m not giving TR the credit tbh
― The Bosom Manor Michaelmas Special (silby), Thursday, 12 November 2020 19:23 (three years ago) link
― Van Horn Street, Thursday, November 12, 2020 7:14 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
The problem, in loose terms, with many of the things the charters schools want to "try" is that they're things like, "Only hire un-unionized teachers so they can't demand any labor standards and over-work them until they burn out!" and "Force insufficiently obedient children out through punitive discipline because you aren't obliged to accommodate all the students who enroll in you!" and "Make demands on parents that many families in crisis can't meet, and then force them out when they 'fail.'"
xxp Nice White Parents was BRILLIANT. In the first two episodes I was like HAVE YOU BEEN SPYING ON MY SCHOOL??!
The idea of free, non-public schools for innovation and as a possible testing ground for successful tactics you hope to scale up later, is not inherently bad! But it opened the door to anti-public education actors who have just jammed that wedge in with a vengeance.
― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Thursday, 12 November 2020 19:25 (three years ago) link
The prose is High Academic, but Margaret Hagerman’s White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America is an excellent recent study.
― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 12 November 2020 19:37 (three years ago) link
On an unrelated topic:
https://t.co/4D4LVOyYhc pic.twitter.com/MwNIc41Szj— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 12, 2020
― but also fuck you (unperson), Thursday, 12 November 2020 19:52 (three years ago) link
I would like to defund Joe's butt
― Lover of Nixon (or LON for short) (Neanderthal), Thursday, 12 November 2020 19:54 (three years ago) link
also AOC's death-stare is and has always been lethal
― Lover of Nixon (or LON for short) (Neanderthal), Thursday, 12 November 2020 19:55 (three years ago) link
crunch bird, my ass
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Thursday, 12 November 2020 19:55 (three years ago) link
-Jackson Browne
― Lover of Nixon (or LON for short) (Neanderthal), Thursday, 12 November 2020 19:59 (three years ago) link
holy shit, that AOC glare
― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 12 November 2020 20:03 (three years ago) link
there's a non-zero chance that she's won multiple fights
― Lover of Nixon (or LON for short) (Neanderthal), Thursday, 12 November 2020 20:06 (three years ago) link
she's too good for these chumps
― Give me a Chad Smith-type feel (map), Thursday, 12 November 2020 20:09 (three years ago) link
i know it's not about celebs but it's nice to have a really gifted person on the left for once.
― Give me a Chad Smith-type feel (map), Thursday, 12 November 2020 20:10 (three years ago) link
if looks could defund butts
― Wayne Grotski (symsymsym), Thursday, 12 November 2020 20:49 (three years ago) link
defund is not enough, abolish joe's butt
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, 12 November 2020 22:39 (three years ago) link
"By defund Joe's butt, we don't mean take all of it away, we just mean parts of it would be better used for other things!"
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, 12 November 2020 22:40 (three years ago) link
i'm a very good judge of butts and i say it's all gotta go
― Give me a Chad Smith-type feel (map), Thursday, 12 November 2020 23:09 (three years ago) link
New York Times covering the abolitionist movement in 1859: "They are as rancorous and abusive as if they were on the point of utter annihilation. Their speeches sound more like the ravings of Bedlamites than the utterances of men seeking the accomplishment of a practical object." pic.twitter.com/V0RHFA140O— Waleed Shahid (@_waleedshahid) November 12, 2020
Must have been the bad slogans.
― onlyfans.com/hunterb (milo z), Thursday, 12 November 2020 23:53 (three years ago) link
Movements can succeed with bad slogans or fail with bad ones
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Thursday, 12 November 2020 23:57 (three years ago) link
https://media2.giphy.com/media/3ohzdDE5XOUmI6qnkY/source.gif
― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 12 November 2020 23:59 (three years ago) link