Comments about ‘Hard choices await education: Charter schools facing new limits’

I have a bright idea...

Cut all charter schools and stop siphoning money away from the real schools!

Wow I'm a genius!

Afraid of competition, are we?

Are you new to Utah or have you NOT noticed our schools are busting. I live in an area that keeps up with pace and can hire decent teachers. If a charter school can alleviate crowding and give parents some choices all the better. Charter schools are public schools they just give a choice. Local taxes go to local schools. By the way I home school 2 of mine just for the reason that I am sick of school being a babysitting service as oppposed to a learning experience. I dont blame our good teachers, they can only handle so many kids, with so many problems, for 6 hours a day. I challenge anyone to spend a day in a classroom! A whole DAY! Choices and accountablity are great too. What is it with my way or the highway thinking everyone has these days. Choices are good! Welocme to America! Unless you are volunteering at your local school and having meaningful dialogs with your elected officials you have no real voice. Get involved.

No. A large majority of us taxpayers do not want additional tax dollars to be collected to pay for duplicate school system. If you want to send your children to a charter school, then you cough up the extra bucks.

Just to be clear CHARTER SCHOOLS are PUBLIC SCHOOLS just like any other public school. To stop their expansion for a season is a reasonable approach to the budget crisis.

I agree with the first poster.

Our local schools do a great job. Now they are losing money that is going to the charter school. Now we are duplicating services and wasting money on the charter schools that are quickly failing (the one by me anyway). It angers me because many parents pulled their kids from the normal school thinking that the charter was going to solve the problems they imagined were happening. After a month, they saw the charter was a joke being run by an angry lady. They proceeded to pull their kids from the charter and send them back to the normal school. Problem is by then the funding was set and we are stuck with overcrowded (more than normal) classes.

Charters are a bad experiment. If a few legislators didn't make money by building charters, they never would have been approved in the first place.

There is no oversight for the money going to charter schools.

Why are there two standards for tax dollar spending, one for public schools and none for charter schools?

Charter schools are NOT public schools like any other public schools.

Yes they are public but they aren't doing a better job in almost all cases.

Charters get to pick and choose students. If they don't like you, they boot you.

Guess where you go back to?

I wish charters could just "boot" students, but it just isn't true. They have the same procedures for suspension and expulsion that the other public schools do. As far as accountability and results -- check out the new Fall 2008 ITBS tests school by school scores on the USOE website. It looks like most Charters are doing as well or better than public schools. They are also have to report to the State Charter School Board.

So many distortions and flat out errors regarding charter schools. And after all these years of hearing the same lies no use even providing clarifications to them.

If you think your regular public schools are doing a great job you are not paying attention. What percentage of college freshman are taking high school remediation classes? Mind you, these are the students who are college bound and after 13 years in the traditional public schools are still NOT PREPARED for college! And now it is Higher Educations job to prepare them for higher education?

And if large chunks of college bound students are not prepared for college after 13 years, at what academic level are those who chose not to go to college? Is it safe to say they are likely LESS prepared for college?

Think about this, after 13 years in the union owned system we have tens of thousands of Utah students still struggling to do basic math, and english.

Pa-lease, don't tell me how wonderful our current system is. If at the end of the day one student is truly prepared for college via a charter school it's a great day! Can't be worse.

The amount of misinformation on here is rather appalling regarding Charter Schools.

Science Teacher: You are flat-out lying. The state runs a lottery. Charters accept kids in that order given to them by the state. The Charter cannot simply kick a kid out either as they must follow state and federal laws. By this point in your career, you should know patent dishonesty is unprofessional.

Oversight: You are misinformed. Charter Schools hold scheduled meetings each month that the public may attend. They are accountable directly to the state and have strict accountability for every dollar spent. Frankly the meetings are boring. If you really want to go to one contact your local Charter. Charters cost less per student to educate than Districts.

Anon 1:35

Charters have been a success with a few exceptions. Unlike a district, those exceptions can be closed down with ease.

Anon 11:51

Cutting off a limb is also a great way to lose weight. But the costs of removing that limb exceed the savings. This means the state will have to cough up more money to educate each of those Charter kids than they pay for already.

I teach at a charter school. I have taught at traditional public schools. I have never been in a more positive, successful school environment than at the charter school and we get less tax dollars per student. Parents MUST be more involved. By the way, I have more students with learning disabilities, ADHD, etc. than I have ever had. So much for the picking and choosing myth. As is often the case, the negative comments on this thread seem to come from people who have no first-hand knowledge. I have a good friend who teaches at a "traditional" elementary. Don't know where he got his information, although I can guess, but his misconceptions about charter schools were so wrong as to be laughable, were it not for the fact they seem to be widespread, even at the Legislature.

Charters are just segregation without better results. If you compare the demographics of charters with the demographics (apples to apples) with the local schools, in most cases the local public school has better test scores. How many charter schools serve students with limited English skills?

A few charter schools are great, but many are a revolving door of broken promises where kids stay for less than a year, until their parents realize the promises are not true.

First charters were a cheaper way to educate, then they needed the same money as public schools, now the local districts must pay the charters. Mike Morley and Glen Way are making millions building charter schools at the expense of our children.

Not a bad idea, but very poor in practice.

There are a whole lot of opinions here that lack factual ground to stand on. Do yourselves a favor and study other very successful educational states. You will find they have far more charter schools and still put more money into schools. If you took all the money away from charter schools, no more money would funnel into public. Please do a study on this. The internet offers all the facts not just emotional opinions.

Our society has become a land of expectations; looking to government for all the answers for business. This is called socialism. Do you know that there are only a few countries that still practice socialism/communism? Oh, you didn't know that those are so close to the same that rarely are they distinguished from each other? China, North Korea and a few others. So, as you hand over everything to the government, consider what we are becoming. I'm afraid the Utopia that Obama wants you to believe is coming is not what you think.

Let the free market, including vouchers (freedom from tax), and charter schools flourish. Competition is what made America the greatest country in history. Control is taking it away.

Bottom line, Utah, you just don't invest in your children. You spend at the bottom of the nation and now you're going to cut? How low can you go? It seems that you're always looking for a fix, whether it be charter schools, merit pay (which is now being cut--GREAT for morale!) or the latest private school fad. Instead, try ponying up and just adequately funding your schools. You get what you pay for.

Laura,

Communism and Socialism and mutually exclusive, only connected by the Marxist theory that in order to achieve equality (socialism) globally that the masses must first be controlled (communism). Socialism is an ideal state of being where everyone is treated fairly and equally. Communism is about the government controlling all choices. Socialism is about the freedom of choice.

Would you say that the LDS church is a socialist or a communist organization? There ideas of helping people become self-sufficient, sharing with others to lift up the group as a whole are not only noble, but are a socialistic perspective. Sadly, the United Order, a purely socialistic concept failed because not everyone is willing to share for the common good, even in the church.

Capitalism doesn't work so well either, but at least it benefits those who work hard. If only we could find a balance between socialism and capitalism that would be a happy medium. It would be hard to do so with so many believing that socialism was communism though.

Frankly, we need more Charter schools. They have saved tax payer money and have done great.

Talk to me when the test scores from charter schools catch up to those in the traditional school. Until then, simmer down.

It doesn't matter if the kid goes to a traditional public school or to a public charter school, they're still going to cost the taxpayer the same amount of money to educate. The difference is that charter schools are independent and must respond to the needs of the families attending or risk losing them (and their funding).

The inequality in all of this is that public schools get your property tax dollars no matter if the student goes there or to the charter school.

Since rigorous studies consistently show that charter schools improve test scores and parent satisfaction, they should be placing a moratorium on traditional public schools, not charter schools.

Unfortunately, too many legislators care about pleasing their local school districts (which is often the biggest employer in their legislative district) than doing what's best for kids.

Test Scores - It is the traditional schools that need to catch up. With the exception of the charters that are serving primarily those with LDs, the charter schools are out-performing the traditional schools. Why don't you go take a look at the brand-new 2008 Iowa Test data file on the USOE website before you make assumptions.