Comments about ‘Start up school woes: Charter schools working out kinks’

That's a thought-provoking comment on the differences between how business and government work. Could there be follow-up on it to find exactly what Mr. Allen was talking about as it pertains to schools?

I've been waiting a long time for the business world to offer useful suggestions to education.

I've also waited a long time now for charter schools to reveal anything they are really doing to make education different and better.

"Inquiring minds want to know"

It is so exciting to see all of this parent involvement in childrens' education in Utah! Year after year, dozens and dozens of parent groups put in hundreds of volunteer hours to create a school for their children. It is the most AMAZING display of parent involvement! Things are going right!

I love this aspect of a free nation - people, motivated by their desire to serve their children, can create the school where they want them to be taught. Pretty wonderful aspect of our republic!

Thanks to all who keep trying - learning from the mistakes of others, improving the process year by year and paving the way for still others. Congratulations Schools!

I'm not sure how a school would reveal to you what it is doing unless you took some initiative and went to learn by examining the results of the different schools and then visiting them to find out what they are doing to achieve those results.

If you are waiting to have something "revealed" to you, I believe you will be waiting quite some time.

Yet, I'll try. Our charter school achieved over 95% proficiency on state tests, with our 100% of our 5th graders achieving proficiency (they also happen to be the first class of students who entered our school 6 years ago, and who have benefited from our complete program).

Don't you think 100% is pretty impressive? Now that I have revealed to you that amazing accomplishment, aren't you curious as to how we accomplished that, with special ed students and all subgroups? What about if I reveal that 100% of our 9th graders were proficient on the state writing exam? Does that revelation interest you?

I suppose not. We haven't had many inquiries into these outstanding accomplishments. People who are invested in failure continue to close their eyes and ears to success.

UUGGGHHH...

Yet another charter school story.

Enough is enough.

All they are doing is stealing our tax money that should be going to REAL schools not experiments.

To Annon

Sounds like a Public school teacher who is about to be put out of work because someone can do a REAL job of teaching for less money. Charters will continue to expand and grow here in Utah, because there is such a high demand for them. A lot of that stems from incompetency from the established educators like yourself who tend to ignore problems in their classrooms like bullying, low achievers and special needs students.

We sure can't have these darn Charter Schools stealing tax money from our traditional failing public schools.

Hate to burst your bubble, but even if all the district schools were changed to charter schools, every currently employed teacher would still be employed. Every charter school teacher is also a State-certified Teacher, just like every district teacher.

District school teachers have nothing to fear about charter schools succeeding. The fear is that the charter school will not succeed or that the children will do no better in the charter school then in the district school and their parents will bring their children back to the district school mid school year. Unfortunately, that fear comes true every year and it is not always the fault of any of the teachers at the charter or district school, but they will get the blame.

Some of the readers of this article apparently don't understand the monumental task it is to build a school from scratch. While you may find the very existence of a charter school grotesque as it "steals your tax money" so you say. if you really understood what has been achieved you would likely applaud it. By the way, we have to work for every dime of that money you think is stolen. Enjoy your smaller class sizes.

"Enjoy your smaller class sizes"

MYTH!!!

When two Charters opened in the same general area as my traditional public school, we were promised by the pro-Charter movement (and by the pro-Charter legislators who were building the schools) that our class sizes would go down. As a matter of fact, that was one of the big selling points of the Charter movement several years ago.

Over the past 5 years, my average class size has gone from 33 to 38. In visiting with other teachers (at other schools in the state) at conferences and workshops I can tell you that they tell the same story. Charter=increased class size at the nearby traditional public school in many cases.

BTW: I'm not anti-Charter. I know of two Charters that I personally feel are phenomenal. I would not hesitate for a second recommending them to a parent. I just don't want this "smaller class size" myth to propagate and continue.

In 20 years we will look back on the charter experiment and wonder, "what were we thinking? This is a huge mess!"

To Good Luck Schools! - do you happen to know if the involved parents were also involved in the traditional public schools before their children went to charters? Exactly what is 'required' as parent involvement?
A good friend of mine has children in a Catholic school and their 'involvement' is helping to organize a fundraising dinner - no volunteering at the school, no field trips, no serving on their Board.....

Utah is actually way behind on the charter school movement that even President Obama is a big fan of these days.

Utah only has 5% of their students in public charter schools, while Colorado had 7% and Arizona has 5%. Since the vast majority of charter schools in Utah have been open for 5 years or less, we are just starting to see the difference that a well run charter school can make in the educational experience. Many students and parents are very happy, others are not. That's OK. Education is NOT, and never should be, a one-size-fits-all system.

Furthermore, public charter schools are not "better" than district schools, only different. It is up to the student and the parent to decide what works best for them.

Same at our local school. Our problem was when the charter opened, parents flocked to it. They felt it was the panacea they had been waiting for. The local school lost two teachers because of reduced number of students. Then the storm hit. The charter was a mess. They fired the principal and fired accusations back and forth. Parents pulled their kids and sent them back to the local school. Only problem was funding was set based on enrollment in October or something like that. So when the kids came back, there was no class for them to go to. Class sizes went way up.

This is a problem with the current system. If a parent puts their child in a charter school, there needs to be a minimum time frame that they have to stay there.

I'm also not against charters but problems like this aren't fair to anyone.

Recent research on charters on the national level has revealed that the overwhelming majority of them do not significantly improve learning. A small percentage have shown improvements and another small percentage have actually shown a decline in student achievement.

Utah has a good reputation for granted charters and funding them but gives for little room on the state or district level to do anything new or innovative. Therefore, Utah charter schools will offer little in terms of answers for improved education beyond increased parent participation (which is mixed and tends to fade at charters over time).

The best innovation and alternative ideas in improving education are happening at charters in other states and in private schools around the nation (yes, even here in Utah).

Innovations are sadly limited in Utah, even among Charter schools. The greatest innovation is the swinging back of education to the traditional sense of teaching. Many Charters instruct using the Direct Instruction method (designed for special education, but proving a best practice among all learners) and small ability grouping for subjects like Math and Reading. These were the norm for education back in the fifties yet were somehow forgotten.

Now we have so many innovations like New Math or Investigations that equal to an experiment that the best approach for many children is just a return to good old educational mainstays. Sadly with the way the State runs things innovation will be kept at bay. We simply don't fund well enough to be creative with our solutions.

If Charters are opening and the nearby District school has their enrollment jump, just imagine if that Charter had not been built how much more crowded the school would be. Our charter growth has only staved off over-crowding at our local schools. It didn't cause the numbers to go up. I think that has to do more with the lack of Sex ed in our schools.

When we lived in Utah we had a wonderful experience with all three of our kids attending a charter school for three years. While the education they are receiving here in Indiana is adequate, I miss the atmosphere of our charter school in Utah.

It is great ot see that parents can work together to create a Charter School and leave the personal differences behind. If the Public School system had any brains they would be watching the Charter Schools and learning from them. Instead, all they do is complain about the "lost" money. The Charter Schools are the quintessential learning labs with parents being "instant" participants. Education is not a "full bucket" but rather a "raging inferno" that should come from any possible means. Whether it be Home School, Private School, Charter School or Public School, we can have the best through these choices that can fit any needs of those who are willing to learn. Instead, again, all we do is complain about the "stolen" or "lost" moneys. All I can say about that is "hogwash"!

Charters are not cheaper than other public schools!

Charters skim good students from other public schools. Parents who can drive their students and volunteer do not represent the regular student population.

Sadly in many cases, charters are simply modern segregation for parents who do not want their children with those kids. American school are nearly as segregated today as they were prior to Brown vs board of education. Sad, but true.

Schools are funded with WPU money. WPU= weighted pupil unit. Schools get a certain amount of money per child that is educated in their building by the Oct. 1 count. A smaller number of students will NEVER equate to smaller class sizes under Utah's financing plan. It just means that some teachers will be reassigned to a different school, there won't be any new hires, or some teacher contracts won't be renewed. I'm not ripping charters as I think most do a fine job of educating, but it drives me crazy when people perpetuate lies about how the charters will improve the public school atmosphere.

One advantage to Charter Schools is that they can and do fire bad teachers. My child is now in a Charter School precisely because the only options for her grade level at the neighborhood school are a teacher who does not teach. I had an older child in this teachers class, so I know this from experience. The principal knows it too, but says there is nothing he can do because this teacher has tenure. He cannot be fired or even transfered. The ohter option is a split class (two grades in one classroom with one teacher) and the teacher is a forced transfer. She may be a good teacher. I don't know. What I do know is that even for a great teacher this is an extremely difficult situation and the kids loose every time.
We were planning to homeschool for this year until we found out about the new Charter School. My child has a great teacher at the Charter School and I am impressed with the things I am seeing coming home. I am grateful to have an alternative for my children. At least 8 children have left our neighborhood school because of this situation.