DE Education Secretary Gives Recommendations on Newark Charter
Secretary of Education Lillian Lowery sent a memorandum to the Delaware State Board of Education giving her “approval” and some caveats on what Newark Charter School (NCS) needs to do. It’s all in the pdf, so go ahead and read it. Or you can read The News Journal article. For your convenience, I’ll give you the final paragraph:
In closing, NCS is located within one of our most diverse and lowest performing districts, yet it serves strikingly few of the most at-risk students within its five mile radius. While I believe that NCS is an exemplary school, it is that belief that makes it more compelling that NCS should be accessible to more high need students. I am hopeful these conditions, coupled with NCS’s full and earnest implementation of them, will result in NCS being more accessible to high need students. However, the Department will review this issue carefully when NCS seeks its next charter renewal and will be inclined to impose additional conditions in the absence of significant progress on this issue. Thank you for your time and consideration of this important matter.
Tags: Education, Newark Charter School
NCS’s application was always going to be approved. They were in compliance with the law. It’s the charter law that’s the problem. The law allows skimming, and it allows charters to get rid of students. Those are powerful tools. IMO, without this ability there would be very little charter success.
The entire model is built on these rules.
Opposition to NCS expansion was always just an exercise to air out a meaningful debate over the charter law. Stopping the expansion was never the main objective. However if the expansion had been approved without conditions it would have been a loss for opponents, and a victory for unrestrained charter growth in Delaware. I think both sides got what they wanted.
This NCS debate sets the stage for the much higher-stakes discussion over the new BofA schools and other well-funded mega-charter startups. Lowery’s letter strikes the right tone for the next discussions.
Probably the most salient fact in Lowery’s letter was the observation that even within the NCS 5-mile radius, NCS has 21% low income students and CSD schools have 60% low income students. Nobody can say exactly how this happened, but it stinks to high heaven.
“NCS’s application was always going to be approved. They were in compliance with the law. It’s the charter law that’s the problem. The law allows skimming, and it allows charters to get rid of students. Those are powerful tools. IMO, without this ability there would be very little charter success.”
So the law is the problem, huh??? If not for the difference by which charter schools must operate, why even bother with charter schools in the first place?! Oh, because the public schools, as currently concocted and mismanaged in Delaware, stink!
“even within the NCS 5-mile radius, NCS has 21% low income students and CSD schools have 60% low income students.”
(From NCS’s website) “Newark Charter School uses preferences for siblings of students who are currently enrolled, children of NCS teachers, and students who live within a five-mile radius of the school (this refers to “as the crow flies”, not driving distance).”
So where’s the controversy?
“So where’s the controversy?”
Don’t be disingenuous. Oh, wait — if you’re a product of Delaware schools, you probably can’t do the math.
No, seriously, Geezer. WHERE is the controversy??? Please layout your whiny, bleeding-heart social engineering for all of us to see.
I’m also a product of an elite top-10 university located on a hill in upstate NY where merit matters; in both acceptance AND upon graduation.
Where did you go to school?
Our charter system re-segregates the schools… there’s no statistical debate about that. Was it intended to? Hard to say. Will it continue to? Damn straight. All the enrollment numbers are on the BOE website.
There’s very little evidence that our current approach to public education permits us to fix problems created by inequities in the society, whatever people attempt. Still, what are the options? I’d hate to have more competition for my children, currently being usefully trained to sew knock-off Chanel purses in our basement. 😉
“There’s very little evidence that our current approach to public education permits us to fix problems created by inequities in the society, whatever people attempt.”
May there are no approaches to public education that permits us to fix problems create in equities in society. Maybe it’s like if I keeping putting air in my tires, I still run out gas. It might be that I should try an approach that puts gas in the tank. I think education is a vital part of creating thinking and capable citizens, but delivery is not receipt and all our approaches seem focused on delivery. Maybe the schools are good enough. Maybe something else is necessary.