State Votes To Close Pencader Charter School
DOVER — Although parents and students had urged state officials to give them one more chance, the state Board of Education voted unanimously Thursday to close Pencader Business and Finance Charter School.
Secretary of Education Mark Murphy recommended Thursday that the state take the extreme step of revoking the school’s permission to operate as a public school. The state board moved swiftly to do so.
Murphy said Pencader’s team did not submit a plan that addressed concerns communicated to them by the state, including improving student performance, strong governance of the school, and a plan for recruitment of more students and a new school leader.
“Pencader failed to seize the opportunity this process afforded it to articulate a clear, quality plan for a path forward. I would have expected to see a plan with specific measurable steps, goals and objectives to improve this school and the achievement of its students,” Murphy said.
The school will close in June, state officials said.
Pencader has struggled for quite a while. I’ve written about the school last July here, and last August here and here. I’ve watched all this come to a head, and held off calling for outright closure once the new Pencader Board came into being, but this passage from Nichole Dobo’s article had my eyebrows raising.
The new school leadership submitted plans for moving forward that contained errors and omissions, said John Carwell, director of the charter school office in the state Education Department.
For instance, Pencader’s leaders reported that the school outperformed the state average on student achievement tests, Carwell said. In reality, the school was below the state average on math and reading assessments, he said. This mistake, and others, showed the school’s leaders were “ill-prepared, at best,” he said. Subsequent reports did not convince state leaders otherwise, he said.
Ill-prepared, at best? At best?
If it’s true that the new school leadership reported false achievement test scores, as well as other errors and omissions then they should be investigated. Isn’t this sort of thing against the law?
And while I sympathize with Pencader parents and students who will now scramble to enroll in new schools, the charges of falsifying documents and other yet unnamed errors and omissions makes me believe that closing Pencader is for the best.
What would an education post be without Kilroy – who’s about to get a spanking!
Many Pencader charter students are there because they and their parents feel traditional public schools have failed them. And now a charter school from managerial operations failed them. Students were not failed by teachers or themselves. Personally I feel now is the time to up the stakes and school Choice options. Give these Pencader students the same per student funding Pencader was getting and allow them to apply it to a private school. It’s only fair! Two school systems failed them!
Hey! We’ve been down this road before, my friend! My argument then, stands now. Here’s what I said:
Here’s my problem with Kilroy’s “victim compensation” voucher idea: He limits the victims. He is saying that the family whose child is attending a charter that closes has demonstrated the desire to leave/escape a public school, therefore that child deserves a voucher.
I wondered about the children who applied to the charter but didn’t get in? Didn’t they demonstrate the same desire? Should we give them vouchers, as well? If not, why not?
And what about the child with no advocate willing, or able, to complete a charter application? Would they not be considered victims? Shouldn’t any child in a failing school be considered a victim? And if we do consider them victims, then wouldn’t they be eligible for vouchers and direct transportation?
Go back to his first post where he calls for legislation. He is saying that it is the DOE’s responsibility to secure seats for the children of a failed Charter at “another charter school or traditional school with a rating of superior or commendable…”
Seriously? I’m sure I’m not the only one who would have a problem with these families being moved to the front of the Choice line. How is it fair that people who have opted out of the public school system be given preferential treatment over those who have stayed in the system? I might start attending school board meetings to witness the fireworks. And the public school parents who end up being bumped down the list would have a strong grievance.
Another commenter already figured out a way to game Kilroy’s idea:
So if this comes to pass, let’s start “PlanToFail Academy.” It won’t cost much since we can rent by the month, and it’s not like we need books or anything. We can have all our kids into top schools by this time next year!
Funny, but true.
And another commenter, Observer, clears up the issue by placing the responsibility where is belongs.
I have an idea… Let’s make a law/rule that says existing charter schools & any new charter school must develop a plan for what happens to their students if they fail academically and/or financially. This should be a requirement. They want to exist, so they need to come up with the fallback plan. This puts the responsibility for charter school success & failure where it belongs – on the people that started them. The state shouldn’t need to come up with or pay for what happens to the children of the failed charter schools. Charter schools took them out of the traditional system, they should document a plan of how to reintegrate them if something goes wrong. If they refuse to come up with the plan, then they should be closed.
Observer for the win.
I do feel badly for Pencader students. Changing high schools is hard. I also think the process of closing Pencader dragged out too long. Every time someone mentioned Pencader I had to bite my tongue and not yell, “For crying out loud, could someone put that school out of its misery?” Harsh? Maybe, but it was torture watching its slow death when everyone knew there were basically only two things that could save Pencader – Political intervention or a large charitable donation from someone like the Longwood Foundation.
I was actually quite surprised the movers and shakers of the Charter community didn’t step in and write a check. Perhaps they knew something about Pencader we didn’t know. And given John Carwell’s, director of the charter school office in the state Education Department, comments about errors and omissions on the plan submitted by the new board and the claim that Pencader’s leadership didn’t submit accurate achievement test scores perhaps the people who could have saved this school had reason not to.
I don’t have any sympathy for failed charter parents. From what I’ve seen people want Charter Schools to be free private schools. And by “private” I mean “fewer minorities.”
Jason… That may be the first thing I’ve read from you that I agree with 110%!!! Could this be love?
Buy me a nice dinner and we’ll see what happens.
In a lot of ways Charters remind me of Too Big To Fail. Everyone is all about the free market and keep government off our backs until there’s trouble. Then it’s… we can’t close this school!
But the very premise of charter schools, indeed the very thing they brag about, is that, unlike public schools, failing charters will close. Well, that’s what they say until a charter gets into trouble then their free market/less gov. oversight mantra turns into What about the children?
Okay, what about the children? If that was really the concern then we wouldn’t be treating them like consumers and products.
What’s sad about Pencader is that it was one of the truly diverse charter schools. To find out they fudged achievement test scores is disheartening and really needs to be looked into! Was it only one year of test scores? More?
I dont think that’s a fair generalization. There are entire school districts here in Delaware that absolutely suck. It would take 5-10 years to really turn, Christiana for example, around. I’m communitarian, but I’m not going to ask someone to sacrifice their child’s education just to sent them to public school. If it’s bad, we should all be responsible for fixing it, but at the same time realize there are kids now who need a better option.
I also don’t agree that the reason to send kids to charter is to get them away from minorities. not for everyone, anyway. I think it is more to get their kids away from other people’s shitty kids… and there are lots of them. More every year.
I don’t have kids yet, but when I do, I don’t want them going to school with …. for example….. children of insane gun owners. I don’t want them in classes with parents who don’t give a crap about their children’s education and consider school a day-care center. I don’t want them in under-funded classrooms that use out-dated technology…
(if you don’t know that I’m in favor of much higher taxes to fix these problems for everyone, I refuse to argue with you over it)
Pencader has failed, and failed charter schools should be clsoed down. I do think there should be an option in public schooling. Why cant there ever be a discussion of middle ground?
Some folks arguments regarding charter schools is exactly the same as anti-union people’s arguments against unions. “some of them dont actually make things better and there is corruption, so close em’ all down.” We have to accept reality that the one problem we will never ever fix about public schools, are the bad parents and the terrible children they ultimately send to them. The best thing to do is have another school that requires a very minimal demonstration of giving a fuck on the parent’s part. Not passing a test, not demonstrating income….. just a little effort to show they care.
Jason,
If you had been at either of the public hearings last week, you would never have written that “fewer minorities” is what Pencader parents want.
I’ve read the reports and the responses, and I’m convinced that the state’s report isn’t perfect and neither is Pencader’s reply. But it appears to me that the State Board was relying on a report its committee wrote in early January and gave little credence to the response Pencader produced earlier this month, a response that listed numerous improvements made in January and early February.
Literally, Pencader is “under new management,” and the board members on that new management team have far more credibility than the prior board did.
Anyone who knows anything about business turnarounds knows they are not completed in a month or two. The new management at Pencader deserved a chance. (And perhaps we would have been better off if the state had acted against the incompetent prior management sooner, so a new team might have been able to start sooner.)
When you consider the $119 million being tossed at schools with far worse records via Race to the Top, you have to wonder why Pencader wasn’t thrown a lifeline.
The answer, I think, is that the Charter Schools office, after years of inadequate oversight, had to “make an example” of some school in order to show that it is attempting to hold schools accountable for their performance.
There’s plenty of blame to go around on this, and the reason Pencader closed was a group effort.
One of my biggest problems with charters is their propaganda and the way they market their “success” by saying, “We don’t suck as much as (insert public school name here).”
That’s not promoting your school – it’s creating a perception that people who really care about their kids wouldn’t dare put them into one of those dangerous (and it’s amazing how often charters market fear of public schools to pump up their enrollment), educational hell holes called public schools.
Parents can be very insecure when it comes to their children’s education. It can be very confusing. To take advantage of this confusion, not by educating parents to the system, but by creating fear of public schools and fear that by attending a public school you’ll have damned your first grader to a life of drudgery is… well, a lie.
And I’m not defending RTTT, or any other nonsense.
And another Industrial Revolution educational variant bites the dust?
I think it varies by distric, Pandora. My point is, fix the schools… all the school… through proper funding, higher teacher pay, better ways of measuring and assessing performance of students…. But since that will obviously take years to fix, make something available to parents who care. I am not a teacher, but i was raised by teachers, will marry a teacher. (yay for me). I have a lot of sympathy for them. A big problem I don’t see people acknowledging is the kids themselves, and more their parents. A lot of people are crappy parents and their kids are a drag on other kid’s education. We can’t, obviously send the crappy kids away, but we CAN provide an alternative. Maybe school choice, like the way Brandywine SD (still?) has. Of course, that limits the number of kids who have access, so I’ll admit it is at the very least, imperfect and in need of improvement. I know it is “the liberal/progressive” thing to do, to defend public schools, and I’m in favor of free education, but just like a lot of other freedoms, why let people who abuse it, take you down with them? I think there are more of those people that you think and it has little to do with culture, or race, or SES….. some people are just crappy….. and i think we can all agree that they have every right to suck… as long as “I” am not hurt by it.
The problem was baked in from the beginning — the state did not vet the leadership very well, if at all. That’s been a problem with many of Delaware’s charters. Whatever the merits of charter schools might be in general, the state Board of Ed has done a truly lousy job of implementing the concept here.
A charter focused on business and finance? Didn’t we used to call that “arithmetic”? One focused on public safety? These are not academic subjects and should not be treated as if they are.
Meanwhile we have a vo-tech system that now selects its students not for their lack of interest in college-prep classes but for their ability to perform well on college-prep tests. We pay an extra $3,000/year/student for that.
Shorter version: If you’ll let Theo Gregory or the Pencader batch of crooks run a charter school, there’s something wrong with your vetting process.
I get where you’re coming from, Ben, but you might want to read this.
That article doesn’t mean we can’t do better, but it does make one question where the propaganda against public schools came from and why it continued.
Oh, it came from busing (a huge part of the Southern Strategy) and it continues with Ed Reformers.
My kids have attended high poverty public elementary schools, private schools and diverse/poverty balanced high schools. I obviously readjusted educationally several times – yeah, I had a learning curve. Guess which one offered the worse education? The expensive private school. I spent several years correcting that mess.
Guess I’m saying… be careful believing everything you hear about public schools. Also, notice how when you’re with a group of parents complaining about public schools that either their kids aren’t in public schools (which usually reinforces their arguments against public schools) or the public school their child attends is awesome since their child is brilliant! It’s reminds me how everybody hates Congress, but keeps voting for their Congressman/woman.
There’s so much gray here.
You’re right, Pandora, charters all too often promote themselves as being better than this or that traditional public school — whether it be the academics, the discipline, whatever.
What I’ve seen in many charters is that they tend to draw the more active parents, the ones who give a damn about their kids’ schooling, and that in turn helps create an environment that is more disciplined and more dedicated to academic achievement. (No, it doesn’t always happen that way, but positive parental involvement is a plus.)
As far as the traditional public schools go, the way to ensure the best education for your child is to become one of those active parents, which means knowing what’s going on at the school before you start getting invitations to the principal’s office. Don’t tell me you can’t do it; hey, it’s your kid. If you want the best, you’ve got to do some work, not merely trust that some teacher will do it for you.
But I am convinced that the new management at Pencader has the chops to complete a successful turnaround. You can’t do it in 2-3 months and I think the state board and charter schools office based their judgment on the school’s past under poor management rather than its potential under solid leadership.
please tell me you don’t think i consider busing to be one of the culprits.
FWIW, most of my opinions on public schools…. which can be different depending on the district….. come from first-hand accounts of teachers or school/district personnel. These are also people who genuinely want to be a great educator or administrator, but have no idea how to handle the issue of kids who dont want to learn, and their parents who take no responsibility.
I don’t see why the solution to failing public schools is opening a tax payer funded, separate, business oriented “charter school” in a District instead of having a public school in the district with a department that specializes in business classes. Put the damn Pencader Charter School right inside of a district high school and let students “choice” into that public school if they’re not in the District.
Why do we need a Military charter school when every high school in Delaware has a JROTC program? Wouldn’t that money be better spent enhancing ALL of the JROTC programs to include the Homeland Security bullshit?
Problem solved, tax payer money saved. Close them all down, incorporate them into existing public schools.
These are also people who genuinely want to be a great educator or administrator, but have no idea how to handle the issue of kids who dont want to learn, and their parents who take no responsibility.
I am a public school parent and a public school graduate. The same problems existed in the 70s, 80’s, 90s, 00s, so I’m left wondering what secluded island or cave these “great educators” were living in before they walked into their first public school. A “great educator” should know how to handle two extraordinarily common problems that have existed for decades, possibly centuries.
And isn’t the definition of a “great educator” an educator who can overcome issues like bad parents and lazy students and teach the kids anyway? You know, like that guy in the movie.
who said it has to be business oriented? i wont say that current public schools ARENT business oriented. NCLB has forced them into situations where being underfunded = worse performance= less funding = downward spiral. It’s similar to the health care debate…. death panels, thy name is Insurance Company…
What im saying…. and please please please understand I’m not even 100% comfortable with this characterization of my point…… is that a TYPE of very specific and carefully monitored *deep breath* segregation, might be necessary. (if you’re already calling me a racist, you’re and idiot who is missing my point) Different children learn differently…. we know that. Some very bright kids simply cant absorb knowledge the way our schools have been forced to teach. Some kids dont want to learn and are disruptions, and the only thing anyone can do is send them to the Office every day…. that doesn’t help that child.
I like the basic IDEA of charter and alternative schools, because it recognizes that the current basic model of public education really isnt serving us well and does a very bad job in many cases. It’s about having options. A teacher cannot inspire a kid with apathetic parents who refuses to learn, and may have one or more learning disorders, AND challenge a child who is over performing at the same time. they have to choose, and usually, the “bad kid” get’s sent away.
It hasnt been done right yet. There is no existing example i can point to, to say “there…. that is the model, let’s do that” so if you need that to consider my argument valid, I cant help you… Let’s not let that be a reason not to explore the options.
Anon, do you do every single aspect of YOUR job perfectly?
Believe it or not, teachers are regular people…. underpaid, underappreciated, people who have a monumental task of preparing the next generation and less and less resources every year. They also have parents who don’t know dick about educating wondering why they can’t “do their jobs better”
I’m a public school grad too, btw, and i would like to see the public education system improved, not replaced.
Im not really sure if that last but about the guy in the movie was sarcasm…. i really hope it is, and you’re not actually confusing movies with real life.
Just because these problems have been around is no excuse not to try and solve them. That’s a lazy cop-out.
So the solution is to take tax payer funding away from pubic schools and give it to exclusive charter schools?
The solution is to take the money, support and fix the public schools with more specialized departments and classes, unload the dead weight teachers who can’t cope,and let the segregationist parents and their future segregationist children either suck it up and coexist with the rest of the world, or shell out the cash for a private school where they won’t be exposed to the great unwashed.
BTW, ben, a starting teacher makes more than I do, and has more job security than I do, and that’s not even taking benefits into consideration.
Notice i didnt offer a solid solution or even say i had one. I actually made a point to say i dont have an answer, and if you’re gonna hound me to make a bumpersticker-statement, you’re barkin up the wrong tree. What i SAID was, there is promise in the IDEA of more diverse kinds of public schools. We should recognize that and try to find a way to make it work.
also, i knew it was a bad idea to use the work “segregation” as i types it, but did it anyway so see who’s knee would jerk. thanks for taking the bait.
oohhhh teachers have it so great. A good part of that super awesome salary you think they make, has to go to teaching supplies that are vital for them to do their jobs, but the school cant afford to get for them. And hell yes im biased. I know what a teacher’s starting salary is. In Delaware, it is less than the average yearly income…. it is reflective of how little this country values education…. also, you might deserve a raise
I happen to agree with Jason 100% about why parents flee to charter schools. Your “bait” in many cases, is the reality of the situation, and I have witnessed it dozens of times, with my friends and their kids.
I’m also still left wondering where these teachers come from who think teaching is all about rainbows and lollipops and summers off, it seems that they are the ones who are confused about “real life.”
Closes the charter schools, take their funding and use it for specialized programs in the public schools and for whatever else a District needs to be successful. Abandoning our public schools is NOT the answer.
who said rainbows and lollypops? you’re the one wondering why they can’t be like the guy in the movie.
I don’t think you understand just how different kids can be. If you’re going to pay someone 45k a year to have as many skill sets as there are children in all 6 of their classes, don’t expect every type of kid to come out ok. That’s a ridiculous benchmark to set, and it shows you have little understanding of how people become educated… which means you should have no business deciding education policy.
some extraordinarily brave people decide to become special ed teachers. It’s not for everyone… that is why we separate out those very different learners. But, and I’m not sure you understand this, it is more than special ed and “normal”. There many ranges and categories of learners and it require a lot of training to deal with each of them. What im saying is, break up the learning types more so teachers can be more specialized and more effective. By the time a kid hits 7th grade, you ca pretty much tell what type of student they are. Don’t make fish climb trees as a measure of their intelligence then blame the teacher when they fail.
naw, it’s easier to call me a segregationist and blame the educators. That takes all the responsibility off you.
you.
“Abandoning our public schools” is not a suggestion i have made, therefor, basing your arguments around refuting that claim is pointless. I said we should continue to have public school, but alter the model to better serve the different educational needs of students and help teachers be more effective with their methods.
Yes, ben, I get it. The high school where my child goes has “special ed” classes and “normal” classes as you call them, honors classes and AP classes for the 4 core subjects.
I would imagine more public schools in NCCo would be able to do this if the potential funding for these programs wasn’t going to fund Charter Schools so people can get what basically amounts to a free private school education at the expense of the people who don’t win the lottery.
With all that said and done, the entire premise behind the infusion of charter schools into the public education mix, was to prove Republican values of individualism always trumped big government. That was the source of money, the source of fire, and the source of lots of dumb letter written to the editors of many rural papers.
I cannot count how many times proponents of Charter Schools have derided public education, gloating that if a school cannot survive in the market place of making children smarter and better citizens, it needs to shut down….
We now have a charter school shutting down. And Republicans are at a complete loss over what to do with these individual human beings, children hurt by their unthoughtful enthusiasm….
It appears that in almost every case of modern life, bigger government now always has to step in and undo the damage that individuals shouting “liberty” and “freedom”,… are too incompetent to handle….
I should add, this is just one more example proving that Republicanism is only good for fleecing normal people out of more of their money… Delaware is smart. It has realized this Republican scam hence in our state very few Republicans exist, except of course in those few pockets still isolated from modern civilization.
For those of you still registered to the worst example of a political party in the history of civilized man, go to this link,
http://electionsncc.delaware.gov/votreg.shtml#when2
follow the directions and immediately remove this embarrassment currently attached to your name… In today’s economy, you may never know when you may be job searching, and anyone having an “R” still affiliated to their name, can only be interpreted as being synonymous with those wearing a gigantic “S” for stupid….
Possibly a bit aside the point, but does anyone know why “James E. Hosley” is supposed, even by CRI, to know anything about education?
haha, then what are we arguing about? If we already segregate based on learning ability, why not acknowledge there are more than 4 types of learners? we have special needs, Honors, AP… and EEVVERRRYYYOOOONNNEEEE else, who apparently all learn the same.
Fine, if it makes you feel better, i agree to close down the charter school…. we can even burn em to the ground if that will provide the cathartic absolution you want… it would be better to have them continue being a school.
The idea of a charter school is not “mmwwahhhahahaha we’re going to let some people sneak into a good education and let’s be racist too mmwahahahahah!!!!!” That doesn’t mean the basic philosophy is bad…. just the execution to date is very flawed.
Something can be a decent idea on paper and in theory, but needs some serious refining to make it work. what DOESNT work, is dogmatic adherence to “the way things are”. Maybe teachers for the past 5 decades haven’t been able to figure out the best way to approach such diverse learners, because one method simply doesn’t work for all students. Maybe there isn’t a way to do. Maybe we need to break up the classes and concentrate on proper placement. They don’t have to be their own building…. they don’t even have to be their own wing in the same building. You think I’m arguing for charter schools, which is false. I’m advocating for some very fundamental and revolutionary educational reforms and re-structuring based on the idea of learning-type oriented stratification. Charter schools KIND of do this… not well enough… ok? they don’t do it well enough… a lot don’t do it well at all.
Isn’t that exactly what I’ve been saying since my first comment?
Gee, it looks like it is:
Comment by anon on 22 February 2013 at 12:05 pm:
I don’t see why the solution to failing public schools is opening a tax payer funded, separate, business oriented “charter school” in a District instead of having a public school in the district with a department that specializes in business classes. Put the damn Pencader Charter School right inside of a district high school and let students “choice” into that public school if they’re not in the District.
Why do we need a Military charter school when every high school in Delaware has a JROTC program? Wouldn’t that money be better spent enhancing ALL of the JROTC programs to include the Homeland Security bullshit?
Problem solved, tax payer money saved. Close them all down, incorporate them into existing public schools.
“If it’s true that the new school leadership reported false achievement test scores, as well as other errors and omissions then they should be investigated. Isn’t this sort of thing against the law?”
You are confused, I believe. The school didn’t report false scores to the state as part of the testing program. It reported false scores in its improvement plans. I really doubt that lying in a plan is against the law. It’s just stupid. You know the state has all this data and is going to check it. Errors and omissions in the plan when under extreme scrutiny just means you’re doubly dumb and incompetent.
Stupid, doubly dumb and incompetent sounds even worse.
opposing the idea of charter schools because it has roots in republican “scams” is one the same level as opposing labor unions because it has roots in communism. The fact is the best people to know how to teach kids are the individual teachers who teach teh individual kids. interestingly, the NCLB act, which was a horrific example of government meddling in the classroom was a republican thing. Maybe it was made horrible on purpose to prove a sick point. Who knows. They government should provide ample funding, basic oversight, and enforcement of civil rights. Other than that, it should be left up to the people actually dealing with the kids. Exact same approach to national health care. The government provides all the resources and opportunities, the individuals (patients and students) along with the experts carrying out the service (doctors or teachers) make the decisions about application and execution of the service.
Well, yeah.
Guess I should have added an emoticon! 🙂
There’s a “market-based” reason for charter school, in addition to the original idea that corporations might be persuaded to fund education,if they got the benefit of it. (Chemical companies don’t care how many dancers you graduate, as an example, but they might want more competent chemists.)
The market-based reason is that each school has a profile, used in college admissions. So, if your kid goes to a school with 10 sections of AP classes, but has no AP tests on his/her record, admissions will figure he/she is not a highly motivated student. If your kid goes to School Y, and everyone they’ve ever talked to from School Y is totally awesome, they are going to get a more favorable look.
So putting your kid over at Charter isn’t only about the education. It’s about associating him/her with a previous record of successful students. If a charter is selective enough in its admissions, it won’t be burdened down with kids who can’t make their statistics shiny. Public schools, as well as private schools, plume themselves on their records in college admissions. They take pictures of their athletes signing letters of intent, of their kids in all-state choir, and keep a list of “Our kids went to Harvard, etc. ” There is competition for those kids, even without public/private partnerships like charters, but charters tend to throw it into high relief.
So for those keeping score, how many failed charter schools does this make now?
“I don’t have any sympathy for failed charter parents. From what I’ve seen people want Charter Schools to be free private schools. And by “private” I mean “fewer minorities”- wow, really? What makes you think that? Maybe you should have at least taken the 60 seconds it takes to pull up the State of Delaware site and looked at the stats. There are 20% white students at Pencader.
Also, in your opinion, would this hold true for people who choice their kid into a traditional public school that isn’t their feeder school? If not, what other reason would parents choice their kid into any school?
anon “The solution is to take the money, support and fix the public schools with more specialized departments and classes, unload the dead weight teachers who can’t cope,and let the segregationist parents and their future segregationist children either suck it up and coexist with the rest of the world, or shell out the cash for a private school where they won’t be exposed to the great unwashed”-
I agree with the first part of your paragraph. How long can a kids education wait for that to happen? Also, can you tell me how Pencader was segregating?? Oh yeah, they were only letting kids in who handed in an application and showed up for school that first week.
by the way not all schools do have JROTC.
“That’s not promoting your school – it’s creating a perception that people who really care about their kids wouldn’t dare put them into one of those dangerous” – my perception of some schools was created by parents and students in those schools. Kids who got bullied or parents who got ignored when there were issues. Kids in my neighborhood who would talk about someone who started a fire in a locker, someone who brought a knife to school, someone who threatened a teacher, someone punched the guidance counselor,someone punched the security guard, etc.
So, when I hear from a parent or a kid who goes to a different school where those stories don’t exist, or at least on a much much smaller scale, it doesn’t make it too hard to choose.
“So putting your kid over at Charter isn’t only about the education. It’s about associating him/her with a previous record of successful students. If a charter is selective enough in its admissions, it won’t be burdened down with kids who can’t make their statistics shiny” – except they don’t all do that.
I’m glad Pencader is diverse, but look at the Sussex Academy in Georgetown:
http://www.sussexacademy.org/
You’ve got an example, I’ve got an example. It’s a racial tie.
The bottom line is that public school tax dollars need to go to public schools. Incorporate the charter schools and their classes into a local public school, and close the charter schools down instead of making the problems at the public schools worse.
And I’m sorry your school is closing, but it seems like a pretty fucked up place to me.
It was reported on WDEL today that Pencader has been put on notice four times during the last six years for failing to meet minimum standards. If that’s true, it has failed. I don’t see what’s controversial about this particular case.
Pencader mom, they DON’T all do that, and I’m one of, I suppose few, around her that supported Pencader… because I got to know more parents, teachers, and students there. I’m saddened that this has been the decision, after the meeting I had hope for better.
My point was that support for charter schools, as a whole, partly rests on charter, and magnet, schools’ ability to sort a population. I was reflecting back on some of what SB talked about, with learning styles. We used to have “tracking” and that served a similar function of making teaching easier by making the population more standard. Since much of that served racist agendas it was removed, but the impulse towards charters probably partly serves the same function… not that it’s inherently racists, becauseI don’t think that’s necessarily true, but because putting together populations with similar goals (college, plumbing, business and finance, art ed) MAY make it easier to reach them than a scattershot method of enormous schools.
“My kids have attended high poverty public elementary schools, private schools and diverse/poverty balanced high schools”- Pandora, what is ‘balanced’? or better worded, what was the balance, in numbers, in your kids balanced school? Would you have sent them if the poverty level was 60%? I’m talking about high school. I’m not sure how much dif. it makes in elementary school. I don’t think discipline is nearly as big an issue in elementary school as it is in high school.
heragain, I know you were routing for Pencader, I remember. I just read a lot of generalizations on here.
Anon, if it’s a ‘racial tie’ then maybe you shouldn’t say this: “I happen to agree with Jason 100% about why parents flee to charter schools”
Pencader’s chief problem was that it was a business and finance school with financial problems. That should have spelled the end of it right there.
You know, SW, I strongly suspect that if they’d operated the school as a Junior achievement program run by the junior class, it’d have been run properly. Like “Accepted.”
@pencadermom
The “balance” in numbers at my child’s HS is: 43% low income and 13.6% special ed. Pencader has 35% low income and 6.3% special ed.
“Would you have sent them if the poverty level was 60%? I’m talking about high school. I’m not sure how much dif. it makes in elementary school. I don’t think discipline is nearly as big an issue in elementary school as it is in high school.”
First, I always looked at programs within the school – AP, IB, etc.. There is, and I have written about, a tipping point with poverty – a point where programs are lost.
Second, poverty at the elementary level makes all the difference. Address that and you’ll fix a multitude of problems.
You cite discipline, but the real problem is educational disparity – which begins in elementary school! We see the final result of that disparity in high school.
Just imagine the same standard being applied to district public schools, how many would be closed?
Pandora, my point was, people defending traditional high schools on here, they are talking about schools with lower poverty rates.
Our feeder high school is 60%. Well past your tipping point, which I think you had mentioned is about 30%.
I get that you’re upset, pencadermom, and I’d hope you’re planning on working to help your feeder school – a school in which none of your kids attend. Something I have never had a problem with. I have been quite clear that I respect parental choices when it comes to educating their children. We only have one chance at 3rd grade, 6th grade, 10th grade, etc. I have also been clear that helping to improve all our schools is everyone’s responsibility. If we (me, you, the school districts/boards, charters, DOE, politicians) had done this from the beginning perhaps your feeder school would now be a viable option.
(The 30/35% figure is one I’ve used for elementary schools, btw. High Schools would naturally be a higher percentage, since there are fewer HSs)
As far as Pencader goes, it was disheartening to see how long and how often that school was in trouble. Intervention should have happened years ago.
I’m really not sure what you’re looking for from me?
I’m not looking for anything but I do feel the need to defend my choices when I read comments like this:
“I don’t have any sympathy for failed charter parents. From what I’ve seen people want Charter Schools to be free private schools. And by “private” I mean “fewer minorities.”
and this..
“Jason… That may be the first thing I’ve read from you that I agree with 110%!!! Could this be love?”
and this:
“Guess I’m saying… be careful believing everything you hear about public schools. Also, notice how when you’re with a group of parents complaining about public schools that either their kids aren’t in public schools (which usually reinforces their arguments against public schools)”
and this just made me laugh (show me a private school that looks like Pencader, Kuumba, Prestige, Aspira, or even DMA which has 20% low income)
“I would imagine more public schools in NCCo would be able to do this if the potential funding for these programs wasn’t going to fund Charter Schools so people can get what basically amounts to a free private school education at the expense of the people who don’t win the lottery”
and this:
“I don’t see why the solution to failing public schools is opening a tax payer funded, separate, business oriented “charter school” in a District instead of having a public school in the district with a department that specializes in business classes. Put the damn Pencader Charter School right inside of a district high school and let students “choice” into that public school if they’re not in the District.
Why do we need a Military charter school when every high school in Delaware has a JROTC program? Wouldn’t that money be better spent enhancing ALL of the JROTC programs to include the Homeland Security bullshit?
Problem solved, tax payer money saved. Close them all down, incorporate them into existing public schools”
– actually I would agree with this one, but how many children do we push through the messed up system waiting for this to happen, parents don’t know how to help fix these things, so they walk.
“I get that you’re upset, pencadermom, and I’d hope you’re planning on working to help your feeder school – a school in which none of your kids attend.”- I do want to do this. Not sure how. I feel like I have been spending my time just worrying about my kids own schools, two of which were always ‘in the news’. I guess start by going to board meetings. My time, like everyone elses, is tight and I feel like I have been spending my ‘free time’ reading and writing about education on these blogs and not time doing anything about it. Again, not sure where to start besides attending a board meeting. Suggestions? Actually, I feel like I now (now, meaning since I starting reading Kilroy) have become aware of things that I didn’t pay too much attention to in the past. Things that I either didn’t notice or didn’t realize could have an impact on education. Someone on Kilroy wrote the other day about kids dropping out or not showing up to school due to transportation issues. Something I hadn’t thought about. After reading that, for the first time, after driving the same route for years, noticed the lack of sidewalks by Christiana High School and kids walking along the street in rather heavy traffic. How is it legal for kids to be a ‘walker’ but not have sidewalks. Some areas there is barely even a shoulder. I could go on but just realized it is Saturday afternoon and I haven’t done one thing today. have a good day. Seriously, I do want to be part of the solution. I have neighbors who do too. Would love to get ideas from you or others on here about what to do.
Pencadermom, if you want to see a “messed up system” look at Pencader. It is a complete failure.
I stand by my statement, close down these charter schools, incorporate what they do into the public school system.
I don’t think anyone was personally attacking your choice. In fact, I said above, “What’s sad about Pencader is that it was one of the truly diverse charter schools.” You left that quote out.
Again, I get that you’re upset, and I completely understand. You had a stake in this race. You lived this. Are you happy with your son’s education at Pencader? If so, then it’s still really sad, but you’re one of the fortunate ones. Your son will graduate before the school closes and move onto college.
Pandora, without on this blog about my son who likes to be private, and you personally know his story anyway, I will just say that I think he got as good of an education as he would have from any other of his options, which at the time included Glasgow, Christiana, Newark, DMA, but less than if he would have gone to Conrad or CSW. Mostly because of his love for science and his strength in math and science. Since he didn’t get picked at CSW, in hindsight, I would have figured out transportation for Conrad – he could have easily gone there, we didn’t have transportation.