A Comment At Kilroy’s Sparks Another Education Post

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I'll post the original comment from commenter, Deliberate_1, first and then my reply. Click inside to read it. After reading this yesterday my head was spinning. First, this guy is really angry and defensive. I almost didn't respond, but then Cassandra came over last night and we got to talking. What follows is what we discussed - a mind meld of pandora and cassandra. Pull up a chair, this is going to take a while.

Education Segregation: Delaware Black Caucus Threatens To Sue

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While Race to the Top may be the trigger, the re-segregation of our schools was well underway long before RTTT with the help of Choice, Neighborhood School's Law, and Charters. Jea Street spells it out: "The new millennium term is 'charter school' and 'choice school. I call it segregation. There are black charter schools and there are predominantly white charter schools. You can call it what you want, but it is what it is."

School Choice By District, Or One Of These Districts Is Not Like The Other

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When it comes to Choice the Red Clay Consolidated School District wins. Take a look at these numbers:
Red Clay: # of Students in District: 15,954 Total Choice Students: 4946 Christina: # of Students in District: 17,190 Total Choice Students: 1409 Brandywine: # of Students in District: 10,657 Total Choice Students: 1982 Colonial: # of Students in District: 9,925 Total Choice Students: 296

Jack Wells Questions Red Clay

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If you aren't on Jack Wells' email list, I'm surprised - since everyone seems to be on this list! But if you're not... welcome to dueling emails. It begins with the one Mr. Wells sent to Red Clay on its hiring practices. Ms. Floore, the CFO of Red Clay responds.

Rick Jensen Interviews Red Clay Officials On Referendum

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Kilroy live-blogged the show. Go over to his place and read the whole thing! Before I get into what was said during the interview let me say that it looks like we've found a tax increase that Rick Jensen supports. According to Kilroy, when Red Clay was asked about building a school in the city, rather than the suburbs, their answer was to cite the number of Charter Schools that opened in the city. Seriously? Charter Schools are not Red Clay schools, and that statement sounded as if RCCD was saying, "We don't need to consider our city residents since, if they aren't happy with our RCCD schools, they can leave our traditional public schools and go to Charter schools.

NAACP Issues Charter School Resolution

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Here's what caught my attention:
WHEREAS, in some cases, charter schools have become a school model that is used to segregate students; and
Ya think? Charter Schools have also allowed School Districts to shift their responsibilities to these students to Charters. Which is why I've always wondered why Charter proponents wanted to serve on Public School Boards. Always struck me as being an employee of Pepsi, but promoting Coke. And you gotta love the way a Public School District Board's plan for your public school is to give it away. It's almost as if they're saying, "Hey, we stink at this education thingy, so we'll give it to someone else."

In Red Clay It Shouldn’t Be City vs Suburbs

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I'm not even going to link to the article in today's News Journal, because it really doesn't say much and the reporter missed the opportunity to report on the real story - a story that involved parents and citizens all over the district are discussing around their kitchen tables, on blogs and at work. This story has several parts. First, not all Red Clay Schools are created equal. For an interesting discussion on this check out Kilroy's posts on Red Clay (there's a lot of them) and this conversation taking place on The Seventh Type. Yes, we've been over this, and if you need to catch up check out my posts here and here. One of the problems I'm seeing is the split in the District. Suburbanites want their neighborhood suburban schools. City parents don't want their schools to suffer because of these new schools, and want the District to invest in these schools.

Red Clay Referendum And City Schools

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The Red Clay Consolidated School District is holding a Capital Referendum on February 28, 2012. Included in this referendum is the addition of another new suburban elementary school. Let me begin by saying that I wouldn't have a problem with the new school if Red Clay would ensure that its other schools didn't suffer when a new school opened. Unfortunately, this hasn't been the case. In the past 10 days my email has been filled with letters from community advocates and parents from the Highlands, Warner and Shortlidge community. Everyone has the same concern: New schools hurt existing schools, especially city schools. The evidence backs up their concerns.

An New Idea About Affording College

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As most of you know, the Pandora household is preparing to send our first born off to college. We actually received our first second acceptance letter! For those of you not here yet... the cost of college is enough to take your breath away, which is why this article caught my attention.

Bullying Okay If Done In The Name Of God

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One only has to venture over to a Conservative blog to understand that if these people ever got their way they'd burn the rest of us at the stake. But until that day arrives they're content to let children be bullied in the name of their morality and their god.