7 ms·

I think this cuts both ways quite a lot more than the author admits. Bill Gates may not represent "the will of the people" but he also doesn't stand to benefit

by ksdale 11y ago

I think this cuts both ways quite a lot more than the author admits. Bill Gates may not represent "the will of the people" but he also doesn't stand to benefit nearly as much from "winning" as say, teacher's unions. I'm not nearly informed enough to have an opinion on the issue of charter schools, but these horrible billionaires seem to be acting in good faith to improve educational outcomes for everyone and that doesn't seem like that bad of a thing to me... It's probably true that people will open up charter schools for the sole purpose of making money and they will run some crappy schools, but it seems disingenuous to speak as though the public school side doesn't have an interest beyond protecting the children.

wavefunction 11y ago
The problem with the charter school movement is that its effectiveness is questionable. Often the charter schools attract the self-motivated or only accept certain candidates while turning others away. So the student population of these schools is generally predisposed towards educational performance. Some of the supposedly "successful" charter schools are run at a loss, subsidized by some outside institution or special interest. Without that subsidy, their students would likely perform more poorly. I think if you compared excellent charter schools to excellent public schools, you wouldn't see much difference between the two.
- brwnll 11y ago
  The specifics of charter school success isn't really the main concept of the article. I believe the grandparent is pointing out the writer attacks the "billionaire philanthropists" donations as an assault on democracy, without acknowledging that the main donors on the other side were all vested interest groups (Teachers Unions, etc)
  - r00fus 11y ago
    In this case, I think I trust vested interests (teachers unions) more than unaccountable external parties with billions of dollars. I also question whether it's "philanthropy" or just plain business - meaning these foundations see a way to make a profitable "omelet" by breaking the public education "eggs"?
    - barney54 11y ago
      But the vested interests(teacher's unions) aren't vested to protect educational outcomes, but the teachers. I don't see why we should trust them more than large donors to charter school campaigns.
  - bobwaycott 11y ago
    The article more than acknowledged the vested interests on the opposing side. The author even breaks down their actual campaign contributions and budgets. I'm not sure what you think it means to acknowledge both sides, but even despite the article's obvious biases, there was very clear delineation of both sides, their budgets, and their impacts.
- darawk 11y ago
  You can't make the leap between "has subsidy" and "would likely perform more poorly without subsidy". In nearly all cases charter schools outperform public schools. It may be that this is partially or entirely explained by the factors that you mentioned, but to my knowledge, there is no actual evidence of that.
  - ZeroGravitas 11y ago
    Here's some evidence: https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/unspinning-data-on-new-jersey-charter-schools/ https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/unspinning... There's various other entries on that blog that cover the same topic with graphs and numbers. Basically, once you correct for disabled students, english as a second language, and poverty, the charter schools don't do any better than standard public schools. An interesting question is whether people realise this, and are actually quite happy to throw other kids under the bus to give their own children an advantage.
  - pessimizer 11y ago
    > In nearly all cases charter schools outperform public schools. This is fiction.
  - bobwaycott 11y ago
    The article cites information that refutes this. Roughly speaking, 50% are equivalent to public schools, a quarter are better, and a quarter are worse. 75% are not better, which is way beyond "nearly all cases", unless 25% is "nearly all" to your reckoning.
muddi900 11y ago
Charter schools' biggest failure is that they do not have the restrictions on religious indoctrination that public schools have. A lot of them are just public-subsidized religious schools, something that can be considered undemocratic, since the principals of American democracy are rooted in secularism. That being said, if you believe that the American academic paradigm is broken, and you have a lot of money, what are you supposed to do?
- wmf 11y ago
  Maybe you're supposed to test your ideas at a scale smaller than a state first.
- ansible 11y ago
  That being said, if you believe that the American academic paradigm is broken, and you have a lot of money, what are you supposed to do? Well, we could do actual science. We find a couple cities of at least 100K population, with roughly the same demographics, wealth, etc. and test out different policies. Of course, some of the people involved in the debate are already anti-science, so I don't think it will be politically feasible.

by ksdale 11y ago

wavefunction 11y ago

The problem with the charter school movement is that its effectiveness is questionable. Often the charter schools attract the self-motivated or only accept certain candidates while turning others away. So the student population of these schools is generally predisposed towards educational performance. Some of the supposedly "successful" charter schools are run at a loss, subsidized by some outside institution or special interest. Without that subsidy, their students would likely perform more poorly. I think if you compared excellent charter schools to excellent public schools, you wouldn't see much difference between the two.

brwnll 11y ago
The specifics of charter school success isn't really the main concept of the article. I believe the grandparent is pointing out the writer attacks the "billionaire philanthropists" donations as an assault on democracy, without acknowledging that the main donors on the other side were all vested interest groups (Teachers Unions, etc)
- r00fus 11y ago
  In this case, I think I trust vested interests (teachers unions) more than unaccountable external parties with billions of dollars. I also question whether it's "philanthropy" or just plain business - meaning these foundations see a way to make a profitable "omelet" by breaking the public education "eggs"?
  - barney54 11y ago
    But the vested interests(teacher's unions) aren't vested to protect educational outcomes, but the teachers. I don't see why we should trust them more than large donors to charter school campaigns.
- bobwaycott 11y ago
  The article more than acknowledged the vested interests on the opposing side. The author even breaks down their actual campaign contributions and budgets. I'm not sure what you think it means to acknowledge both sides, but even despite the article's obvious biases, there was very clear delineation of both sides, their budgets, and their impacts.
darawk 11y ago
You can't make the leap between "has subsidy" and "would likely perform more poorly without subsidy". In nearly all cases charter schools outperform public schools. It may be that this is partially or entirely explained by the factors that you mentioned, but to my knowledge, there is no actual evidence of that.
- ZeroGravitas 11y ago
  Here's some evidence: https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/unspinning-data-on-new-jersey-charter-schools/ https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/unspinning... There's various other entries on that blog that cover the same topic with graphs and numbers. Basically, once you correct for disabled students, english as a second language, and poverty, the charter schools don't do any better than standard public schools. An interesting question is whether people realise this, and are actually quite happy to throw other kids under the bus to give their own children an advantage.
- pessimizer 11y ago
  > In nearly all cases charter schools outperform public schools. This is fiction.
- bobwaycott 11y ago
  The article cites information that refutes this. Roughly speaking, 50% are equivalent to public schools, a quarter are better, and a quarter are worse. 75% are not better, which is way beyond "nearly all cases", unless 25% is "nearly all" to your reckoning.

muddi900 11y ago

Charter schools' biggest failure is that they do not have the restrictions on religious indoctrination that public schools have. A lot of them are just public-subsidized religious schools, something that can be considered undemocratic, since the principals of American democracy are rooted in secularism. That being said, if you believe that the American academic paradigm is broken, and you have a lot of money, what are you supposed to do?

wmf 11y ago
Maybe you're supposed to test your ideas at a scale smaller than a state first.
ansible 11y ago
That being said, if you believe that the American academic paradigm is broken, and you have a lot of money, what are you supposed to do? Well, we could do actual science. We find a couple cities of at least 100K population, with roughly the same demographics, wealth, etc. and test out different policies. Of course, some of the people involved in the debate are already anti-science, so I don't think it will be politically feasible.