She is not the first Republican to hold such a radical agenda, or even the first to articulate it, but a statement like that from someone who is seeking to be Governor of Massachusetts is without precedent.
It is on the order of Gov. Romney’s (Sr.) 1968 statement that he had been brainwashed by the Pentagon.
Whether a slip or no: Do you think that such a statement by a serious candidate for Governor would be anything but page one news, and dominate the rest of the campaign?
I predict that Healey will not be called on this in any serious way because she is a fringe candidate and, as everyone knows, they say wacked out stuff all the time.
Please share widely!
I believe it was a slip and part of a bigger GOP plan to reduce the number of people represented by unions. Unfortunately I believe you are correct and this will fall by the wayside
The remark was made in the middle of a scrum. I would slice that out of the tape, and accurately report that Muffy wants to eliminate community control of public schools. Why else would she aggressively expand charter schools, with favorable funding, while reducing state aid to publicly governed schools by 20%.
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Healey is against school committees and teachers unions. She wants to eliminate the public infrastructure in favor of a statewide voucher scheme.
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Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p.107-8 Oct 1, 2003
but neither Patrick nor John Kerry say we should wipe out community-run public education and replace it with market-driven charter schools.
I’m mixed on charter schools. I think they essentially allow some students to benefit at the expense of others.
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The charter school referenced above has one thing going toward it; students are not forced to attend it, they volunteer to attend it. Their parents want them to attend it.
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That cannot be said for a traditional public school. And that’s what makes up the difference.
However, that’s also true of “pilot schools” in Boston. Yet with identical demographics, the 14 charters outperform the 16 pilots on MCAS.
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So it may be that in addition to the “choice” component, there’s also an “execution and innovation” component.
What exactly is wrong with the concept of refashioning all public schools as charter schools?
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As progressives, should we be resisting experimentation and change?
Guess who said:
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If we had a system of standards and assessments in place, then as far as Im concerned every school should be a charter school.
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– Al Shanker, 1996, president of the American Federation of Teachers
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As they are constituted now, charter schools are a mix of experimentation, reform and a particularly noxious form of ‘free-market’ blarney: part experiment, part corrective and part economic tactic for de-funding district schools. It’s an end-run around the teachers union: Healey said as much last night. Now the teachers union isn’t perfect, but I much more get the sense they take the right things seriously when it comes to educating children. And I have long ago given up the illusion that some things can’t be corrupted by republican/conservative.
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Last nights scariest moment came when Kerry Healey started shouting that we should open all schools to ‘competition’. I don’t know about you, but I don’t wish to play games — and let’s be honest about what “competition” means — I don’t wish to play games with education. Competition and education are a toxic mix.
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Now if you can convince me that charter schools will be wholly and strictly about innovation in education, I am so there. I most certainly don’t trust Kerry Healey to get there.
If you want to make every public school a charter school, and bring the charters into the funding mechanism of the public schools, I suspect you would get whole hearted endorsement from the teachers unions.
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Why?
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Because essentially a charter school is merely a public school with the CRUSHING and ENORMOUSLY expensive bureaucracy of the public school system. The public education bureaucracy is the black hole that swallows up the money. Have you ever seen the payroll for Public Ed Administration? There are more 6 figure salaries than you can shake a stick at. The Deputy this and the Assistant that make 80 to 100 G’s a year. And then frequently have support staff. Not even Grace Ross talks about gutting the Public Ed bureaucracy.
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Also, most charter schools run pretty much as low-density neighborhood (though not in a strictly geographic sense) schools with small class sizes. I’m willing to bet that there have not been 5 schools built in this Commonwealth in the last 5 years that house only 500 students. Newsflash: it doesn’t matter if your 7 year-old has a 15-1 ratio in the classroom if they are getting dropped off at a school with 1,200 other students. Think I’m exaggerating? Just ask the city of Lawrence how many 1000+ elementary schools they have–complete with 16-year-old 8th graders.
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It is amazing to me that Kerry Healy and others will badmouth the teachers unions till the cows come home, but nobody is willing to take on the Education Bureaucracy, and neither will anyone on the political scene speak out against child warehouses: a failed experiment from the 70’s that even space strapped New York City is abandoning.
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So charterize all the schools? Sure, best thing we could do. Unfortunately, actual laws will have to be changed to dismantle the Ed Bureaucracy, and THAT will be damn near impossible. In the meanwhile, I would settle for getting rid of all the Pioneer Institute hacks that occupy the State Board of Ed, and doing a 180 degree turn on school planning and construction: go back to low-density neighborhood schools. They always worked, it’s just that somewhere along the way we lost the will to pay for them.
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Make that:
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essentially a charter school is merely a public school WITHOUT (or “sans” if you will) the CRUSHING and ENORMOUSLY expensive bureaucracy of the public school system.
Clearly, you have your facts backwards. Charters are thick with administrators. Where a school system may have a business administrator for several schools, each charter school has its own charter school.
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Why not wander off to the Department of Education website and look at one charter school’s budget, approved by the DOE. The charter (scroll to pages 43 & 44) anticipated $1,548,925 tuition for 175 students, then budgeted $436,500 for full time teachers and $393,750 for administrators.
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Look closely at the projected enrollment and the salary for the school director:
School year 2003: 100 students, School Director salary $105,000
School year 2004: 175 students, School Director salary $110,250
School year 2005: 250 students, School Director salary $115,763
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Look closely at the projected enrollment and other salaries for supervisors:
School year 2003: 100 students, Supervisor salary $195,000
School year 2004: 175 students, Supervisor salary $283,500
School year 2005: 250 students, Supervisor salary $297,676
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Could you imagine getting that budget through a town meeting? Could you imagine running for re-election to a school committee after pushing that budget?
You’re really not arguing the general from the specific are you? The name for that is “hasty generalization”.
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Have some charter schools been notorious? Yes. But if you were taking another example, like the school in Lawrence Kerry was highlighting, you would not find that kind of abuse.
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And your argument that the public schools have centralization proves nothing. A business manager? Have you really looked at the school administration for a town of over 50,000 in population? You’ll find more than a business manager.
On the average, the results aren’t better for charter schools than public schools. Absent that, it’s the union end-around that others have pointed out.
Yes, you are absolutely right, on average, they have NOT outperformed public schools.
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You would be very much mistaken if you think I am trying to champion charter schools, I am not. All I am saying is that if you take the more sucessful charter schools you will find a trend towards low-density neighborhood type schools with small class sizes. As well they will trend towards NOT have a crippling and overly expensive education bureacracy consuming their dollars and micro-managing their affairs.
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Overbureaucratization of the education apparatus and high volume, high density “centralized” schools are root causes of why and how education is not improving. These schools teach students reading, writing, and the fundamental lesson of citizenship in a mass society: alienation.
There is certainly room for some charter schools, but for the government to do as Healey suggests, is just away for the state to abdicate it’s responsibilities to the private sector. It’s a fiasco. Do you know there are towns in the US that have privatized all of their services? Worse, with the charter system only proposal, our tax dollars would subsidize the market. These schools would form lobby’s and press for more dollars. This just such a wingnut proposal. I think Healey is actually to the right of Romney. She keeps getting a pass with the press who keep asserting voters are “with Healey” on the issues. Yeah, right. Being a woman who now supposedly supports stem cell reseach and is pro-choice in no way makes Healey a moderate. She’s a nut. Further, we have an opportunity to elect a candidate who has a history of brokering deals between people and their governments and the private sector. Deval Patrick has managed worldwide legal affairs to one of the largest global companies. He was a political apointee to President Clinton. The Congress is about to be taken over by the Democrats in Washington. Having a rising star for our governor at a time when nationally our Party is about to gain control of Congress would be great for MA. I’ve decided Healey doesn’t deserve a one-on-one with Deval. What’s she got that Mihos and Ross don’t? She ought to go back to her adjunct position at Endicott.