Some call me "Flem"

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I'm an elementary school teacher turned high school English teacher, School-Based Teacher Leader (SBTL), and adjunct professor here in Philly. These posts are the views, as I see them, from room 105, my first classroom number. Enjoy, engage, and share!

Friday, September 26, 2014

School Choice Week huh?

Well,
Many politicians and ed-reformy people chose to change the original vision of charter schools and made them market-type businesses competing for "seats" (Their words not mine. I don't like to think of feeling, breathing, intelligent children as seats, but humans. I digress).

With the establishment of these charters, strained budgets of school districts become "strain"ger now that these quasi-public schools need to be funded. Such moves have forced the layoffs of thousands of teaches and the closings of dozens of real public schools. This, in short, has widened the resource gap and has all but doomed the real public school to failure.

Despite these deliberate efforts, many parents chose to keep their children in the public schools that they themselves once attended and received a high quality educational experience. Truth be told, many of these same politicians, and other ed-reformy folks also attended one of the many thousands of public schools in the nation. There were no charters.

Apparently it's school choice week or whatever (lower case intentional). Code for: Go to the charters! In addition to the fact that many charter schools have a budget for advertising, another issue that I have is that there is no positive media support and air time for the public schools that have been the corner stones and academic foundations in our communities for many generations.

You say it's school choice week? Acknowledge the choice that many parents are making to keep their children in the public schools, they themselves attended!!!

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