Charter schools and pre-k: A good match for North Carolina?
By Ann Doss Helms
Providing high-quality prekindergarten for low-income
children is an idea that should unite the right and left, according to the
report by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the National Alliance for Public
Charter Schools.
“What could be a more ideal solution, both politically and
substantively, than high-quality charter schools?” the introduction to the
report asks.
But “Pre-K and Charter Schools: Where State Policies Create
Barriers to Collaboration” rates North Carolina as one of the nation’s least
hospitable states for charter pre-K (read an executive summary here and the
full report here).
Who wouldn’t want the KIPPs or Achievement Firsts or
Uncommon Schools of the world to be able to get started with three-year-olds
and work their edu-charm as early as possible?
North Carolina has a flourishing K-12 charter school
movement and a publicly funded pre-K program. State law doesn’t say whether
charters can include pre-K, but the N.C. Department of Public Instruction only
issues K-12 charters. Low pre-K funding is also a barrier, the report says:
North Carolina provides $5,067 per pupil for N.C. Pre-K and $8,277 for K-12
charter students.
The tally notes that “at least five” N.C. charter schools
offer pre-K through affiliated organizations.
The report urges N.C. lawmakers to clarify charter law to
allow pre-K classes and to expand funding “to cover the cost of delivering a
high-quality education.” It notes that Republicans tend to support charter
expansion while Democrats are more enthusiastic about public preschool.
“This horse trade – more support for charter schools in
exchange for more support for preschool – might represent a bipartisan way
forward,” the report says. “Why not charter preschools? Why not charter
elementary schools that start at age three? Policymakers, this is low-hanging
fruit. Why not pick it?”
Ann Doss Helms: 704-358-5033, @anndosshelms
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/education/your-schools-blog/article27947353.html
NO taxpayer funded pre-K! It does not work!
ReplyDeleteWould love for Ann to do a story on HHS's finding that pre-K doesn't work.
President Obama loves to tout the success of a multi-billion-dollar early education program that supposedly helps reduce poverty, yet a government study reveals that it really doesn’t work.
--->>>Obama keeps pushing the federally-funded universal preschool program known as Head Start even though his own Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has determined that it’s ineffective. Remember how he cited “study after study” showing that the government’s investment in universal preschool pays for itself during the State of Union earlier this month?
It turns out that one of those studies, published last fall by his own HHS, reveals that Head Start isn’t working despite its whopping $8 billion a year price tag. In fact, children who participated in Head Start did worse in math and had problems with social interactions by third grade than those who didn’t go through the federal program.
“There were initial positive impacts from having access to Head Start, but by the end of 3rd grade there were very few impacts….in any of the four domains of cognitive, social-emotional, health and parenting practices,” according to the HHS study. “The few impacts that were found did not show a clear pattern of favorable or unfavorable impacts for children.”<<<---
Status quo, alive and well.
Well, I had to comment on this one in the CO article...
ReplyDeleteI'll probably follow the links and read the report later, but I'm pretty sure it's like most of the others. Nothing much new has happened in education for a decade or so from what I can tell.
I swear the gubmint just lowered the standards on these education studies just because they are desperate for ANYTHING which MIGHT help close that stupid "achievement gap".
And gawd knows we'll spend a frickin' fortune trying to right a wrong that doesn't WANT to be righted just because we are a "rich" country with unlimited resources, but so many "poor" people who just really expect everyone else to make their lives better while expending as little personal effort as possible...
Because that's just how we roll now.
LOL..at least you can comment.
DeleteI'm assuming you coughed up the "pay to play" fee to be able to do so.
I'm sure the Observer appreciates you helping lower their debt and Ann can get a paycheck.
Nah. Never paid CO.
DeleteI just set up my browser to not use cookies. Never had a problem.
As for Fakebook, I create a gmail account and create a new Fakebook account with some name like Sham Shamask each time Fakebook shuts me down for having a fake name.
Then I do it over again. I get about a week or two out of each fake name, but Fakebook lets me keep the same name Sham, so that's what I use.
Just like there are really more than a few John Smiths in the world, there are multiple Shams, so they let it go until whatever happens that makes them question my "identity".
It works. And I get about two weeks use out of each sham "Sham" Fakebook account.
Then I think those posts disappear when my account is shut down.
Which doesn't bother me at all because it's usually well after the fact...
Also, Wiley, you have to remember that I'm an "old school" IT guy.
DeleteI can usually figure out how crap works and work around it if I want to.
It's how I used to earn my keep...
In a related, note I just saw how some "hackers" figured out how to remotely control some critical features on Chrysler automobiles, such as brakes, engine, transmission, and, of course, the stereo...
DeleteMaybe they should put something like that in the CATS trolley, so passengers could take over the braking system on their mobile phones.
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ReplyDeleteAnd speaking of "education"...
ReplyDeleteHow about those 200 hours of "training" for that trolley operator?
Everything except how to stop the damned thing.
I wonder who his relatives are and how he got that job?
And I also wonder if we'll EVER KNOW.
Sounds like a nice, cushy gubmint job for a relative of someone who has a little clout with the officials, eh?
Again, we'll NEVER see anyone investigate that...
Reminds me of when I worked at an LNG plant in Indonesia decades ago.
I went there right after there was an explosion at the plant which killed a few people. Found out the guy who was asleep at the wheel in the control room the night of the explosion was a relative of one of the top honchos.
The guy was a real moron. I know because after he blew up the plant, they "demoted" him to a computer operator, and I had the "privilege" of seeing what a moron he was on a daily basis.
I didn't find out he was the guy who torched the plant until I was there half a year and kept asking why that idiot was a computer operator...
Unfortunately, our society seems to resemble some third-world spitholes more and more as time passes.
I visited Austin TX for the first time this summer after my son moved there for his first job after college graduation. While there we visited the Lyndon B. Johnson museum where I learned that the Head Start program was founded in 1965 as part of LBJ's "Great Society" campaign. "The War on Povery"
ReplyDeletealso included Head Start funding a new TV series called Sesame Street. Although the museum did not go into the controversial details regarding the 50-year-old effectiveness of Head Start I'm glad Big Bird and the Cookie Monster are still around.
"C" is for Cookie...
...and 50 years later, it still hasn't accomplished much, if anything.
DeletePerhaps, but you can't argue against Head Starts contributions to the advancement of puppetry.
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DeleteSo The Great Society also brought us Tickle Me Elmo?
DeleteFigures.
The slippery slope strikes again...
And while we were in the process of sending a man to the moon (STEM), lucrative puppetry (ART) was not lost in the realm of public education.
ReplyDeleteSomewhat laughing at my defense of late 1960's public education policies....
ReplyDeleteNew Math and Open Classrooms anyone?
Thankfully, I was spared "New Math" as a youngster.
DeleteOtherwise, I would have probably become a lawyer.
The funny thing is, though, that "New Math" is pretty much exactly what I studied in college.
Set theory, topology, etc., etc.
Strangely enough, a lot of that stuff was very useful in computing.
Even though few people could have told you so at the time.
Relational databases were based on Set Theory, which was a part of the "New Math". But commercial relational databases didn't really take off until the 1980's.
And we all know about how different bases, Boolean algebra, etc., etc. work in the digital world.
Or at least we used to.
I don't think as many people study things at that low of a level today.
"Pro Social Skills".
ReplyDeleteThis is the latest.
I'm pretty sure I'd flunk ANYTHING called "social skills".
DeleteAt least that's my opinion. And probably the opinion of the makers of a standardized "career" test I took in college called the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory.
In THAT test, it said I would make a real good computer programmer or Air Force officer.
And probably one of the worlds WORST priests or social workers.
And here I am today...
Having successfully avoided both the priesthood and social work.
While, regrettably, never joining the Air Force where my true potential could have been unleashed on unsuspecting civilians.
While I successfully avoided a career as a fracking engineer.
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ReplyDelete