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"It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new ones." Machiavelli
Charter School StoopidBy champlain, Section Diaries
Albany has been inundated with charter schools, most of which are run or conceived by wealthy white men from places like Clifton Park, Loudonville and New York City. Charter schools use taxpayer dollars but fail to give actual taxpayers a say in how the dollars are spent at these charter schools. Charter schools are privately run - but they are funded with public taxpayer dollars.
Albany residents voted on charter schools in May 2005 when they were asked if they support paying for charter schools out of the public school budget. By a vote of 4519 to 996, Albany voters said NO to the charter school tax grab. Too bad it was a non-binding vote. One of the charter school blowhards was quoted at the time as saying the vote was a propaganda gimmick. A public vote is not a gimmick, its called democracy. The white rich male suburbanites who push charter schools say they are providing a 'choice' - that may be so, but they are doing it with precious Albany taxpayer dollars. These rich white suburbanites are creating a separate school system in a city that has long had a troubled tax base because Albany is awash with not-for-profit insitutions and NYS facilities who pay no property taxes. And what do Albany residents get? Higher property taxes, bigger school taxes, higher water rates, less services. Albany residents pay more and more while a bunch of rich white suburban men use Albany taxpayer dollars to push some twisted vision of education 'reform' and go around and spout George W. Bush-isms like 'the soft bigotry of low expectations.' The charter school tax grab is - TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENATION. CHARTER SCHOOLS SANITIZE THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT I have seen big and expensive ads on buses and billboards trumpeting charter schools - all paid for with taxpayer dollars. I've seen t-shirts worn by Albany residents and printed by the charter school industry that say 'my child, my choice'. But I'm not sold on charter schools. In fact there is substantial evidence that charter schools do a WORSE job at education than traditional public schools - and now we have this: A March 19th Los Angeles Times article reports on an L.A. charter school that fired two teachers who signed on to a student protest. The students were protesting because school administrators forbade a poem about Emmett Till: Administrators at a Los Angeles charter school forbade students from reciting a poem about civil rights icon Emmett Till during a Black History Month program recently, saying his story was unsuitable for an assembly of young children. Teachers and students said the administration suggested that the Till case -- in which the teenager was beaten to death in Mississippi after allegedly whistling at a white woman -- was not fitting for a program intended to be celebratory, and that Till's actions could be viewed as sexual harassment. Emmett Till was an African-American teenager from Chicago, Illinois who was brutally murdered in a region of Mississippi known as the Mississippi Delta in the small town of Money in Leflore County. Emmett Till was fourteen years-old when he was tortured, murdered and mutilated in 1955 during a summer visit to his uncle in Money, Mississippi. His murder was one of the key events that energized the Civil Rights Movement. The main suspects for the crime--both caucasian men--were acquitted, but later admitted to committing the crime. Till's mother had an open casket funeral to let everyone see how her son had been brutally killed. He had been shot and beaten; he was then thrown into the Tallahatchie River with a seventy-five pound cotton gin fan tied to his neck with barbed wire to work as a weight. His body remained in the river for three days until it was discovered and retrieved by two fishermen. A photo of Till's grotequely battered body as it appeared in the casket was put on the cover of JET magazine and sparked civil rights organizing. This is one of things that has always put me sour on charter schools. No teacher unions, no tenure, no free speech - for students OR teachers. If any teacher doesn't do or say exactly what the private school adminstrators want - YOU'RE FIRED. This week, it's an L.A. charter school sanitizing the civil rights movement and claiming (wrongly I might add) that Emmett Till could be considered to be committing sexual harrassment by whistling at a white woman. Here's a frighteningly ahistorical quote from one of the school's co-founders and executive adminstrators: "Our whole goal is how do we get these kids to not look at all of the bad things that could happen to them and instead focus on the process of how do we become the next surgeon or the next politician," said Celerity co-founder and Executive Director Vielka McFarlane. "We don't want to focus on how the history of the country has been checkered but on how do we dress for success, walk proud and celebrate all the accomplishments we've made." If this is what happens in Los Angeles (not exactly a cultural backwater) we can all just imagine what may be going on in some of the other charter schools in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse or Albany. Hopefully Eliot Spitzer will be talked out of lifting the cap on new charter schools in NYS. Los Angeles has provided a frightening example of how charter schools are more about indoctrination and oppression than education and a complete knowledge of history.
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All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective companies. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 2005 The Management