Simon

If I've ever seen a better reason to shut-up, I can't recall it.

If you think that these people actually have your kids' best interest in mind, you're living in fantasy land.

I enjoy the irony of seeing a guy who complains about teachers gleefully bragging about how he would really just love to be one of the few shltty ones. Props on your mad hypocrisy.

Yes, you are an excellent representative of blind conservative doctrine. Why don't you tell us some more about how conservatives have principles but liberals have agendas? You can cry about it all you want but you're nothing more than the same ridiculous caricature that gatorboy is.

If you have anything better (or even equally accurate), I'd be glad to check it out. Yes they did; and here's the thing about that. If you look into that statement you'll see that it covers all of NOLA, not just the schools taken over by charters. To my knowledge nobody has broken down (or published) the data far enough to see if there is any measurable differences between the improvements in the remaining public schools and the new charter schools. My guess is that, like the vast majority of charters, there isn't any real difference in their testing scores because if there were, one side of the debate would be seizing on it as evidence. Another thing to note about the N'awilns case (which was admittedly probably a bad example for me to have used because there are so many odd variables) is that when the agreement was put in place the city had two caveats; one was that the charters had to be operated by non-profits and the other was that control had to remain local. These are two things that are very atypical with most charter privateers, most of which are definitely profit-driven with no ties to the local district. So basically what we have is an absolute best-case scenario in NOLA, with the worst schools in the US struck by tragedy and then being administered by local charters who aren't driven by profit. And still with that best-case scenario, there's not likely any difference in the results between them and the more traditional public schools. The profit-driven charters who are only interested in stealing public money are not going to have even these negligible results when they implement their plans to toss out professional teachers and replace them with untrained wage-slave babysitters and focus their efforts on nothing but drilling students on standardized testing scores so they can claim "improvement". Meanwhile some self-interested jackasses are going to be raking in your tax dollars while your kids are given a McDonald's level education and communities are losing local control of their schools to people who are going to bail on them the second things get tough. Don't fall for it, man. These mercenaries are beneath your support.

I didn't believe it was you until I saw the gadfly designation

c) none of the above You have more than two choices, you know. When you run around doing nothing but jabbering about how bad libs are and extolling the virtues of conservative dogma, then how do you think folks are going to view you?

I've seen a fair amount of propaganda from both sides of the debate and I thought this report was the most even-handed, thorough and objective thing I had come across. If you're inclined and have the time, give it an open-minded look. I thought it was a fair assessment of data with a reasonable conclusion based on available evidence

That sonofabitch does the same thing to me. He had me at Hello.....

It's like a bad penitentiary film isn't it ? - ) Anybody who would need me to add substance to the simple declaration that people who blindly follow their political masters are problematic is likely a person who blindly follows their political masters.

Did you read the report I provided? If it's too much for your towering intellect; here's a shorter read: New Orleans' Charters You can find many other articles in USNews, NYT, etc if you take 5 minutes to look.

Forgot to mention that the recent walking back of federal standards is doing exactly that. Its very interesting when you consider just how often the federal government actually cedes acquired power back to the states.

They can write til the cows come home. It's nothing but noise at this point

The guy that won't do his own research is accusing the guy who already provided research of being lazy?

Do your own homework; this isn't a charter school. Or take the time to read the very thorough report I've already provided and see how real estate and hedge funders are angling for your monies.

Your assumptions are up to their usual standards......

which is the exact opposite of what the majority of them are doing. I have no problem with business; put together some capital and open up some charter schools and see how you do. That's the American way and more power to you. But taking my tax dollars and filling your pockets while you cherry pick "certain" kids and have babysitters drill them on standardized tests is not.

I agree that relatively speaking the Dems have become much more like the Republican party over that time frame. But from an objective viewpoint, I don't think one doctrine is any more rigid than the other. I just see them as two sides of the same rigid coin.

And what benefits would those be? To streamline the process so they can spend as little as possible to have day care workers drill kids 6 hours a day on how to do better on standardized tests? And then when it doesn't work and it's not profitable enough, to abandon the district and go looking for a fresh set of suckers? That's the forward thinking plan for our education system?

Hoooray, my team is awesome and the other team sucks! Sorry, but I think that your partisan cheerleading is completely divorced from reality. I think there's too many people with too strong a belief in American freedoms and independence to allow something that extreme to happen in my lifetime. For gawd;s sake, they can't even get more thorough background checks passed and you're worried they're going to suddenly be able to toss the 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution?

If you agree that local control is more beneficial to schools and students (which I do), then the last entity you want involved is the charter privateers who are far more interested in your tax dollars than they are your kids.

"They" had better make sure they've found all the guns first ; - )

And you may continue not considering yourself at all...... I agree that it is absolutely problematic and that creeping government overreach has passed beyond the point of no return. But I'm not so paranoid that I think that there is somebody coming for my guns.

I don't believe for a second that a constitutional amendment supported by over half the populace is in any danger from your latest bogeyman.

Holy shlt, now we've seen it all...... I like a quality insult but it would be nice to see a little better balance from some folks. I understand this board skews right and that's OK; hell, half my opinions would probably qualify as conservative. But the total lack of self-awareness and introspection from so many people is problematic to me. I think that empty-headed, cheerleader nonsense is a huge reason this country cannot even lead itself, much less provide global leadership to a world in transition. I guess I would just hope we'd show more of the guts and brains to live up to the exceptionalism we like to proclaim.