Quote:
Originally Posted by blueash
I am amazed at the wrong information presented here. Charter school are not simply public schools operated by a person or group. They are entirely free to decline admission to anyone who doesn't fit their criteria. As they have their own curriculum and discipline that can, and usually does, differ from the public school system they effectively exclude the difficult student.
One misbehavior, gone. Parents don't actively support the school, gone. Have autism, we don't have a program for that, gone.
For example our local Villages Charter school has this rule:
"Parent Involvement Information: Qualifying parent(s) (father/mother/stepfather/stepmother) and/or spouse (or designated adult if single parent) must complete *20 hours every year for each school on campus where children are enrolled. Parent involvement is mandatory for your child to attend The Villages Charter School"
Do they provide all the special ed services a regular public school is required to offer? No
"While VCS does not provide all services or programs for students with disabilities, the Sumter County School District(SCSD) has programming available for any student need."
Every complaint about charter school effectively draining the public schools of the easily educated student and leaving behind those students with behavior problems, learning problems, disinterested parents, significant autism.... etc. is easily proven just by reading the school website. And anyone who thinks this is not what is dooming the public schools is ignoring reality. |
So what?????? Why should any school hold back the best and the brightest to cater to the lowest common denominator????? Do we really need to "mainstream" behavior problems and autism into the same classroom and track as students that are motivated to learn and excel???
Here is an example from 25 years ago in Central NY: A mother successfully sued the school district to "mainstream" her daughter into a regular classroom. The problem was that the "student" was so developmentally disabled that she was non-verbal, no bladder or bowel control, unable to even feed herself, and was breathing through a trach that required suctioning every 3-4 minutes by the full time nurse that accompanied her, also paid for by the district. Why?? So "Mom" did not need to babysit her daughter or pay for help during school hours. And of course there was absolutely no potential for this unfortunate girl to learn anything.
Believe me, the other parents were outraged, their kids were in the lowest performing classroom in the district, and many kids did not want to go to school because of the stench. The teacher had the highest absentee rate in the district as well.
So I don't care how "enlightened" people feel about "mainstreaming" problem children---it is a BAD IDEA. There are plenty of special programs for such kids