Dickey, I must take issue with your use of the term “free education.” I assume you are referring to a tax-funded, as opposed to corporate-funded, education. There is no such thing as a “free education.” Someone, somewhere, always pays.

Thanks for this, Terry. As usual, my relatively recent attention to the problems of PPS and the politics and policy of public education is well-informed by you and everybody at NSA.

http://joesschool.blogs.com/ol...../post.html

Anyway awhile back I wrote a a post abut it. You might find it interesting.

I’ll believe it when I see it. Will they honor the terms of the PPS contract, or negotiate their own?

…all their teachers are certified…

Maybe now (not sure; guess I’ll take your word for it), but not necessarily in the future. From the job description for teachers on their Web site: “While an Oregon Teaching License is preferable, related experience and expertise may be considered as a substitute for certification.”

Arthur Academy serves many underpriviledged…

Serving underprivileged students is one of the big selling points of charters. (See my post today about the Gates grant to an LA charter organization.)

But why is it that we can’t serve these children with traditional neighborhood public schools? Why the need for the middle men? From your description, it sounds like Arthur wants to be just like a good, neighborhood public school. Why don’t we work it so that everybody in the district can have this, without having to go to a charter school?

And what about serving special-needs kids in charter schools? I know, special ed funding has been cut to the bone in PPS, so it’s tough to get services in the neighborhood schools too. But at least there’s something there (even if PPS will do everything imaginable to thwart your efforts to get services). It is very difficult, if not impossible, for a small charter school to absorb the costs of, say, a full-time aid for one student. It’s much easier to spread these costs across the whole district.

Which is what this ultimately comes down to: Are we all in this together, or are we each just going to do whatever we can to better our own lot? I’ve said it many times before. Humankind has achieved greatness with collective effort aimed at mutual betterment of society. Civilization has stumbled when we’ve turned in the other direction.

That said, Arthur Academy is considering going union, all their teachers are certified, and they get absolutely no funding for building space so why would they be under the same restrictions? Oh and Arthur Academy serves many underpriviledged (see Woodburn) and is a *tradtional* program, not a “magnet” type of program.

My son does not go to a charter as we do not have one in my city. Instead, I fight the system for him to receive a free and appropriate education. At this time, I spend more time teaching math and reading in a scientifically validated way using scientifically validated curriculum than the public school. It is unfortunate, really.

Charter schools don’t have to be corporate sponsored to fall under what I call the “corporate schools agenda”. This is the idea that schools should operate in a “free market” and compete for students and funding. This agenda is pushed by national foundations like Gates and Broad, and locally by the Portland Schools Foundation.

It also happens to be opposed by actual educators and those with real experience and success in education reform.

This corporate mentality is anti-tax, anti-teacher, anti-student, and anti-neighborhood school. Your charter school may be just fine and dandy, and probably doesn’t feel corporate at all. But the overarching policies pushed by people like Van Brunt lead ultimately to the commodification of human life and the further demise of strong neighborhood schools.