“Sorry, Zarwen, I got distracted by the libertarian fringe for a moment.”

With all due respect Steve, your post contained references to “free markets”, “comprehensive education” and “small schools” in addition to “charter schools”. And several of your non-libertarian commentators also strayed from your “single topic” requirement quoted above.

I’m all for bloggers who can adhere to a single topic in their posts and require commentators to stay on topic. Unfortunately, the vast majority of bloggers are seldome able to meet the challenge and the lack of continuity in their commentators comments usually results in repetition, bias and dysfunction rather than anything approaching consensus.

Offered in the spirit of constructive audit, Howard

I too, am pleased about the way the vote turned out on Monday. Being raised in the US, I was socialized to think choice is a good thing. I still think it is. I want choices, and think we function better when given choices.

But as Steve said, giving “choices” while sacrificing a child’s right to a public, quality education is never going to be okay.

I hope you’re right, Steve, maybe things are changing when it comes to choice. Let’s try not to get our hopes up.

Lisa

Not to be rude but DUH, it’s a JOKE. That’s what she said, “throw the baby out with the dishes”. When we all know that’s not how the expression goes. It’s a Bushism from an earlier time.

(I guess if you have to explain the joke it’s really not that funny.)

The denied charters were Ivy, New Harvest, Portland Web and Early College Academy, and Pioneer Technology.

And another question occurs: what is the likelihood that any of these rejected charters will appeal to the state, as Southwest Charter successfully did last year?

BTW, Rubycakes, I don’t know what Nancy Reagan said, but the original expression was “throw the baby out with the bathwater.”

The topic of this post is the school board’s Monday vote to deny four applications for new charter schools. I welcome discussion of that.

If you want to discuss school vouchers, the virtues of free market absolutism, or how the evil teacher’s unions have ruined public education, I invite you to get your own blog. They’re free at WordPress.com.

I am pleased the board is addressing the frank inequality created by these schools. The vast difference in demographics in the charters they already approved for our area is too dramatic to be ignored. Until these proposed charters plan ways to serve ALL the students in the area, including the poor, carless, ESL and special needs, they should not be funded with our taxes.

About Lincoln: I got a laugh reading the Oregonian and a columnist’s lamentation we need a new building for Lincoln because (gasp) the lockers are too small. Horrors! Have they even visited Jefferson? The once gorgeous auditorium is molding and trashed, the paint is peeling, the place is a mess. It is remarkable how our city pretends this inequality doesn’t exist.

Yes, our facilities are a disgrace. But I can’t support building in our wealthy neighborhoods to accommodate in-transfers from neglected working-class neighborhoods, and I can’t support committing us to academies at the schools that have lost enrollment due to out-transfers.

Like I said, I need to see a commitment to equitable polices before I’ll support a capital bond. To me, that means a comprehensive high school in every neighborhood. And to get that, we have to look at the transfer policy.

PPS, are you ready for this fight? Because some of the biggest supporters of public education in Portland aren’t with you this time, without some serious changes to policy direction.

I hate to quote Nancy Reagan but don’t “throw the baby out with the dishes”. You are confusing the issue of facilities with the way the work goes on within those facilities. Hopefully you know how bad the facilities are in PPS. Wilson HS is the newest HS in PPS and it just celebrated its 50th anniversary last year.

You can tilt against the windmill of smaller academies all you want (I tend to agree with you) but aren’t you cutting off your nose to spite your face here a little bit?