Blackboard Jungle

2 comments on Hacker News

1. NeutraldalkeOct 29, 2015

   I gave links to the funding situation for charter schools in two different states. I can give more if you want. I don't think you can claim that I have not spent some time reading up on where charter schools get funding.

   You consistently respond by pointing to a single charter school. No one has ever claimed that there aren't some excellent charter schools. But why should I believe that Success Academy Charter Schools is characteristic of charter schools as a whole?

   Of course a school's method's can make a difference on the students. There's a entire genre of movies on the topic. I mentioned "Blackboard Jungle". Another example is the turn-around at George Washington Preparatory High School, which was portrayed in the movie 'Hard Lessons'. There's "Dead Poets Society" based in part on the teaching impact of Samuel Pickering, and "Lean on Me" is based on principal Joe Clark and Eastside High School. As a New Yorker, you should well know of NYC's history with alternative schools, which includes public alternative high schools like 'The High School of Performing Arts', which was the basis for the movie 'Fame'.

   But the choice of pedagogy has very little to do with the the complaints about 1) extra opportunity for graft in charter schools, 2) a general funding preference for charter schools over public schools, and 3) charter schools which are held to lower minimum standards than public schools.

2. NeutraldalkeOct 28, 2015

   Which OP is that? You responded to comments from two accounts, which said:

   galby: "there are some truly awful charters out there"

   exelius: "To be fair, not all charter schools are for-profit, and there are good charter schools and bad ones. But the entire system stinks; it cuts funding to struggling districts, leaving them in a perpetual budget crisis."

   Neither say charter schools are categorically bad. Exelius's point is that the funding system to support charter schools is what stinks.

   Your illustration has no historical basis. You are viewing history through rose-colored glasses.

   I'll demonstrate with a classic, the 1955 book "Why Johnny Can't Read: And What You Can Do about It". This placed the blame on teachers and the school pedagogy for poor childhood literacy rates, not the students. Parents reacted to that by pushing for policy changes. That book reverberated for decades. At https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=qtZQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ORMEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2065%2C1980872 you can see:

   > Since then, other arguments [besides teachers 'simply using the wrong techniques'] have cropped up. Those who sympathize with teachers blame overly-defensive administrations and boards of education. Still others say parents are responsible for having abdicated social duties to the schools, transforming them from educational institutions into huge day care centers.

   Sound like a familiar discussion?

   Here's an example of a letter to the editor from 1976, https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=VdYeAAAAIBAJ&sjid=nVYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6890%2C3120348 , where a teacher places the blame on school boards for not letting the teachers apply real discipline to the "hoodlums" who get to pass because of "social promotions." This teacher doesn't think the students are getting any discipline from their parents over poor grades.

   This Ann Landers humor piece from 1984 reflects the idea that the students are doing poorly because the parents don't care; both parent and child veg in front of the TV: https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=zbUfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=htcEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5781%2C297333

   My comment here is surely no strong proof, only suggestive that you may need to research the history which brought us movies like "Blackboard Jungle".