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My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2007-04-27

They Can Have A Special Place In Hell . . .As Long As They're Not On The Homeowners' Association Board

Even though their hostility to charter schools was blown wide open for the public less than a month ago, State Senator Sue Windels and Representative Mike Merrifield continue to act with the arrogance of power. Apparently, they don't think anybody is watching. But Bob is:

Yesterday Sen. Sue Windels and Rep. Mike (Charterers have a special place in hell) Merrifield, vocal opponents of public charter schools, decided to deliver a final blow, but this time broadened their attack.

First, they cut 3.5 million in charter school capital construction out of the School Finance Act.

They also added an amendment to eliminate any Charter School Institute board member, Dept of Education employee, or State Board of Education member from also serving on a charter school governing board.

For those of you less familiar with charter schools, they have a different operating paradigm. Rather than being simply another cog in the educational juggernaut that is the typical public schools, each charter operates independently, though as a public school. Rather than being spoon-fed curriculum and instruction from a remote source whose motivation is uniformity, charters decide for themselves how and what they will teach students, often (though not always)to much greater effect than "big" schools. Rather than taking leadership from bureaucrats and elected school boards, charters have leadership on-site, from an elected board of parent and community volunteers.

With that second provision mentioned above, Windels and Merrifield are saying that any person with a little know-how, a little expertise, a little background knowledge IS NOT ALLOWED to take part in the decision-making process for their children's school, if that school is a charter school.

I have a very difficult time trying to grasp the purpose of this measure. Are they trying to weaken the leadership of individual charter schools, in the hope that some of them may fail? Or are they trying to cause a brain-drain from the educational-choice bureaucracy?

Or maybe its simply a scare tactic: a shot across the bow of the people who are most interested and most involved in the school choice movement.

I suspect their actual motivation is a combination of all three, but that doesn't really matter. What matters is that these two legislators, both former educators, both favorites of teachers' unions, are pulling every lever of power at their disposal TO SHUT OFF SCHOOL CHOICE OPTIONS IN THE STATE AND LOCK PARENTS AND STUDENTS SAFELY IN THE HALLS OF A SYSTEM THAT SERVES ITSELF, not them.

I have a suggestion: the Republicans ought to introduce either an amendment to this bill, or a competing resolution that would prevent any legislator or state government employee from serving on the Cooperative Decision Making Team or PTA at any school.

Good for the goose . . .
Posted by: Michael / 4/27/2007 10:42:00 PM

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