Nancy Loome, Executive Director for the Parents Campaign, sent out an email about charter schools this week. Usual fire up the troops missive, contact your legislator, etc. She of course claims to be for charter schools. I mean, she really really likes them. They just need some adjusting is all. This is all you need to know about her idea about implementing charter schools:
Here is what her website actually states:
"The Parents’ Campaign supports the authorization of a conversion or of an open-enrollment charter school in the school attendance zone of any traditional public school that for the two most recent years has had an accountability rating that is below Successful (Academic Watch, Low Performing, At Risk of Failing, or Failing).
The Parents' Campaign supports the conversion of a traditional public school to charter school status when at least 20% of the registered voters living within the attendance zone of the consistently unsuccessful traditional public school sign a petition requesting the conversion.
It is the position of The Parents' Campaign that open-enrollment charter schools should be allowed in zones in which a school has been consistently unsuccessful but no "conversion" has been sought. Open-enrollment charter schools should use a true lottery system to determine enrollment. A true lottery means that every child attending the traditional public school within the attendance zone in which the charter school is located shall be entered into a random selection process (lottery). Parents who do not want their child(ren) to attend the charter school should have the opportunity to opt out. Students attending public schools that have had unsuccessful ratings for the two most recent years and are located within either the district in which the charter school is located or a district that shares a common boundary with the district in which a charter school is located should have the right to opt in to the lottery
The Parents' Campaign believes further that all chartering entities (schools and their management organizations) should be non-profit, required to have a track record of success in improving student achievement in a low performing school prior to establishing a charter school in Mississippi, and authorized by a single entity: Mississippi's State Board of Education. We believe that virtual charter schools should be prohibited.."
3 comments:
Charter schools work in venues where parents are engaged, period. I don't think that can possibly be the case in Mississippi.
Show me a failing school that has more than three or four (if any) parents who frequent the school building, attend meetings, work on homework assignments, stay in touch with the teacher and principal and write just one letter to either the school or the newspaper in a year's time.
The emphasis on Charter schools is parental involvement and parental design. How the hell will that ever work in this state? Perhaps if there were sixty Miz Loome's (if I have the name right) in the neighborhood of one failing school. But that's not the case.
Nancy Loome and her "Camppaign" are one of the reasons our state school systems are in the shape they are in. While the group started with noble intentions, it has become they mouth piece for the State Department and several other organizations only concerned with funding! While money is important, it must get to the classroom and in the current system with the power grabbers at the top it does not. I have yet to see any real attempts or answers to our educational problems from this "group" other than "give us more money" or their rally cry "fully fund MAEP". Oh and MAEP is another subject for another rant at another time!
The Parents Campaign and Loome lost what little credibility the organization had remaining after their hyper-partisan efforts in 2011 exposed the group as the left butt cheek of the dysfunctional Democratic Party in Mississippi.
Also disturbing is how Nancy Loome, the Executive Director of the non-profit The Parents Campaign, was paid a salary of $99,040 in 2010 AND was also paid an additional $28,226 that year as a registered lobbyist influencing House and Senate members on behalf of her only client The Parents Campaign. Essentially Nancy Loome hired Nancy Loome.
The Parents Campaign should be forced to register as a Political Action Committee and required to submit to compulsory campaign finance reporting exactly like all other PACs.
Maybe Cecil Brown could grow a set and sponsor some legislation to open up these politically carnal liaisons to the brighter light of day.
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