Viewed as a major success for LA public schools, improvements include: caps on class sizes, full time nurses at schools, librarians at every public middle and high school by 2020, reducing the amount of standardized testing, caps on the amount of charter schools in the state of California and a 6% pay raise for all teachers.
Surprisingly, the unionized teachers under unions such as Red for Ed and United Teachers Los Angeles were protesting against democratic leaders. During the Obama Administration, the previous President pushed for the expansion of high-quality charter schools while pushing back against teachers' unions. However, democratic leaders such as Kamala Harris -- who has also recently announced her candidacy for president in 2020 -- supported the striking teachers.
The controversy surrounding public schools versus charter schools is complicated and both sides are supported fairly equally. Those in favor of less charter schools, including the teachers that were on strike, argue that those schools compete with public schools for students and funding and therefore place immense strain on public school programs. Those in favor of charter schools believe that they offer different options for parents and are based on the reasoning of education bureaucracy.
Despite the agreement to pay raises and increased resources, the inevitable question remains: how will the public school system fund these advancements?
One option that's being heavily considered is a parcel tax, which is a property tax that is not based on property value. Unlike most taxes, it doesn't take into account property or income values, meaning that those living in a small house in an average neighborhood pay the same amount as corporate owners of a huge apartment building. There's also been talk of placing a parcel tax on properties that are only labeled as commercial buildings and properties, which the school district and unions both agree with and are pushing for.
Overall, I'm impressed and extremely happy with the progress our public school education system is making. I think decreasing charter schools is a great solution to bring back students and funding to public education programs, as I view charter schools as a way of escaping the true problems of our education system. I believe we should focus on improving our existing system in order to ensure fairness, equality and improvement for all students, instead of simply creating new privately owned schools that take away from public funding.
Questions:
1) What is your opinion about charter schools? Do you believe they are an effective solution to our issues in public education or not? Why or why not?
2) According to the article, the strike cost the district $125 million in state financing. Do you believe the strike was effective enough to dismiss these immense costs? Essentially, was the strike worth the money?
3) Have you attended a private or charter school? What is different and what is similar? In your opinion, which was a better option and which provided a stronger education?
4) Do you have any short or long term ideas for solutions involving this issue? What can be done?
Link to article: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/us/la-teacher-strike-deal.html
I agree with you Brooke, I think that charter schools are only providing an “escape” for the existing school systems’ problems. I don’t think it is very effective in solving our public education problems because they only put more strain on the public schools without really solving anything. Charter schools are a good concept but if you really examine what they are doing for the education system as a whole, they don’t help all that much. I also think that the strike was a great step to helping solving these issues and was therefore, worth the $125 million. However, while there are great promises that came with this strike, the key is how the government will execute them. I am hoping that these changes will move the government towards a more stable and fair education system.
ReplyDeleteI believe that charter schools are pretty interesting because they provide a very different perspective on learning, different from the curriculum based academics we all know so well. However, I do not understand why they can not be merged in the public schools that already exist. A solution to this issue could simply involve having charter-like classes available at public high schools or a separate program offered in public high school. When I was in elementary and middle school in PA, we had a separate program for gifted students. Similar to charter schools, you had to be granted admission to be in this program. The teaching style was very different (I remained in normal curriculum and my brother was in AT) and although my brother was accepted, he also could've chosen to remain in the normal schooling program. Also, I agree with Kayla that sometimes a strike is necessary to resolve issues, especially if issues have been attempted to be resolved without an detrimental impacts.
ReplyDeleteI think there are both pros and cons to charter schools. On one hand, they are funded by the government, and open to all public students since they don't charge tuition. Although it might be a step in the right direction, I don't believe this is the most effective method. It would probably work better if there were laws put in place to change or restructure the educational institutions if the teachers think they should be changed. $125 million dollars is quite a lot of money but I think it was an inevitable loss since the people on strike probably care more about their individual rights than the state funds as a whole. So far, it doesn't seem like there are many immediate changes, but instead only future promises so I can say for sure if it was worth it yet. I don't think a private or charter school will necessarily provide a better education than a public school, but some private schools may have more classes to choose from or areas of specialization.
ReplyDeleteI understand how charter schools may be seen as an innovative way to provide students with a more specialized and individualized curriculum due to the smaller class sizes in comparison to public schools. However, I believe one of the main downfalls of the charter school system is their general low-budget approach to education due to a consistent lack of funding, which has been seen through their low school performance records. As charter schools continue to open, I support the stance the district made through their strike, especially because charter schools have been draining the money and resources of public schools. Although a substantial amount of money was devoted towards the strike, I believe that like many milestones throughout history, the end result will inevitably be worth it due to the amount of attention the strike brought to the issue at hand. Much like Beata said, this increase in awareness will ultimately help make a greater impact on an issue that has tried to be resolved without much success in the past.
ReplyDeleteCharter schools are not an effective solution, because they lack any concrete enforcement methods to verify that the funds are being allocated properly and that students are being given the education they deserve. Furthermore, charter schools usually either promote inequality by being costly to attend, or waste government money that could be better spent on public schools by receiving grants from the government for every student they take. Yes, the strike was worth the money, as a method to actually implement change in LA's education system. Without direct action, awareness for issues and change are hard to attain, so regardless of the cost, teachers being paid more fairly and having their opinions respected is a good thing. A short term solution is to stop financing charter and private schools for youth, while also creating even stronger methods to verify that public schools are doing a good job serving their communities. Long term, schools would ideally receive equal funding per student, and not have their budgets determined by property taxes, because it means that students living in richer areas don't receive an unfairly good education.
ReplyDeleteI believe that people should have the right to at least apply to establish a charter school. There are those who disagree with the way public school education is carried out and seek to create a free option for youth to attend a school that offers a different style of teaching. One example in our area is D Tech, a public charter school in the Bay Area that has been successful. I don't believe charter schools should receive as much funding per student as public schools, but I do think they deserve government funds. That way, students of lower income families who haven't been successful in the public school system have another option that is cheap or cost-free.
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