Minnah,

So you think “instruction models” are antiquated? How do you judge that? What do you even mean by “instruction models?”

It doesn’t sound like the LAUSD was pulling one over on your school so that you would go to your neighborhood pubic school. The follow up article makes it pretty clear that the CWC administration knowingly didn’t fill out the paperwork on time then pretended to be caught by surprise.

When I said “outdated”, it had nothing to do with aesthetics and everything to do with instruction models.

There will always be unhappy people at every school and they will leave and that’s fine – not every school works for every family. I personally know several extremely happy families at CWC Silverlake and Hollywood. As for CWC MV, we believe in it strongly and LOVE it – it more than works for us and all of our friends there. We have an incredible community and we don’t want to see it ripped apart because the district doesn’t know how to work with a proposition that the people voted for. If the hope is that by tearing us apart we will return to our neighborhood schools, the reality is that most will simply abandon the district entirely. Is that really the ultimate goal the district seeks? I should hope not.

Minnah,

I understand that you want the best for your kid. Everyone wants the best for their kids.

The former CWC Hollywood and CWC Silverlake parents that I know are actually happier at their neighborhood public schools after having left CWC.

Stoner parents are clearly very very happy at their schools and are welcoming CWC Mar Vista parents to enroll in their school if they don’t want to travel to Horace Mann. The parents at Braddock that fought CWC Mar Vista from co-locating at their school are also incredibly happy at their school.

You may find that once you are in a neighborhood public school (that isn’t trying to sell you their school), the school actually isn’t antiquated and outdated, though they may need a paint job and fresher furniture.

The minutes from CWC board meetings clearly showed that teachers were not happy with their treatment at CWC schools and wanted pay raises and better benefits, so things are a little bit more complicated than presented to you.

It is not so simple to say that charter schools are public. They use public funds, but use of public funds does not make them public. Lots of independent contractors take public funds, but they are not public. Public schools are accountable to the public. That’s a VERY big difference. The only mechanism charter school parents have to hold charters accountable is to leave the school. There is real value to parents and communities when there is public accountability.

The “public” nature of charter schools has been battled out in the courts repeatedly, and the courts seem to say over and over that charters are not public schools.

That’s very interesting, julie salzman, because what you’re discussing – the social/emotional component of learning, is not just far from unique in public schools, but came FROM public schools. There are lots of ways that public schools help children learn self-regulation, leadership, collaboration, handling and articulating feelings but they don’t market it because they don’t have marketing budgets.

Also constructivism is in pretty much every single classroom now. Every single public school teacher is well versed in differentiated instruction and trained to scaffold learning in their curriculum. But they don’t market that either.

I also have significant doubts that your homeschool does not have project based learning threaded throughout their curricula as well. It’s fairly standard.

What is your homeschool?

Cont…

Pero en ocasiones el LAUSD ha intentado frenar la acelerada expansión de las chárters. El año pasado Steve Zimmer, uno de los miembros de la Junta escolar, propusó detener la aprobación de nuevas chárters hasta que el distrito estableciera un sistema de evaluación para las mismas.

Hace un mes la misma Junta le negó el permiso de continuar operando a dos escuelas chárter Aspire Public Schools, en Huntington Park, a pesar de su reconocida excelencia académica.

Lorena,

The social-emotional learning that is a core part of the curriculum is, to me, one of the most important parts of the school’s philosophy, especially in light of the times (the ease of electronic communication resulting in volatile, reactive tendencies) and given the problems we have in this country (lack of gun control and proper mental health). Kids need to learn how to process their emotions and self-regulate, and while they are learning valuable tools to help themselves in challenging situations, they are simultaneously learning about neuroscience. My son, 5yo, came home in October telling me how the amygdala and prefrontal cortex respond to anger and how to calm one’s system down.

The constructivist/project-based learning, too, is something I didn’t see in my neighborhood school, and I’ve seen the benefits that this approach has on all the kids. Lastly, the diversity is essential: kids from all walks of life and with all different learning challenges working alongside one another.

I’m probably not the best one to articulate the philosophy in its entirety; you could always take a tour and see for yourself what’s really taking place within the classroom…

Esa operadora chárter es pionera en el sistema “Blended Learning” que ofrece instrucción con el uso de computadoras. Lori Rhodes, directora del plantel, opina que las chárters hacen una mejor labor dentro de comunidades con alta población de bajos recursos. “Tenemos el compromiso de que todos nuestros estudiantes vayan a la universidad”, aseguró.

Rhodes, señaló que Alliance y otras administradoras de chárters comparten entre sí lo que funciona en el aprendizaje, y eso es parte de la clave de su éxito. Sobre la colaboración de estas con el LAUSD indicó que “la meta para todos es elevar las expectativas para nuestros estudiantes. Atendemos a la misma población, el triunfo de uno es el triunfo de todos”, sostuvo.

Asimismo, el superintendente del LAUSD, John Deasy, reaccionó “complacido” ante el reporte de CREDO, ya que dijo que este demuestra “el gran logro conseguido por maestros, padres y educadores de Los Ángeles”.

Cont…

Prosperan latinos en escuelas chárter de Los Ángeles:
Estudio señala que en este tipo de escuelas, los estudiantes reciben una mayor instrucción en matemáticas y lectura en comparación con las escuelas de LAUSD

Los estudiantes hispanos y de bajos recursos que asisten a escuelas chárter en Los Ángeles están aprendiendo más que los de las escuelas tradicionales, sostiene un reporte divulgado esta semana por el Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) de la Universidad de Stanford.Los datos indican que al estudiar en una chárter, estos reciben el equivalente a 115 días más de aprendizaje en matemáticas y 58 días más en lectura, comparado con los que asisten a escuelas regulares del distrito escolar de Los Ángeles (LAUSD).

Los Ángeles es la ciudad con más escuelas chárter en el país. Aquí existen 248 de ellas, que atienden a más de 136,000 estudiantes de los grados kinder al 12. Una de ellas es la Alliance Susan and Eric Smidt Technology High School en Lincoln Heights, una de 22 escuelas chárter operadas por Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools, a las que asisten 10 mil estudiantes de Los Ángeles…

Siendo Latino en esta situacion, siento una gran pena por habernos dejado ser manipulados y abusados por los motivos de ciertos individuales con agendas politicas dentro de LAUSD. Los señores Benitez simplemente son titeres en esta obra pero bien saben quienes son los manipuladores detras de las cortinas.

A pesar de todo, quedamos con las mismas problemas sistemicas de LAUSD y nuevamente con una escuela 50% vacio. La esperanza de cambio actual ha sido totalmente embarrada dejando a los padres a pelearse entre mismos y los niños de ultimo. Que lastima…

Tenemos que abrir nuestros ojos:

La Opinion PUBLICADO: 3/22/14
Por: Esmeralda Fabián-Romero

Prosperan latinos en escuelas chárter de Los Ángeles:
Estudio señala que en este tipo de escuelas, los estudiantes reciben una mayor instrucción en matemáticas y lectura en comparación con las escuelas de LAUSD…

charter schools ARE public.

Mura Kami,

From your perspective this failed co-location be a case-study in conflict resolution, but for the Stoner community, it appears to be a case-study in standing up and fighting back against perceived attacks. The Stoner community fought this co-location from the beginning, though in all likelihood the LAUSD ended the co-location for other reasons.

What will the CWC community take away from this case study?

Right now we have an important case study in conflict-resolution. What is the Stoner community going to teach its kids?

mike mike,
There was a bicoastal grow of parents that collected evidence that Dragon and her cronies knowingly committed fraud. That’s why a Congresswoman requested the IRS investigate Citizens of the World Charter Schools.

julie salzman,

How is your argument about tax payers funding what’s right for your son at the expense of the public school community any different than arguments for vouchers?

Danny Rascal, What’s wrong with Westminster Ave. Elementary? What’s happening at CWC that isn’t or can’t happen at Westminster? Not to question too closely your concept of community, but I don’t understand why you don’t like Westminster?

90291!You abandoned Westminster elementary to disturb our school? “Dude” what are you “smoking”?
You’re getting paid aren’t you or you’re a “founding parent” that invested lots of money and time. Go back to your school. Fortunately Westminster is required to take you back because its your homeschool. Roll up your sleeves and get to working on making it what you want for your kids. In fact, use all that time you normally spend in your car driving to MY home school and put it into your homeschool. This too will help another huge overwhelming problem; global warming. In both situations it’s the small changes that will help the overall problem. Stop with your disposable mentality. Good luck at Westminster it looks like a great school and it misses you. 🙂

Charters were created to be experimental, but calling themselves experimental and marketing thus, does not mean that they are doing anything experimental or new. Do you think that Stoner has no method for teaching children conflict resolution? That they don’t do project based learning? Do you believe that Stoner children aren’t learning to question the world they live in? Do you think that Stoner would refuse yoga if there was funding for it? What is it that you think is happening at CWC that couldn’t happen at a neighborhood public school?

While I believe in “innocent until guilty,” I also believe in evidence, Mura. There is real evidence that CWC is not the progressive organization that they claim. There is real evidence that the national organization that pulls the strings of your board and the NY board committed fraud. There is real evidence that their model for rapid expansion is not designed to help out children in Washington DC or Kansas City, but to enrich their national organization and pay back the giant investment that they LOANED the schools and enrich their investors. Have you looked into the licensing fees?