Schaeffler said her staff was working to determine what the problem in fifth grade might be. "We're looking at everything from teacher turnover to a change in the incoming students."
They have to look at that darn teacher turnover, because few can maintain the grueling pace demanded of KIPP teachers, the six-day weeks, the long hours, the cell phone at home to answer the demands of parents. Some teachers, in fact, persist in wanting a personal life, out of the question for those in the super charters. However, such charters are paving the way for the vision of the American President--an America where all are peasants, working round the clock, never getting ahead, an America in which no one has a pesky union and everyone works for whatever the bosses feel like paying.
It's fairly obvious that Bloomberg and Klein share this grand vision. Over at Huffington Post, one of their lackeys has written a piece sliming Diane Ravitch. This particular lackey couldn't even be bothered to formulate a lucid argument, and stated Ravitch was attacking kids when she attacked grades. This, along with some nonsense about golf, was deemed fit to print.
It doesn't matter that charters don't do better than public schools, despite enormous advantages in selection. Make no mistake--with 100% proactive parents, the only miracle about charters is that they don't outperform public schools everywhere, all the time. It doesn't matter if they fail. It doesn't matter if all the methods the "reformers" use fail, or if both Texas and Chicago, the audition grounds for the programs in place now were failures too. In fact, they don't even care if their arguments are transparent nonsense. The editorial boards from the New York Times on down are asleep at the wheel and can't be bothered with the most perfunctory research.
These United States are becoming one disturbing place for public school parents concerned about our kids' future. Folks like Barack Obama, who's always sent his kids to private school, have no need to share our concerns.
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