I could always take a crack at it, I don’t have to worry about ruining any reputation for brilliantly exposing the true awesomeness of the much-maligned right wing and all . They could torture me and I’d never admit where I borrowed the research from! But they’re against torture, so … hahaha!

Last year the school had to raise $50K in addition to equip a computer lab. They didn’t make it, maybe this year.

I’ve not yet heard of any ambitious restructuring in our district, but if there is funding to be had, I would fully expect them to go through whatever hoops necessary to get the maximum funding. But then, I live in California, where we’ve recently attained the honor of placing 50th in the nation in per-student spending:

And I quote: “Public education is being decimated. In late May, Governor Schwarzenegger announced revisions to his May budget proposal that include $1.6 billion in cuts to the state’s education system for the 2008-2009 school year and $4.2 billion in cuts for 2009-2010.

These reductions in spending, coming on top of $11.6 billion in cuts already passed by the state government this year, will make California the last state in the US in terms of funding-per-pupil. They translate to roughly $3,000 in less money for every student in the state.”

So this is a flawed program – it needs to put less focus on the feel-good “reward the star students” and more on “give everyone an education.” And this needs to be talked about by more than just you and me.

While it doesn’t cost the student’s family to attend a charter school, public schools and charters compete for the same tax dollars. The less desirable students have to go somewhere. Charter schools will tell you they have to take everybody, but that is rarely the case. While some advocates are extremely idealistic others favor charters simply to attempt to crush teacher’s unions or because there is big money to be made in education. Chicago’s UNO charters just got $96 million from the state of Illinois today.

I suppose you’re right, children from lower socioeconomic levels will tend to face more academic challenges and therefore the school populations will be divided mainly along those lines (except for the few highly motivated kids who would have overcome their backgrounds anyway). So this ambitious and idealistic program stands to do more harm than good, in rewarding restructuring.

The school districts will do whatever they have to do to get funding – they are desperate.

So … this isn’t getting much MSM attention at all, is it?