The number of homeschoolers overall is growing, and presumably that includes religious homeschoolers. But it's still a tiny fraction of students. Like private school, it costs money. Most people need state sponsored daycare to make ends meet. And I guess they expect the state to beat the LGBTQ+ out of their kids in the bargain.
Our District and our high school specifically does not have an issue with transgender students and is actually very supportive in this. I work with student data quite a bit and recently we ironed out the process for preferred name, preferred gender and preferred pronoun. Our Student Information System has a place for both preferred & legal names & gender and there is also the functionality to specify pronouns. Because our student system is legal documentation, we cannot change anything without parent's knowledge and permission. Our process includes a form to change these and all students under 18 must have parent permission. There are some things where we are required to use legal names/gender, such as official Transcripts or reports from State assessments. Parent and students need to understand that until things are supported by legal documentation, students will have to live with both preferred & legal names/gender on various documents, email accounts, educational portal accounts, ... It's a process to deal with but there are a few things to go through it be on the up & up legally. In fact right now we are waiting for one student and parents to submit legal documentation of a name/gender change which we will then make across the board.
So the thing that happened with this story, the parents not knowing what is going on wouldn't happen in our district - even though we are supportive of these matters - but internally, it's a legal thing. Though I do imagine that informally, friends and teachers may be using preferred names/pronouns even before an official process has begun.
Because Corporate Farming, Corporate Prisons and Corporate Health Care are working so Well.Not for the Customers. Or the Taxpayers. Just the Stockholders. Like God Intended.
A-fucking-men. I posted over the weekend; while some people have that one teacher who had a major positive impact on them, I had a dozen of them. I would not be who I am today if not for them. Hell, I probably wouldn't be alive if not for them.
Wisconsin gives families vouchers for private schools, including parochial schools, which don't have to have public input or meet state requirements. So what you fear is already happening.
I worked in a Milwaukee "Choice" school for several years starting in 2004. I'm not sure what you mean when you say they don't meet State Requirements. Are the requirements the same as public schools - no. The Choice Program in Milwaukee and since expanded has undergone many revisions in order to make it better. Many of the revisions were to weed out pop-up schools for on the fly grifters. There were plenty of State and Federal requirements we had comply with & meet. The money does/did not come with no strings attached. At the time we were getting about 6K per head whereas public schools were getting about 11-13 per head. One of the processes we had to go through and pass is Accreditation, a real learning experience. I doubt many public schools would be able to pass accreditation the first time around.
Anyway, I do have mixed feelings about the program but to say or think that they are all just free-for-all unregulated schools is a misconception - at least in my experience in Wisconsin.
My great grandmother was a teacher in northern Michigan. Schools which didn't have enough funds to buy books to teach reading would sometimes use the Bible, since most households had one. She couldn't do that since the family bible there might well be in French or German or Polish. She used the Sears & Roebuck Catalog.
Broadly, charter schools are absolutelyl a strategy to kill public schools.
But, there are some minor exceptions, and it bugs me that all charter schools/charter school advocates are tossed into the same category. My local charter was started by parents who were largely immigrants irritated by the lack of challenge in the local publics, due to the dismantling of tracking and the total focus on teaching to the middle. It's a non-profit, and operates in a system in which the public is wildly over-subscribed, so they're actually helping the public schools keep the numbers down without having to up local taxes (already some of the highest in the country) to build new facilities. The charter pays for all of its own facilities through fundraising.
More to the point, the teachers in our public, and many I know more broadly, are trying to "close the gap" between more prepared and less prepared students. A lot of them talk with passion about helping those who are less prepared. Which is great! But also, it leaves the more prepared students with nothing to do. In our community, that's the gap the charter filled. So long as public school admin and teachers tell me straightforwardly that htey are fine with my kid learning nothing, I'm going to be looking for alternatives. And that's something I don't think public schools have grappled with.
So yeah, I have real issues witih the anti-union, anti-public stance of a lot of charter advocates. But I'm glad we have this particular charter here. I think when you consider the liberal parents in this conversation, it may be a bit more complicated than the rest of the pro-charter world. If my kid isn't learning, there's a problem. No amount of progressiveness will convince me that my child shouldn't learn anything for years and years. So I've been grateful for the alternative.
it is a route to successful indoctrination
The number of homeschoolers overall is growing, and presumably that includes religious homeschoolers. But it's still a tiny fraction of students. Like private school, it costs money. Most people need state sponsored daycare to make ends meet. And I guess they expect the state to beat the LGBTQ+ out of their kids in the bargain.
I had an atheist friend who sent her kids to Catholic school when her local public school stopped teaching evolution.
Our District and our high school specifically does not have an issue with transgender students and is actually very supportive in this. I work with student data quite a bit and recently we ironed out the process for preferred name, preferred gender and preferred pronoun. Our Student Information System has a place for both preferred & legal names & gender and there is also the functionality to specify pronouns. Because our student system is legal documentation, we cannot change anything without parent's knowledge and permission. Our process includes a form to change these and all students under 18 must have parent permission. There are some things where we are required to use legal names/gender, such as official Transcripts or reports from State assessments. Parent and students need to understand that until things are supported by legal documentation, students will have to live with both preferred & legal names/gender on various documents, email accounts, educational portal accounts, ... It's a process to deal with but there are a few things to go through it be on the up & up legally. In fact right now we are waiting for one student and parents to submit legal documentation of a name/gender change which we will then make across the board.
So the thing that happened with this story, the parents not knowing what is going on wouldn't happen in our district - even though we are supportive of these matters - but internally, it's a legal thing. Though I do imagine that informally, friends and teachers may be using preferred names/pronouns even before an official process has begun.
Because Corporate Farming, Corporate Prisons and Corporate Health Care are working so Well.Not for the Customers. Or the Taxpayers. Just the Stockholders. Like God Intended.
Sounds like she's the boss in that particular family.
Expect to be reading a "Rumble goes bankrupt" article in a couple of years if this happens.
Something to look forward to.
A-fucking-men. I posted over the weekend; while some people have that one teacher who had a major positive impact on them, I had a dozen of them. I would not be who I am today if not for them. Hell, I probably wouldn't be alive if not for them.
Wisconsin gives families vouchers for private schools, including parochial schools, which don't have to have public input or meet state requirements. So what you fear is already happening.
I worked in a Milwaukee "Choice" school for several years starting in 2004. I'm not sure what you mean when you say they don't meet State Requirements. Are the requirements the same as public schools - no. The Choice Program in Milwaukee and since expanded has undergone many revisions in order to make it better. Many of the revisions were to weed out pop-up schools for on the fly grifters. There were plenty of State and Federal requirements we had comply with & meet. The money does/did not come with no strings attached. At the time we were getting about 6K per head whereas public schools were getting about 11-13 per head. One of the processes we had to go through and pass is Accreditation, a real learning experience. I doubt many public schools would be able to pass accreditation the first time around.
Anyway, I do have mixed feelings about the program but to say or think that they are all just free-for-all unregulated schools is a misconception - at least in my experience in Wisconsin.
United States of Stupid. That's where we are headed.
Charter school teachers in some states don't require any certification at all.
My great grandmother was a teacher in northern Michigan. Schools which didn't have enough funds to buy books to teach reading would sometimes use the Bible, since most households had one. She couldn't do that since the family bible there might well be in French or German or Polish. She used the Sears & Roebuck Catalog.
'Adult Dating' upvoted that post.
Broadly, charter schools are absolutelyl a strategy to kill public schools.
But, there are some minor exceptions, and it bugs me that all charter schools/charter school advocates are tossed into the same category. My local charter was started by parents who were largely immigrants irritated by the lack of challenge in the local publics, due to the dismantling of tracking and the total focus on teaching to the middle. It's a non-profit, and operates in a system in which the public is wildly over-subscribed, so they're actually helping the public schools keep the numbers down without having to up local taxes (already some of the highest in the country) to build new facilities. The charter pays for all of its own facilities through fundraising.
More to the point, the teachers in our public, and many I know more broadly, are trying to "close the gap" between more prepared and less prepared students. A lot of them talk with passion about helping those who are less prepared. Which is great! But also, it leaves the more prepared students with nothing to do. In our community, that's the gap the charter filled. So long as public school admin and teachers tell me straightforwardly that htey are fine with my kid learning nothing, I'm going to be looking for alternatives. And that's something I don't think public schools have grappled with.
So yeah, I have real issues witih the anti-union, anti-public stance of a lot of charter advocates. But I'm glad we have this particular charter here. I think when you consider the liberal parents in this conversation, it may be a bit more complicated than the rest of the pro-charter world. If my kid isn't learning, there's a problem. No amount of progressiveness will convince me that my child shouldn't learn anything for years and years. So I've been grateful for the alternative.