Did you pull your kids out of the public school system and put ’em in a charter program? Like I did?
Start looking for a new school. If Mark Dayton gets elected and pushes his “budget plan” through, you’ll need to start looking for a new program for your kids.
That’s right – Dayton plans to kill off charter schools.
Oh, he can plausibly claim he’s not “killing” them; merely cutting a piece of their funding that the Star Tribune says is “prone to abuse”.
No, seriously; item 16 in the Dayton Budget proposal says “Reform Charter School Lease Aid Program to eliminate Star Tribune documented abuses. Est. Savings $20 million (out of biennial cost of $85 million).”
Of course, we talked about the validity of the Star Tribune’s “investigation” – Part 1 and Part 2 – and let’s just say it’s thin gruel on which to base policy.
Still, it’s a tiny amount of money in the great scheme of things – but it will pay off a big chit to the Teachers Union.
I wonder if Dayton’s focus-group testing bothered to ask all the African-American, Native American, Somali and Hispanic parents – who’ve pulled their kids out of their failed public schools to give them a shred of hope, and are charter schools’ biggest proponents – what they think about this? Not to mention parents like me…
Oh yeah – cuts in lease aid will affect the charters serving poor kids, with not-that-well-to-do parents, the most. Charters in Stillwater and Eden Prairie with backers with more financial clout will figure out a way – bake sales or construction bonds or something. But all you Afro-American parents who pulled your kids out of Central High to go to Skills for Tomorrow?
Get back in line and speak only when spoken to!
And I do most sincerely hope the Emmer Campaign is going to do a get-together with charter parents in the inner city before the election. Have you looked at the percent of students at inner-city charters that are kids of color who are fleeing our wretched failure of a city public school system?
Without lease aid, charter schools will not be able to generate the revenue they need to survive.
Coming up at 1PM: The Law is what Mark Dayton says it is!
Check out the Dayton Budget “Plan” for yourself! Find another howler? Leave it in the comments!
Thanks for the info, my daughter goes to a charter.
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