My children are both smarter than I am, a fact of which they are not shy to remind me, and are both doing quite well in public school. They are being taught a lot of information but they are NOT being taught either the value of or proper application of the knowledge they acquire there. Either of them can tell you much more about the rain forest than they can about the realities of life and neither has been instructed in anything having to do with analyzing facts in order to reach an independent conclusion. I don't place any blame on their teachers, but on a huge school bureacracy more concerned with attaining acceptable passing rates than teaching the basics and uses of learning itself. I don't mind taking that goal upon myself, but I worry about parents who don't have the time to follow suit.

"Time to think outside the box?"

No question. That particular box has holes in the top and an extremely porous bottom.

Don,
The track record of Charter Schools in this area is such, I would rather my children go to the plain old public school.

Janherman,
I think your point about parents is the key to the entire situation. We have some wonderful teachers, but they are only the catalysts for "thinkers" of the future.

I agree on the questionable success of some charter schools. Keeping qualified teachers at one is a continuous problem, due in the most part to the manic actions of its "leader".

Give me public education every day of the week.

The essence of Mr. Wendelken's letter is correct. It's true that most of the current charter schools in this state haven not been successful, although, there is a track record of success in other states. North Carolina has set the rules as such in this state that does not provide a level playing field for them.

I would suggest that if you took a representative sampling of GCS teachers and placed them in charter schools, you would find that they would be much more successful than GCS. Why? Simply because they would be focusing upon education. In GCS, education is secondary to meeting social goals. As a matter of fact, a great percentage of the money used by GCS is for social goals, not education. I could provide many examples, but I think most people understand this.

If you have any doubts about this, watch a GCS board meeting and count how many times they actually discuss education. The problem is not the quaity of teachers, it's that they don't get to actually teach. You'll also note that when budget cuts are amde, they are always made at the class room level. That's no accident. It's designed to get parents attention and excite them to provide more money and resources.

Use this link to see how money that could be going for education is being siphoned off. It is truly amazing.

http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=182