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From Lynn Stuter


GIving credit where credit is due, the following piece was forwarded to me
by a subscribing member of the Wall Street Journal.  The "crisis" in
American education has been created; what ECS proposes below is the
"solution" to the problem.  Bear in mind, as you read this, that charter
schools are a wolf in sheeps clothing:


1.Charter schools will be run by private non-profit corporations.  This
could be a local, state, national, or foreign corporation registered as a
non-profit under the Uniform Tax Code of the United States.  There is
already one foreign corporation establishing charter schools in the United
States.  This could also be the New American Schools Development
Corporation (NASDC) or the National Alliance for Restructuring Education
(NARE) — both of which are non-profit corporations.  This could also be a
business or a consortia of businesses that establish an entity with
non-profit status.


2.Charter schools will be run using taxpayer dollars.  Coupled with the
fact that these schools will be exempted from most state laws and
regulations that govern other schools amounts to the use of tax dollars
without accountability to the taxpayers (taxation without representation).
 In other states, problems are already surfacing with regard to how the
money the charters are receiving is being spent.


3.Charter schools will be run by private boards of directors.  Public
schools were established with an elected board of directors to make them
accountable to the taxpayers.  Private boards of directors are not elected
and they are not accountable to the taxpayers.


4.Charter schools are exempt from most state statutes and regulations that
govern other public schools.  This exempts them from public disclosure
laws; laws and regulations which give parents control over what their child
is taught in the classroom; laws that give parents access to curriculums,
supplemental teaching materials and surveys that their child could be
exposed to in the classroom; laws that give parents access to their child's
school records; and laws that give parents
access to the classroom.  Charter schools will also be exempt from laws and
regulations that prohibit them from supporting or opposing a ballot issue
or candidate. (s: http://www.icehouse.net/lmstuter/page0016.htm)


The key word in this article is "accountability" and how it is defined.
Accountability, as defined by the educrats is compliance with the system.


Also, Peter Drucker is one of the leading protagonists of the "Third Way".
He was also a very close and personal friend of Abraham Maslow (for trivia
buffs).


I've wondered for some time how long it would be before the educrats and
bureaucrats offered up what they really wanted out of Goals 2000 and the
peripheral implementing legislation:  charters schools that use the
authority of the people to move government schools beyond the authority of
the people.


LynnS


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The Wall Street Journal


November 16, 1999
Review & Outlook - Turning Schools Right Side Up


It's been almost a generation since the "A Nation at Risk" report was
released in 1983, warning that public schools were being swamped "by a
rising tide of mediocrity." Since then, state education spending has gone
up more than 70% in real terms, but improved results have been halting and
spotty.


Now, to its credit, a blue-ribbon establishment panel this week has issued
a report calling for fundamental change in how our schools are managed and
who runs them. One of its two recommended approaches would make every
public school an independent charter school.