Charter Schools: Not the Only Answer

Analysis of this is from the following New York Times Article...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/opinion/06mon1.html

LET ME MAKE THIS EXTREMELY CLEAR...CHARTER SCHOOLS ARE NOT THE BE-ALL/END-ALL SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM OF UNDER-PERFORMING SCHOOLS!!! People don't get it. It seems that people who write the letters in response to this editorial know a lot more on how to improve public education. Until we start LISTENING to the letter writers, there is not going to be improvements in the public schools.

As I said before, there needs to be an aggressive, multi-faceted solution to fix public education. One, GET THEM EARLY...early childhood education is so important for their reading and math skills...Second, after school programs that gets properly staffed...you are talking about stimulus...that is stimulus...recruit semi-retired people and young ... Read Morepeople who are interested in education to work after school...Third, expand the school day not for content purposes, but to give students a well-rounded education (arts, science, music, phys.ed)...Fourth, provide safety nets for struggling students or students that do not fit the mold through partnership/collaboration with community organizations and expand vocational schools...Fifth, provide families with the proper resources for them to make a conscious on the best school for their child (this already exists, but can be done by hiring translators or just have schools go out there and recruit which is something charters do an excellent job)...

Sixth...provide family services in terms of parenting classes job trainings, and adult ESL education so families can have opportunities to improve their quality of life...

Now some of these things already exists and the government does not need to reinvent the wheel here...it's just tweaking it and making them work more effectively and working for families especially families in high-poverty communities of color...

We don't necessarily need bold, radical, and new actions...what we need are bold actions to rattle the status quo in public education and we can only do this if we are able to take these steps to make our overall public education run more effectively...THIS IS HOW THE MONEY SHOULD BE SPENT AND NOT ON A ONE SIZE FITS ALL SOLUTION LIKE CHARTER SCHOOLS...personally, I have nothing against charter schools, but don't tell me that it is the magic bullet to solve all the problems in public education...