The Charters are only doing what the School Districts should have been doing generations ago. Segregating students by suitability for the program. You cannot run a modern school with optimum results (or even acceptable results) if you enroll students who cannot reasonably be expected to perform acceptably side by side with those who are expected to perform well. Plus seats are limited and you aren’t running remedial ed on every campus.

And I’m sorry about that “trash” comment. Over time I have typically used red letter words to make a point and I know they are provocative. By now I should have given up the habit. My points are provocative enough without the emphasis.

The School Districts should never let the Charters beat them to the punch. OUSD needs to copy SFUSD and create an Academic High School on par with the best private academy in the East Bay. And that means selective enrollment and no Affirmative Action – well relatively little anyway. But could OUSD politically accept a majority Asian school?

The issue he’s neatly skirting here is that this is about taxpayer money, not what families decide is right for their children or school administrators think would make their school nicer.

“Public” schools means anybody can come in the door. Charter schools are public schools just with a different format and org chart. So why can they cherry-pick and not the other public schools?

If a kid has ADHD or MR, does he not have the right to go to whatever public school he wants, within the bounds of reality and fairness (lottery, etc.)?

I don’t mind charters, but if they are given the same power as private schools without having to keep their finances in order, that is b.s. Let them go private.

Sorry to bother you about all this – what is your perspective on school policy again? As far as your insults – they are only as meanful as who they come from. Tell me why I should have any regard for your point of view. I’m not saying I shouldn’t, I take seriously the point of view of people here I may disagree with, especially when they are in position to deal with the consequences of school policy more than I.

I don’t remember you from before – why is your view more than ordinarily pursuasive? And do you typically insult other speakers in public discourse? That would tell me plenty right there.

But I notice your grammar and syntax are slipping so perhaps you’re just not feeling up to your usual pedantic and misanthropic standards.

And yes, I’ve become bored enough with your bloviating to begin insulting you openly. You take up too much air to be worth anything more.

There is no constitutional basis for preventing the states from setting prerequisites for various schools and programs that will not be evenly distributed by race – such as ability to read to the 9th grade level to set foot in desirable 9th grade programs. The series of cases that led to forced integration and racial quotas of all public schools regardless of suitability are the problem. Still I don’t remember any school district ever trying to segregate it’s schools by ability because that would have 1> put whites behind higher functioning groups and 2>split whites up with the lower scoring (even in the same family) going to different schools.

All in all an interesting situation. Remember, abilities differ even within siblings in the same family group. Distributions are interesting to chart though. Whatever. The people voted with their feet, Cleveland and Baltimore went from principal cities of the USA to slums, and the rest is history.

Oh, and Sue, that equal opportunity is a crock. Putting a 9th grader who reads at 4th grade level into an Academic High School harms everyone. Especially if there are a critical mass of these illiterate students dropped into that 9th grade. There is no opportunity there, only misery for all concerned.

Liberals believe that Education is something that can be handed out like the Wizard Of Oz handing out a diploma. The truth is that it has to be earned by doing the work which the cognitively impaired can only do to a certain point and then no more.

This much we agree on – the Feds should stay out of education. NCLB should never have become law. I’ve said before that I suspected its purpose was the (eventual) elimination of public education altogether.

The federal courts, however, do have jurisdiction over state laws when the laws violate Constitutional principles. State laws for segregation of schools were deemed unconstitutional, because it denied students equal access and opportunity.

Having said that, my commentary over time about spliting students up as in Europe into programs and schools based on performance and suitability is my personal conclusion of what works best and produces best – especially within a budget. I’m the first one to say that every single state – and if the state allows, every district – should do what they want the way they want. Local choice overrides most everything.

Choice also includes the ability of the families to vote with their feet – thus the white flight nationally in the US from Urban Schools. Pursuing the bad education policy created by the US Supreme Court and Congress has decimated our great cities by distorting residency patterns and left the urban school districts in ruins. The current national education policy has made things much worse for public school students and the people generally.

So It’s really fine with me if a local district does things their way – your way, I just can’t abide their being forced to by Washington instead of the locals. The locals can be trusted to act (eventually) for the benefit of the kids, Washington can be trusted to destroy society over time. It’s the nature of big centralized government.

Compare this to abortion policy. While two people may differ on the merits it is another issue as to who has the power to force policy on others. Is it a national issue, a state issue, or an individual issue? We look first to our federal and state constitution for lines of power and authority – and I for one don’t graft changes or interpretations that aren’t there as temporary fixes.

We no longer have debate and amend constitutions, we just have mini-civil wars and appoint justices who will re-write constitutions. All the while increasing central authority in the name of right wing and left wing issues. It is a mistake to do so.

My personal opinion of how a school should run – or how abortion policy (for example) should read – is my own and I don’t presume to think anybody else has to live under my rule at all. But you make your bed, you lie in it.

But No Child Left Behind is a monster that I fear has a very sinister object we have not realized yet. Along the way we are going to have cherry picking because NCLB is a tremendous disincentive to having certain people around.

When kids grow up and get out into the real world, they are going to have to deal with people who are different than they are. They need to learn to do that.

Groups with mixed abilities give your so-called “dull” kids the opportunity to learn how to manage their feelings and keep working when someone else outshines them. (I know it doesn’t always work that way – but there is an *opportunity* that they wouldn’t have if all the kids in the classroom are “dull”.)

It gives the “gifted” a chance to teach their less-gifted peers, and learn to slow down their whirling minds and words to a pace that “normals” can keep up with. They’re going to have to work with “normals” after they graduate, and they need to learn how to do that, not leave their “normal” boss in the dust and get fired. (I know two guys from my time in the Air Force who have repeatedly lost jobs – even though they’re incredibly bright and talented – because they don’t know how to work with people who aren’t as brilliant as they are.)

Finally, to get to the personal and individual – in some of the mainstream classes my autistic son has attended, the less-than-stellar kids who are frustrated and disruptive, have a chance to help someone even less able than themselves. This has legitimately built the disruptive kids’ self-esteem. In helping with teaching my son (who’s a real sweetheart, and brings out the best in nearly everyone around him), these kids get to learn the instructional materials – teaching something is the best way to really learn it.

Those teachers have told me that having my disabled child in their classroom has *improved* the class as a whole, because now the other kids are trying harder, and learning more, and disrupting the class less. Mixing different levels of abilities (and disabilities) can be good for all the students and the teachers, not only good for my disabled kid. But segregating him with only other disabled wasn’t good for him – he rises to the level of what surrounds him. He didn’t rise very fast or very far back when he was in Special Day Classes – because he was usually one of the brightest kids in the SDC classroom.

Segregating, “cherry-picking”, whatever it’s called, hasn’t been good for people historically. Human foibles makes it a recipe for lost opportunities. That’s why a US Supreme Court ended it in education and in the nation overall.

But of course, you are entitled to your opinion that the Court got it wrong.