“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

The comment was made by this nominee long before she got Obama’s Presidental nod to wear the supreme black sheet. Perhaps Obama has insights the Oakland school board lacks in making a top slot candidate selection choice?

Unfortunately my male white soft skin limited life experience compromises the correctness of my speculations and conclusions, Tony’s too?

where the article closes with:
“…BAYCES wants to keep Berkeley High on the reform track so it can keep its organization in business. Evidence suggests that the improvements to date are dubious, at best…”

You are correct regarding the meaning of BAYCES. However, the discussion indicates that everyone does not have the same definition of equitable. If BAYCES was the Bay Area Coalition of Equitable Schools, then there would be models to refer to as what is an equitable school.

Jim Mordecai

Charter schools are publicly funded and privately managed as the first legal act of a charter is to take out papers making the charter school a legal corporation.

The public tax money charter schools received has few limitations and it can be spent for ways that taxpayers may not approve. For example, taxpayer money can, and is paid to charter school associations that use the money for political lobbying to get more money for charter schools. There is no law against this practice.

Because the public does not have a right to records indicating how corporate charter schools spend their money, I hope that charter school law will be changed to make transparent how charter school money is spent. I hope that some day the public will have as much of a right to inspect charter school records as the public has to inspect state and local government records as both spend the public’s tax dollars.

During this recess charter schools should be evaluated as to whether charter schools laws need to be reformed to insure that public money is being efficiently spent and a hard look should be taken as to whether it is wise to continue to grow charter schools without proper oversight. And, if there is not additional dollars to see that the public’s money is properly spent, then maybe the charter school experiment should be abandoned for lack of funding to do the job right.

Jim Mordecai