What I was referring to in my post was the promise made by EOALH in its charter to meet a minimum standard of attendance.

I think you are trying to say that public schools don’t make performance promises. That is certainly the current law.

But, it is also the law that charters are granted with the understanding they will keep the performance promises made in their charter. And, it is the duty of the authorizer of the EOLAH charter to consider closing a charter that doesn’t keep its performance promises.

The supporters of charter schools claimed at the time of writing the charter law that certain parts of the Ed Code would not have to be followed by a commitment to meet certain performance goals.

However, there have been many charter schools that have not met their promised performance targets and school boards have often not followed through and closed them.

Closing charter or public schools is a challenge because the people involved often have become attached to the schools their children attend and their interest in keeping a school open has nothing to do with the performance targets of the school’s charter; but everything to do with the parent and child’s attachment to the school.

Another factor keeping open charter schools that don’t keep their performance targets is that school board members really don’t like saying no to parents. It doesn’t make them popular and elections are about being popular.

Bottom line is EOLAH didn’t meet its attendance commitment.

The public schools under current law do not have to make promises and put themselves at risk of being closed when they don’t meet performance promises. That is the current law.

Jim Mordecai

“EOLAH made a promise and got funding for 5 years to keep its promise that it would achieve minimum enrollment level.”

So what promise do district schools make? MAC? Castlemont? Fremont? Oakland High?

Serena will have a chance to demonstrate this (or, more correctly, the Tribune will have a chance IF they give Serena the time & backing to do this) but Katy’s original announcement clearly stated that the Tribune had not yet made that commitment.

From both the perspective of it’s followers AND the purely business perspective of the Tribune, it makes sense for the Tribune to commit to sustaining this blog. Katy & the Tribune together created a space that many different voices could come to share their perspectives. From OUSD critics to supporters, from administration to union, and everyone in between (and there is a lot of room in between).

This in turn reinforces both the Tribune’s commitment to community, the “stickiness” of this blog, and the potential for online advertising revenues.

The reverse is also true: that the Tribune has not made the commitment to sustain this blog negatively impacts coverage of OUSD, a forum for the community, the Tribune’s commitment to our community AND it’s own website “stickiness” along with related online ad revenues (or potential revenues).

When a company has an existing distribution channel that IS WORKING, it makes little to no sense to replace it with a new POTENTIAL revenue stream. Yet that is exactly what the Tribune is doing by moving Katy to a new assignment before reinforcing it’s commitment to the EXISTING Education Report.

I have a couple suggestions how the Tribune might do this successfully (if anybody at the Tribune cares, which remains to be seen). In the meantime I hope, Tribune, that you take some of this advice to heart and come up with some solutions (along with an announcement!) to explain to us what your goals are for the future of “The Education Blog”.

PS. My request in post #11 for more coverage about enormous School Site budget cuts stands.

I don’t think your post is off-topic at all–at least the part that mentions Armstrong’s position on the AIMS board.

While at first glance it would seem that she brings some expertise (as a charter school administrator) to the AIMS board, it’s clear now that she is somewhat of a failed administrator (I urge you to read the report on EOLA HS that Dotson presented at this board meeting; it’s crazy)–much in the same way that fellow AIMS board member Nedir Bey is a failed businessman who owes the City of Oakland $1.5 million. How can these people look AIMS parents in the eye and say “We’re doing everything we can to save the school”? They can hardly demonstrate competence at the jobs FOR WHICH THEY ARE PAID.

http://www.ibabuzz.com/education/2011/10/25/a-new-charter-school-opening-in-october-maybe-not/

http://media.wix.com/ugd/8d5ee6_3a2ec93c6e85ce6b168ef8f53d3363e3.pdf

Surprise, surprise – she was approved unanimously by the AIPCS board.

Problem of making promises and receiving government money is twofold. If the promise is important to keep the government must regulate the promise and such regulation cost money. But, if the promise is not regulated then there is no way to know the promise is kept.

All the increased testing is a system for trying to show that promises were kept. There are problems with how accurate the testing system is and concerns that the testing requirement shapes the curriculum. Increased testing will also increases spending on testing and not teaching.

The economic model is that charters compete with public schools and close down the charter or public school that doesn’t compete. Sounds like that you want public schools to play that economic model game.

A criticism of the economic model is that children are not objects produced by a factory. The instability of school closures is harmful to a community and a reason the economic model makes for poor public policy in the area of public education.

Jim Mordecai

Thank you for your high level policy analysis.

“EOLAH made a promise and got funding for 5 years to keep its promise that it would achieve minimum enrollment level.”

So what promise do district schools make? MAC? Castlemont? Fremont? Oakland High?