Okay, I really want someone to explain this to me, this whole fooferaw about charter schools (and maybe we can start by asking Mr. Obama what his fascination is with them). How is it that a private, often for-profit enterprise can apply for a charter in a district, start up a charter school upon approval, and then get their funding from that district, which is already strapped beyond belief trying to fund its regular schools? In today's local paper, we get news that a for-profit company intends to apply to two of our local school districts to start a vocational charter school in both districts. The idea is that parents can enroll their kids in these schools, whereupon they can get vocational training from local "experts" in various fields and receive the equivalent of an associate's degree by the time they graduate from high school. Terrific idea, right? Well, in the first place, most of the public high schools in our area already have vocational programs in place where students spend part of their high school day at a local comunity college, getting college credit by the time they graduate from high school. Ostensibly, if a student is enrolled in the program during his junior and senior years, he or she can receive the equivalent of an associate's degree. These programs are completely funded by the districts, so of course, there is no profit being made by the schools. So my question is this: how can a school run by a for-profit company be eligible for funding from a non-profit school district? Maybe I'm misunderstanding the system here, but if so, I would really appreciate someone enlightening me.

To me, the quagmire just gets deeper with closer scrutiny of the ways we're "fixing" public education. In our ridiculous mania for higher and higher achievement scores, we've gradually phased out vocational education programs (remember auto shop?) in our schools. These programs, we have reasoned, are expensive luxuries funded by money that would be better spent trying to prepare our students for college. Meanwhile, did our society concurrently phase out the need for those so-called non-professional  (i.e., those professions that do not require a traditional college education or degree) vocations such as plumbers, welders, mechanics, electricians, carpenters (and the list goes on and on, but I won't)? No--in fact, recent news reports are sayng that there is now a shortage of workers qualified to work in those fields! And where did those workers previously get their training? In our high school voc-ed programs, before voc-ed somehow took on a negative connotation. So now that the high school programs have been replaced by more rigorous academic programs that are inflicted on everyone equally, including those students who previously would have thrived in the voc-ed programs for which they were perfectly suited, vocational charter schools can spring up, established by for-profit companies, funded by taxpayers' dollars, to fill a need that high schools are still filling (through community colleges, instead of local "experts"). When will we finally admit that there's nothing wrong with admitting that not all students are meant to go to college? Because, once we admit that, then maybe we can get back to the business of providing a sound education for everyone, whether they're college-bound or not. And when will we begin to recognize that many of the efforts to supplant public education in the U.S. are being spearheaded by for-profit businesses (despite everyone knowing for a fact that an educational organization cannot--cannot--be run effectively using established business practices)? 

I don't know what it will take to reverse these trends that are threatening to destroy what I consider to be the most remarkable public education system on the planet, but right now I'm terribly, terribly afraid that nothing can reverse them. But I will say this. We as a nation need to be very, very careful what we reach for in terms of reforminng public education, because one of these days we'll all end up having to live with it.