“…public schools need to be run by professional educators and NOT anyone who wants to dabble in education. “

Much as I hate to agree with Mike, he’s got a point. With professional educators you know exactly what to expect: guaranteed failure year after year, teachers who score in the 25th %ile on the GRE, and so on and so forth.

The problem with charters is that many of them will change and improve, and then BANG! goes stability.

We just can’t have that.

The case of Isaac Haqq is one of the most obvious reasons public schools need to be run by professional educators and NOT anyone who wants to dabble in education. Apparently no one bothered to check up on him, and the fact he changed his name makes it obvious he had something to hide. Were the parents at the charter school informed of who he REALLY was? Was the truth about him hidden from the public by the pro charter crowd in Oakland? Here in Texas my qualifications are considered public record, anyone can ask for them. Charter schools can hide this kind of information. Just another of the free passes politicians give them.

The convicted felon remains on the payroll due to state laws, not local decisions (read the article). Put the blame where it belongs, with the politicians who wrote the laws and didn’t think to put an exception into place for convicted sex offenders.

But perhaps I am a knowledgable parent in Tacoma, the district in question.

It will take time and effort, and perhaps a modicum of money, to judiciously use publicity and generate a recall campaign against the current board of trustees. If you don’t think that charges around the keeping of a convicted felon on the public payroll and a consequent recall campaign won’t generate a lot of local publicity — locally is, after all, where these trustees are elected — which will likely lead to action before a recall campaign can gain momentum, then you are naive. In fact, the local press and broadcast media really aren’t crucial; a carefully crafted campaign within the school district will do the trick.

Trust me, Allen, I’ve seen it happen before.

Depending on the school district the board may be more or less responsive to public pressure. The DPS board seems to be unaware that there’s a public out there who voted them into office if their antics are any guide. You can imagine how effective public pressure would be on them.

Besides, even with a thoughtful, intelligent, committed school board they’re still at the center of a multi-directional tug of war. One of the tugees is the superintendent of schools. The supe may not want to have a convicted felon working as an assistant principal but firing him has to be weighed against the precedent of public outrage overriding the superintendent’s hiring or policy decisions.

This is where the necessarily political nature of the public education system starts to really rear its ugly head: refusing to fire the convicted felon may be the right thing for the superintendent to do.

A show can be made of due process “I” dotting and “T” crossing and our felon gets canned. But not during the height of the political storm. Not as a reaction to public outrage. That would undermine the authority of the superintendent and have repercussions long after the incident that precipitated the firing is forgotten. A superintendent whose authority is undermined in this fashion, and with it his credibility before the board, might as well look for a new job.

OK Bill, you put on the hair shirt.

You’re now the new superintendent of Detroit Public Schools with its 25% graduation rate. You want to enact breath-taking reforms, a real meat-and-potatoes organizational overhaul that’ll upset long-standing cozy relationships and endanger various petty fiefdoms. You’re going to need every political advantage you can muster to overcome the resistance and one of your assistant principals is convicted of third-degree rape.

Do you fire the son of a bitch before the jury foreman’s “Quilty” stops echoing, sharing the public’s outrage and letting the chips fall where they may? Or do you display resolution in the face of public anger, insisting on everything being done properly, the letter of law is being met and all legal obligations satisfied?

If you pick “A” maybe you’re not so tough. A couple of noisy demonstrations and you fold. You’ve given your opponents some encouragement. Or do you pick “B” and make it clear that you’re a rock in the face of pressure and thereby discourage your opponents?

Well this sure went on longer then I intended but the point I’m trying to make is that the necessarily political nature of public education makes decisions like I’ve just described legitimately difficult. I’d rather have an institutional structure that makes the decision easy.

Trust me when I tell you a campaign could be orchestrated that would hold the administration’s feet to the fire very publicly for quite a long time, and which would make life uncomfortable for the targets.

I believe that if the state isn’t willing to incarcerate someone for at least a year, that person should not be treated as a felon.

If all of the students at the rapist’s school decided to go elsewhere, the school would still get the money AND the state would go after their parents.

If the students at a charter school decide to go elsewhere, the school loses its money.

Given the state of public schools in Oakland, it’s not all that surprising that they’d be tolerant of a violent thug. (MiT continues to believe that the choice is between charter schools and perfection even though charter schools draw students from failed schools.)

BTW – If the thug in question worked at Oakland’s public schools, he wouldn’t have the worst record. He just wouldn’t be mentioned by MiT.

If MiT wants to protect students from the horrors that he believes charter schools to be, all he has to do is make public schools more attractive. If PS are so much better than CS, that should be easy.

Would you still be as blase’ about his union taking care of him?

Given enough time I wonder whether you couldn’t negotiate contract provisions that if adhered too would make a felony conviction just another consideration in the firing process having as much impact on the firing process as a poor performance evaluation. It strikes me as being not all that unlikely that administrators might see a benefit as well.

As for the court of public opinion, that can be safely ignored. Detroit graduates 25% of it’s freshman class. If the court of public opinion had any weight, you think that statistic would go unaddressed for long? The only time the court of public opinion is definitely in session is during school board elections. Considering the amount of attention school board elections typically get, that’s a pretty thin reed to lean on.

Sheer stupidity. So? What makes you think that’s a limiting factor?
Exhibiting sheer stupidity can still make the administration’s job extremely hard and cost the system a lot of money.

I was at a school board meeting many years ago when the subject was painful budget cuts. During question time, the head of the local EA stood up and got passionate about the decision to no longer give the teachers free passes to football and basketball games.

Afterwards, I sympathized with him. Tough to feel you have to say that stuff, isn’t it?

“No!”, he said, looking at me with fervor, “it’s serious!!!”

I guess to rise to that level in a union you have to be crazier than your opponents.

Maybe the local EA has already exhibited sheer stupidity, and the admin has learned its lesson.

I sympathize with the view that the admin may be spineless. Although that’s in the job description, it’s painful to contemplate.

My question is will they continue to pay the guy when he’s in jail.