Op Ed: A New Community School for Santa Barbara Children

RHS, are charter schools not public? You are quite dismissive. In general, traditional public schools in California can leave much to be desired. I'm not sure how anyone could argue that the variety of needs of all students are met, some students need a different approach. It is a good thing to have alternative options. No one is forced to use them.

Charter schools are public schools. Think: Adelante Charter school, Santa Barbara Charter School, Peabody Charter school...

No one is forced to go to Laguna Blanca either. The idea of too many/most charter schools is to create an elitist/superior student body by attracting the talent and family support from local "public" schools. This leaves those schools even more behind in their ability to educate the community that depends on them. The idea of "charter schools" being akin to "public schools" is much the same as the "academies" that now take all the best high school athletic talent to prepare them for success in sports while depriving the local school of the spirit and joy of a successful school activity that all would benefit from and which would give spirit to the community.

RHS - I see your point...but I think having options is nice. Not everyone needs (nor wants) the exact same education system that each school in their district provides. I for one think 7 hours of school per day (and starting at 815am) is crazy. Science has shown that we shouldn't be waking kids up as early as we do. I understand that many parents need those hours though and are happy with it. I am equidistant though to 4 elementary schools...it would seemingly be doable (and nice) if in our SB/Goleta bubble we thought outside the national system that has been in place for seemingly ever and created some options. I'd prefer the year round school too! Why do 2.5 month Summer? Lets have a school that does a 1.5 month summer and spreads that last month off throughout the year (longer winter break, Spring break, etc). That's a win for X number of parents and kids.

Duke, doesn’t the state require a certain numbers of instructional hours? Not sure we can reduce from 7 to 5 hours a day and still receive state funding.

845pm - we have friends at trivium that love it (when it was in person at least), which is a charter school that is open 2 days per week. Not sure exactly how they word it to to the state to get funding and only be two days per week, but the understanding is they teach certain subjects and you are supposed to home school the others. Two days a week didn’t work for us (3.5 or 4 days though would!) but I appreciated the 9am start and the outside the box thinking.

So... there is certainly no hard and fast minimum hours... and as such let’s stop getting stuck in this box of making it political. It’s ok to have options and choices... and no they don’t all have to be church based... let’s have flexible schedules to accommodate kids as best as we can. Yeah it means our taxes go up a little and not all the new money goes to existing public schools. Sorry teachers union and anti tax crusaders!!! It’s time to put our kids first... and to hell with the teachers union!!!

If only we had a presidential candidate who was pushing for school choice...

Wow. I had not heard of Trivium and it sounds amazing. Thanks for the mention, Duke. Have just been on the website. Logic is a foundational tenet of their curriculum!

If only we had a president pushing for school opening...

Sbtownie - it seems like a really nice spot, and I think they had just added a 3rd day in person pre-COVID (which might have compelled us to switch as 2 days just didn’t work for us). As with most charter schools the facilities aren’t great... but hopefully someday our leaders actually decide to care about education and allocate some more money for it (and don’t let the teachers union syphon it all directly to them). Options are good... one size fits all education isn’t to anyone’s benefit. And as we saw this past year, our school districts are too big to succeed... they crumbled and failed us all, most notably and tragically our children!

Alert! Alert! Conspiracy theorist with no scientific or factual data to back up their claims. Alert!

SBLOCAL - haha! So how do you explain Republican run states having the worst schools in the country? Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Idaho, etc?

Sacjon, some organizations rank Texas schools better than California now.

That aside, I'm not sure what planet SBLOCAL lives on. We have a lot of vocational programs. Construction, automotive, cooking, medical, computers/IT.

Also, the effectiveness of retention (failing kids) isn't clear. There are plusses and minuses to the practice. Failing (or promoting) kids without intensive intervention is pointless. And intensive intervention is expensive.

Texas and Idaho have very healthy public school systems. Arkansas and Miss are very poor states and do a lot more with their money than CA. I do not think this is a laughing matter. What the elected officials, school admin and SBTA Union are doing is complete fraud. Capps is the worse of them. She is fully paid for by the teachers union and only looks out for their interest. She is using the School Board as a way to climb the political ladder. By showing her loyalty to the people who give her money she then will get more financial backers to represent in higher offices. It is a shame that the the School Board is polluted with this type of scum.

I notice you don't post references for your ludicrous assertions. Idaho, Texas, and CA are all ranked in the 30s for K-12 education. Idaho doesn't even have the excuse of large urban populations so they must be really underfunded. Here's the link to US News and World Report.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education

Hey there’s Florida at #3! And this is from 2019! with an extra year of school in the books one could reasonably assume they stayed near top! Cali on the other hand... well... hey... it’s ok... at least you did your part Pitmix to champion and celebrate the school board election and the status quo all through summer and Fall... thanks again for that!

It's the California way Duke, keep doing the same thing over and over hoping for a different result. But it will be different THIS time, just vote for me again and I promise it will be different....

Exactly. I've seen bad tenured faculty at the university level, where they've amounting to nothing more than dead weight---some even acquiring bad teaching habits, making it an overall negative to the institution. They were great once, but then became uninterested at some point to the detriment of their students.

"The public dime" you're talking about is worth less than a penny in the current system. That's why people are getting upset with the current public school system. #wasted money

California student scores, for middle and upper class students, are just fine. It isn't until you include low income students that the average scores drop and make that state look bad. Poverty is the educational problem, and schools can't solve that.

Pitmix - what are you talking about? Are your saying California is the only state with poverty? And as such when looking at test scores is the only state where certain scores should be taken out? Do you actually Re-read anything you write... because it’s truly nonsensical!

Public schools could pay teachers less, do less maintenance, eliminate nurses and nutritionists and kick difficult students out of the facility which would save money for the time being. We now have (using the "charter school" model a competition for the most teachable and cooperative students and families that will leave the hard job to the public schools (as "proof" that they are incompetent. Is any advocate of "charter schools" demanding that they take in anyone who applies and promising to keep the student enrolled no matter how s/he behaves?

Or, RHS, with the "easy" kids voluntarily switching to charter/other schools the public schools system would able to better focus on and help the "difficult" students (vs. now where they so easily fall through the cracks).

Yes, because the schools can fix the learning problems caused by families in poverty. Not. Public schools could save money by eliminating the food programs they need to help hungry students. That would help the bottom line, right?

Pit, image then if those families in poverty had a $10K voucher to send their kid to any school? Or not even attend an actual school but use the vouchers to put together a small family/friend cohort and home school. If poverty is the problem, money should solve it.

VOR, a 10K voucher to send your kid to a private school does not fix kids with a single parent home that has to work many hours to pay rent. A parent that may not have much education themselves. Highly motivated parents of any income level can make sure their kids get a decent education. The question has always been how to motivate the parents that lack it. We really talking social work, not education here. Vouchers will not address that problem.

Oh, okay. You made several posts about poverty being the issue, now it's unmotivated parents. Sorry, trying to keep up. BTW, a $10K voucher would help a single parent who works many hours to pay rent... One thing you may be missing is you're only looking at current non-public school options. Do you know how many will pop-up, ready to serve parents and place kids as their #1 priority? Some would also be geared towards parents with long hours or non 8-5 schedules.

10K voucher goes to the school, right? Parents don't get to keep the money as a windfall. I've never heard of a voucher system that gave away more money than the school needed- you take the voucher and give it to the school of your choice. Post some links if I am wrong.

You're putting words in my mouth again.

VOR - that's what she said.

Uh, a charter school will take students away from the existing schools, right? How is that not taking students away from the school district. Exodus is exodus.

The charter school would still be part of the district, so the students would not technically be taken away. But it’s bound to affect the other schools in the district, if the highly motivated families all congregate at a specific school.

Why is exodus from a failing institution a bad thing? While many public institutions like the our school system seemed to be getting by okay, a crisis like this pandemic hits and really shines a spotlight on inadequacies, inefficiencies, and failures of these institutions. In the case of the public schools, it laid bare that the education and wellbeing of our children is NOT their #1 priority. If the education and well being of our kids is not the #1 priority of public school districts why should they get a monopoly and control over our educational tax dollars?

The elementary school test scores have been generally improving across the board for several years - since the implementation of the CAASPP test. Obviously, we don't have data from last year or this year, but prior to that, there was steady improvement. Washington has a much smaller percentage of students in poverty and a lot more money - hence the better scores. Franklin ALSO got a LOT of extra outside funding to implement the systems that improved their scores. Unfortunately, most of the remaining schools have neither the money from the families to do what Washington does NOR do they have the external funding to implement the Franklin interventions. Understand that all schools try to do that. They look at these successes (and the similar successes of Adams, previously), and try to use the funding they have to get the most bang for their buck.

And it was working (albeit slowly) before the pandemic with gradually improving scores in ELA and math. (I have spreadsheets).