No-school school
We love charters. They’re a great idea. But even great ideas can go wrong, and when I read this great idea gone wrong, I thought it was a joke. But oh no, according to the Los Angeles Times, the LA School Board has really jumped off the deep end.
At Tuesday’s school board meeting, district officials outlined plans to open an alternative school this fall that would offer independent study to at-risk students...,
According to the plan, students would attend school for only two hours a week and be on their own to complete their course work the rest of the time. It was presented at the meeting largely as a way for the district to recoup money that is lost when students have poor attendance records, because schools receive state funding based on attendance.
This is probably every kid’s dream—school-less school. Since we clearly created compulsory education laws for fun (didn’t you know? Kids absolutely LOVE to go to school. In fact, we have to make them go home in the afternoon! It’s the hormones—makes them great decision makers), why don’t we just abolish school altogether and have kids learning on their own? And while we’re at it, why don’t we pull the wool over the state’s eyes and squeeze them for more cash... and who cares if the kids are on perpetual vacation? GREAT IDEA.
Update: It’s been pointed out to me that it’s not clear whether or not this futuristic school-that-is-not-a-school is really a charter school. As this “plan” (if you can call it that) was juxtaposed with another alternative education charter school in L.A., I assumed that this new no-school school was also going to be a charter school. It is unclear.
I still stand by the fact that it is an unbelievably stupid idea.
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July 10th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
This is a terrible choice, akin to offering students the chance to invent “excuses” for absences to ensure that students/schools aren’t punished for poor attendance (as my school did this year).
When are we going to start actually dealing with problems instead of trying to legislate them out of existence?
July 10th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
This is not unusual. All districts have independent study programs for students who have been kicked out of school, don’t wish to attend or have medical problems that make it difficult to attend. The kids get work to do at home and minimal supervision from a visiting teacher who may drop by once a week or less. The district collects full funding from the state. If there’s a parent at home functioning as the teacher/coach, independent study may work, especially for kids with medical issues but not behavior issues. Usually, it doesn’t. At-risk students need more interaction with responsible adults, not less.
Requiring students to show up at a building once a week is a small step toward more monitoring. It may force the district to distinguish between students who are making some effort to learn, however feeble, and those who’ve dropped out. However, it would be far more effective to design vocational programs that would give these kids what most of them want — job skills — while improving their academic skills as much as possible.