Fourth Post

Ok so I never did the fourth post, so time for some catch-up writing.

I think charter schools do promote competition with public schools because students are leaving public schools for in favor of charter schools and public schools want to keep students in order to keep their funding. Therefore they are slowly changing their ways in favor of the ways of charter schools in order to retain students.

I don’t think it’s entirely true that parents know best. Many of the parents in urban communities are not educated themselves, so they do not know what is the best style of education for their children.

I think there needs to be a sort of national or school district guidelines, but the actual day to day (or some schools minute to minute) curriculum needs to be determined by the school itself. The school knows its students and know the pace at which they learn, thus they are the best ones to determine the curriculum.

Finally, teacher accreditation is over-valued. Yes, this will sound boastful, but I’ve had “qualified” (had PhDs, were fully qualified to teach) teachers who COULD NOT TEACH and I know for a fact that I could teach better than they can (I tutored their students and the students only understood once I taught it) and believe it or not, I’m not accredited in any way…

I do not know if Next Step’s teachers are accredited, but they do all have at least a college degree and I think they’re doing a great job of teaching their students.