One of the things that makes a charter school successful is its ability to hire extra people in non-typical positions for a public school. For example I am an "External Programs Coordinator" (sounds fancy right?). This extra support can mean all the difference between a successful and an unsuccessful school. Of course the only reason these positions are possible is because of the fund raising the operators of the charter are able to do.

Which leads to my question, with more and more charters popping up every year and a finite amount of government and foundation grant money up for grabs, will their be an insufficient amount of resources available for everyone to be successful? If everyone gets a piece of the pie will no one actually get a big enough piece?

Which leads to another question, should the success of our schools really be dependent on non-guaranteed money? Will the short term success of this model hinder the greater systemic change that is needed?

I don't know. Back to work!

Another thing that makes these positions possible is the differential in funding between traditional public schools and public charter schools. Having said that, with "fair student funding" the control of how funds get spent is now firmly in the hands of the school. If a traditional school wishes to create a position of head bottle washer, director of shoe tying, or external programs coordinator, they can! It just means making such positions a priority. It used to be that staffing allocations were dictated by North Ave - you have x number of kids you get y number of teachers, counselors and bottle washers. Now those decisions are made at the school site - presumably by a team working together.

I do agree that the number of people trying to eat the finite pie has grown and that foundations are having to make harder choices. I also know that many foundations have been hit hard by the drop in the economy and that is making it hard to give to programs they have supported. Again, hard choices all around.

Now, get back to work:-)

I think that this experiment in local control over budgets is an interesting idea but we are still waiting to see if it will benifit schools, the system and students. I think to make this sytem truly fair all parents should be allowed to send their child anywhere in the system. So if a school across the city is making better choices should it not also have the right to attract as many students/dollars for making those good choices. Shouldn't all parents have the right to chose the academic program that best meets the needs of thief children? The school board has approved the new budget step now let's take the next step and remove arbitrary school boundries and make every school a parent choice school and through that free market system we will see true reform lead by the market. Schools that succeed will attract students and dollars and those that do not will have to change to stay alive. Now that radical step would lead to real change and not the window dressing that has been place so far by Dr. Alonso and the board.

IO, what do you mean by "the differential in funding between traditional public schools and public charter schools?" I know the Fair Student Funding allocates the bulk of the money but do charters receive an extra boost the neighborhood schools don't? I also thought that charters are responsible for certain services that other public schools are not like custodial. Is that the case?

I should have emphasized in my opening post that while any school can have an External Programs Coordinator, often it will come at the expense of another teacher or position (a "re-prioritization" of resources). However for a school like us with some additional fund raising abilities we can have our cake and eat it too. My position was not chosen because it was deemed more important than having say a librarian, we have both!

A Former Teacher, making every school a choice school is an interesting idea. Parents and students naturally have more buy-in if they have a say in the matter, but what about transportation? If every school was city-wide it would be a logistical nightmare in my opinion. I send 11th graders to non-profits all over the city and one of our biggest obstacles is the distance between the host sites and their homes. Baltimore's public transportation is not the greatest system as we all know and trips can take over an hour to get from one part of the city to another. Parents are scared of unfamiliar neighborhoods and long bus trips with 1-2 transfers. Not a deal-breaker by any means but certainly something to consider.

P.S. IO did you really tell me to go back to work on a PD day? PD is the antithesis of work and productivity! (Just kidding our principal actually arranged a very relevant PD in response to her conversations with the staff, now lets see if we can actually implement it).

Cory:

Yes, fair student funding is not the model (as I understand the issue) that Charters live by and yes, they are responsible for more things than other public schools. Even transformation schools get the fair student funding and all that comes with it and all that doesn't. Charters need to pay for almost everything including rent (regardless if they are located in a BCPSS building or not) as well as custodial costs among others) which fair student funding schools do not have to pay for. Custodial is actually, now that I think about it, something that fair student funding schools DO have to pay for, rent is not.

And Corey, of course I tell EVERYONE all the time to go back to work:-)

And when are you sending me a resume? In fact, when are all great teachers going to send me a resume?

IO, Now I'm confused. Does transformation school simply mean 6-12 + fair student funding? I know that we were a charter school prior to this year and I thought we still are despite opening a middle school. I know for a fact we receive funding for every enrolled student at our school I've seen the budget. Whether that number per capita is different than your non-charter public school counterparts I'm not sure.

In fact, Sarah, since charters are the new hotness perhaps a future subject to tackle is how their funding is different/similar to the neighborhood schools and transformation vs. non-transformation charter schools? I'm obviously lost now.

IO, I appreciate the offer but I'm committed to my current employer and crop of kids. Also, I'm not a "great" teacher, I'm inexperienced and currently a bad teacher (but I do genuinely care about the kids and think I have potential!).

Corey:

All schools now get per pupil funding, charters (and some others like New Schools - a whole different bag) have been getting per pupil for a while. Non-charters received, up until this year, funding under a "staffing model" where by the number of teachers they received was tied to their student enrollment, but the budget was controlled by central office meaning that the schools received "positions" and not $. North Ave also paid for almost everything else including books, PD, custodial costs and so on. Principals got to spend a limited pot of money to spend (title 2 for example). Now, under fair student funding principals get $ per kid and can spend it mostly however they want. If they want more teachers they spend it that way and spend less on other things. This has moved all schools towards the model that charters already had. The difference is that charters get more per kid than other schools. To be fair there are still some things that non-charters (including transformations) get paid for by the system (SPED, a principals position, rent). Having said that, the bottom line is that charter schools get more money per kid.

Someone mentioned additional outside funding. Any school can do this if they want - there are grants out there for plenty of things that traditional schools and charter schools want and need.

I don't begrudge charters for getting more bucks - I am mad at the state and BCPS for not giving all schools the same money.

Finally, some say that charter schools take money away from "public schools". I hope by now that everyone understands that charters ARE public schools, serving public school kids. Also, they bring people (students, families and teachers) BACK into the system which brings much needed dollars back into the system.

Corey - I appreciate your dedication to your school and kids. As for you being excellent or crappy, you have what all teachers need - a recognition that you need to learn more to do a better job. I am in year 17 and still am amazed by how much I have to learn about educating people. And send it anyway:-)