why would we slow down growth of more school options? We need to close failing public schools and give parents more options.

http://parentsacrossamerica.org/2011/09/us-house-to-vote-on-bad-charter-bill-today/

This bill is called the Empowering Parents Through Quality Charter Schools bill, but we believe that it only serves to empower charter school operators and not parents or students. Look at the list of endorsers if you doubt who is behind this.

Parents Across America has taken a position against HR 2218.

Because the vote is happening today, you need to keep your message short and strong. Parents do not want this bill – we want Congress to concentrate on help for all of our schools. We need to monitor the charter schools that exist now, not add more. Too many of the charter schools we have now are

* not providing a quality education
* not accepting more challenging students while pushing others out
* not operating in a transparent manner or offering parents a real voice in decision making, which is a key element for student progress
* raising too many unanswered questions – see PAA Fact Sheet detailing some of the problems and concerns raised about charter schools in just the past year.

Questions about the Noble Network of Charter Schools

While in Washington, D.C. for the SOS March, we learned that the Noble Charter Network in Chicago has been held up as a model to provide a justification for expanding all charter schools nationwide, but we know that congressmen were not told the real story about Noble schools. One Noble school parent wrote this in a discrimination complaint she filed with the USDE’s Office for Civil Rights: “As punishment for detentions students are charged $5 weekly, pay hundreds of dollars for night and summer school classes and are retained in the same grade.”

It’s time to slow down charter growth, not speed it up.