Many present-day secondary schools are
comprehensive public schools. The traditional
view of these schools is that they promote unity
and meet diverse needs at the same time.
Social integration followed from the inclusion of
students of diverse backgrounds into the
melting-pot ideal of education. Various tracks
such as academic, general, and vocational
seemingly allowed students to pursue their own
individual interests and needs.
Dunbar Elementary School is a math, science
and technology magnet school located in
Tampa, Florida. Magnet schools are public
schools featuring innovative, theme programs
for students.
At present, the general perception is that
traditional, comprehensive public high schools
are not meeting the needs of contemporary
urban populations. The notion of “one size fits
all” is under large-scale attack. Residential
segregation and high concentrations of poverty
have made racial and economic integration
impossible for many neighborhood schools.
Dunbar Elementary’s mission is to provide all
students with unique, high quality experiences
in mathematics, science, and technology that
will promote literacy and help them acquire
knowledge and skills necessary to function
effectively in an infotronics environment.
Public magnet schools provide an alternative to
comprehensive high schools. They offer theme-
based programs of study, standards-based
curriculum, connections between the business
and industry and the academic world and
highly-trained, motivated faculty.
Access to math, science, and technology
laboratories, as well as other unique interactive
learning environments help students achieve
high academic performance and social
development in all disciplines. Children make
mathematical and physical discoveries using
models they can touch and manipulate. Using
an integrated approach to curriculum with
mathematics and science as a basis for
instruction, math, science and technology
programs focus on problem-solving and logical
thinking.
Magnet schools provide incentives for parents
to remain in the public school system and to
send their children to integrated schools.
Magnet programs are often placed in racially
isolated schools or neighborhoods to
encourage students of other races to enroll in
those schools. A major impetus for creating
magnet and theme-based schools has been
their role in desegregation plans.
Programs that develop critical/creative thinking
form the core of Dunbar Elementary’s
curriculum. Programs selected by the staff
emphasize hands-on experience, working
cooperatively in groups, gathering original data,
and learning how to be good thinkers and good
problem solvers.
Districts use magnets with distinctive themes to
attract students from outside neighborhood
attendance areas. Steel and Levine (1994)
reported that the number of magnet schools
used for desegregation doubled between 1982
and 1993. By introducing innovative curricula
and instructional approaches, magnets can
strengthen the educational programs in
schools, contributing to overall improvements in
educational quality.
Each classroom is equipped with five Power
Macintosh computers (models 5400, 5500, and
6500). Students publish their writing, create
multimedia presentations, practice keyboarding
skills, research various subjects, create web
pages, manipulate graphics, and conduct
investigations using the Internet. A VCR is also
provided for each classroom with access to
laserdisc players assigned per grade level.
Excerpted from
Blueprint for Understanding &
Operating Successful Magnet and Theme-Based
Schools.
The Charter School Accountability Center
successfully hosted its second regional
accountability workshop on August 2nd in Ft.
Lauderdale, FL. The workshop hosted keynote
speaker Florida Secretary of Education Jim
Horne. Sessions were led by Taylor Smith,
speaking on Charter Finance; JC Bowman,
speaking on Earned Media; Jennifer Rippner,
speaking on Accountability through Governance;
Glenn Thomas and Neil Drake, speaking on
Starting a Charter School with Accountability;
and Betsy Donate, speaking on charter/district
relations. It was an inclusive workshop with
participants from charter schools, school districts,
municipalities, and businesses.
The Center has been distributing the
accountability manual, produced for the
workshops, to those who contact the Center
about starting a charter school. It is our hope
that this will enable starting charter schools
to
develop strong financial, academic, and legal
accountability systems early in their
Educational choice refers to parents' rights to
choose their child's educational environment
without financial penalty. Educational choice is a
funding policy, not another teaching or schooling
reform. Any rational schooling method can be
pursued under educational choice.
Though such choice can take different forms —
vouchers, certificates, tax credits, for example —
its essence is simple: it enables parents to
allocate educational tax dollars to the educational
provider they think best for their child. While well-
to-do Americans already have choice by private
means, all Americans, especially the poor, would
directly benefit from educational choice funding.
This contrasts with the current educational
finance monopoly, in which state and public
school bureaucracies assign all tax funds without
parental choice. Under educational finance
monopoly, parents' rights do not match their
responsibilities.
P
arental school choice is widespread . . .
unless you’re poor.
Those who most strongly oppose educational
choice and parental freedom typically say they do
so because it will "siphon dollars from public
schools." This is a seriously mistaken notion
based on several fundamental errors. First, those
concerned that dollars will be siphoned from
public schools may have slipped into the error of
believing that public schools have a right to be
served as if they were an end in themselves.
Actually, they should serve the good ends of
education and be judged by how well they do.
They have no claim to a given amount of money.
Second, educational choice as such says nothing
about the amount of money society will spend on
education nor on public schools as one
educational provider. It has to do with how such
money will be spent. Third, choice would
encourage the public schools to be better
educational providers, and to get more bang for
the buck, by ending the monopolistic vacuum
they are now in and introducing comparison and
competition. Public schools are not the enemy of
educational choice.
development.
The Florida Department of Education (DOE), in
conjunction with the Florida Consortium of
Charter Schools, is pleased to announce the
unveiling of the Florida Leadership for
Electronic Access to Data for Schools (Florida
LEADS) web site. Florida LEADS provides an
online venue for Charter Schools to showcase
their institutions to the public. Florida charter
schools may be located by school name or by
the city or county that they serve.
The school profiles on the Florida LEADS web
site present data collected by the Department
of Education from the school districts. School
administrators may log into the Florida LEADS
website and add additional information about a
specific school. In the future, the Florida
LEADS website will be enhanced to provide
charter school administrators with an Annual
Report Wizard, online grant application forms,
and more.
Choice Office
Florida Department of Education
325 W. Gaines Street, Suite 532
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-0400
850-488-5011
www.floridaschoolchoice.org
The Florida LEADS website may be accessed
at
http://www.FloridaLEADS.com
. Questions,
comments and suggestions may be submitted
via the online feedback form available on the
“Contact Us” section of the web site by
contacting Choice Office at 850-414-0780.
