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Sunday, September 4, 2011

Miami's charter school scandal grows

From the Miami Herald

by Fred Grimm

Strip away the bureaucratic constraints suffered by conventional public schools.

Strip away most of the clothes.

And then, as they say down at the Balere Language Academy charter school, “push it to da limmit.”

Balere has certainly pushed the notion of charter schools beyond the usual limits. It requires no more than a cursory examination of material promoting Labor Day doings at the Cutler Ridge kindergarten-through-middle charter to realize no conventional public school would dare attempt this novel, after hours approach to education.

But a brave innovator associated with Balere, with help from those noted educational think tanks Hygh Lyfe Entertainment and Snake Eye Promotions, has created a kind of night school, reaching out to a segment of the community long ignored by traditional educators. “All hustlers, ballers and divas roll out.” (College students get in for half-price. Women are admitted free “B4 12.”)

The school had previously been the venue for at least two other notable all-nighters, billed as the Elegant Birthday Bash and the Skinny B’Day Celebration. Surely, it’s no coincidence that even as Balere added partying to the curriculum, the charter went from an F to an A-rated school. Break out the champagne. Literally.

It just shows how charter schools, freed up from all those nitpicking regulations prohibiting booze and raunchy dancing and misogynistic themes and all-night parties and near-naked women busting out from their teensy swim wear, can turn a stodgy school house into a veritable laboratory for innovative thinking. Conventional public schools are reduced to debating whether soft drink machines ought to be allowed on campus, while Balere features ice buckets jammed with champagne bottles.

Earlier, this year Rick Scott adviser and charter school champion Michelle Rhee had said, “We have to be putting policies and laws in place that don’t hamstring charters.” At Balere, policy has become less about hamstring and more about g-strings.

Officials at the Miami-Dade Schools, never much enthused about district money going to barely regulated charters, fired off a predictable disapproving letter to Balere complaining about ads depicting the “promotion of alcoholic beverages in addition to inappropriate images for school-age children.” The advertisements included very voluptuous women in very skimpy attire and stacks of money and jewelry and Italian sports cars and other bling that, in a more traditional educational environment, might lead students to think their school has endorsed crass materialism.

After the school district sent its letter and the Miami-Herald’s Kathleen McGrory inquired about Balere’s nighttime activities (McGrory reported that parents at the school have complained about empty beer bottles littering the school and the smell of cigarette smoke in the hallways), party promoters suddenly found a new venue for “Push It To Da Limmit. Flossin Edition.” (Flossin, according the Urban Dictionary, is defined as “showing off.” Such as, “Look at homeboy flossin his ice wanksta.” After all, Balere is a language academy.) Balere officials, apparently developing amnesia about the previous gathering at 10875 Quail Roost Dr., claimed that it had all been a case of a wrong address.

It seems more likely that Balere’s innovators, in the wake of criticism, have lost the courage to defend their convictions. They’ve not only demonstrated what charter schools can accomplish if left to their own devices. Instead of denying (not very convincingly), that they have pioneered a new and profit-making approach to community outreach, Balere should be . . . well . . . flossin the concept. Embrace the notion of the Balere Charter Academy of Party Science, a night school that cranks out highly trained strippers, DJs, bouncers, pole dancers and bartenders.

Judging from Facebook photos of the previous Balere bashes, I’ve never seen a PTA meeting with anything like that kind of enthusiasm. If other schools could convince PTA moms to dress like this, parental apathy would burst like Balere champagne bubbles.

This is exactly what Foundation for Florida’s Future meant when it stated that charters, unlike conventional schools, can “foster innovation” in education. The Balere charter not only fostered innovation, it pushed it to da limmit.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/03/2389350/balere-charter-academy-of-party.html#ixzz1X2cERZeQ

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