A closer look at Gary Chartrand and his race to the bottom (rough draft)

Gary Chartrand supports Teach for America. Teach for America takes non education major types puts them through a five week access course and then puts them in our most struggling schools to work with our most struggling children. I think teach for America has a role to play but as a supplement to education not the first in line position it has been given. Only 14 of the first 91 stayed past their two year comitment.

Gary Chartrand supports charter schools and helped bring the KIPP School to town. If you didn’t know it the KIPP School had the lowest scores in North East Florida last year, it is said the kids regressed. I think Charter schools as parent and teacher driven places of innovation have a role to play, unfortunately here in Florida to many are just ways corporations can make a fast buck off our children.

Gary Chartrand in a letter to the Times Union, said Barack Obama is not my president presumably because of runaway spending but then had the KIPP school accept a 500 thousand dollar grant for a music program (while public school music programs are being cut). I think this makes him a hypocrite.

Gary Chartrand gave ten thousand dollars to Rick Scott’s inauguration celebration. Rick Scott then promptly cut 1.3 billion dollars from education and went to war against the states teachers. I don’t understand how he can support a man who has been so bad for education.

Gary Chartrand is against smaller classes, saying there is no empirical evidence that is works. Smaller classes is the one reform with empirical evidence that says it does work. He uses his position to pass along falsehoods.

Gary Chartrand was for Race to the Top, which called for more standardized testing, which invariably leads to just teaching to the test. RTTT made education a game with winners and losers, and eroded local control of education and all for a drop in the bucket. Education should be about elevating all children and the people in Jacksonville not in Tallahassee or Washington D.C. should be making the major decisions with how to do so.

Gary Chartrand’s protégé is running for the school board and it is unfathomable to think her views on education are any different than his. He undoubtedly played a major roll in her huge fund raising total.

Gary Chartrand through his foundations monetary donations has undoubtedly had a positive effect but just because you are rich and have rich friends it doesn’t mean you should be running the show. He is on the wrong side of each of these issues and we should be concerned his protégé is attempting to buy her way onto the school board.