On Mar 17, 11:52 am, "ctj" nospam.com> wrote:

chong,

I have had only a limited time prodding around, looking at, and
visiting a few Hmong charter schools, when I first arrive in the Twin
Cities some years back.

(my whole life's been involved in middle and high school education.
and I keep on working with middle and high school students, still, but
in mostly private schools the past 8 years.)

I have to be honest with you.... unfortunately, some of what I will
say will not sit well with you (as the case should be, if you truly
care about Hmong American education, which I am not... I am interested
in young people's education, period. quality education, that is...
That means, wherever I found myself, working with young people, I do
my very best....I just don't happen to be working with Hmong, or for
Hmong parents and their children, 'tis all....but I've had limited
experience working in both capacities previously....)

since I've moved to Minnesota, I've observed 4 charter schools. three
out of the four were either run by Hmong or having at least 50 percent
of the students being Hmong. the fourth one was run by a Hmong, but
it was mostly African American kids. I don't think the principle made
it for too long. it was an extremely tough inncercity little charter
school, where both students and teachers (many) came and went,
routinely, each year....

if I were to have a kid, none of these charter schools would see my
kid being enrolled, let's say.

the funny thing is, I tried to apply for a job in ONE of them --- it's
a creative, one-year deal job --- but they turned me down (didn't even
tell me why! :o), so I thought, well, okay, I'll just stick to working
with private school kids in Golden Valley, if that Hmong Academy
didn't want me.

(it was actually a good thing, as I would have wanted to do things
very differently from how the school administrators would have wanted
them done...And that would have forced them to fire me, or I would
have left them anyway...)

I agree with you on this: STATISTICS can be constructed in any way.
those from the inside COULD and would make them seem like the kids
have achieved leaps and bounds; those from the outside COULD make them
seem like there's nothing going on.

the fact of the matter is, there IS something going on, and most of
those who are responsible for Hmong children in these Hmong academies
DO work hard. "The best" they know how.... unfortunately, many of the
ones in charge HAVE neither CLASSROOM EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND nor
administratove experience. Or if they do, it's likely short and
inconsequential.

I know that in charter schools, the "founders" usually pay themselves
good amounts of money, from the decent chunks the schools get from the
city/state/fed.

what troubles/puzzles me the most is the concept that there are
actually "profit" to be made from the sums of money allocated through
state formulas on per child allocation. and the founders DO make good
money from these charter schools; they make quite a lot, if they also
own the properties in which the schools are using! most charter
schools need to hire "consulting firms" to help them, and a large
chunk of the money fliew out the windows via those firms...

I was involved, briefly, in a Frogtown area charter school a few years
ago, when two parents brought a complaint against the founders, who
happened to own the buildings the school used; fortunately, they were
smart enough to use shell companies as owners of those buildings, so
the money didn't to them directly. there were "prominent" Hmong who
were "advisors" to those building owners/administrators. I have no
idea whether there were cuts for those locally important Hmong
"advisors"/"leaders", but knowing human nature, I would say there
probably were......

anyway, don't misunderstand me:

I am not, I was not, bitter or anything. if any thing, I am sadden
for Hmong parents and students. for those who don't have the
education or awareness some of us do, when it comes to teaching and
academics for secondary youth, that is.....

personally, I am very happy working with private school students, most
of whom are White kids, who come from very affluent families where I
can charge them $50 to $70 an hour (so I could stop working after 20
hours, in a week, becaues by nature I am very lazy and I need to rest
of the time to think about the stars, flowers, dust, molecules,
etc.).

obviously, the parents and students I work with are affluent and
educated, so it's not as if though they're stuck with me, an
unqualified person working with their children....

but those Hmong families and children in those half a dozen or so
Hmong-affiliated charter schools in the Twin Cities..... they have no
alternatives. not only are they not able to hire private tutors to
help their kids in the academics, but most Hmong parents are not well
educated enough to ask probing questions when it comes to questions
such as the following, either:

1. resource allocation (towards specific tasks: "show me my kid is
getting his share of the money's worth, being here in this charter
school!," etc.),
2. proper and adequate administrator and teaching faculty, for
SPECIFIC tasks, at the local site,
3. quality (breadth and depth) of cirriculum and teaching,
4. quality administrator and factulty hired from the outset (this is
different from #2)

#2 deals with "what could we do with what we've got at hand?"

do you, as a parent, want someone who "rose" through the ranks of the
public schools, partly or mostly, as a classified/admistrative person,
to be running a school for your children? or do you want someone who
graduated from Yale who's been a successful classroom teacher and
administrator to be your school's administrators/founders?;

#4 has to do with WHO becomes administrators (as I just noted a few
breaths ago); how or what kind of educational background do they have;
what are the quality of it?; and whether or not they have --- if we
agree they are first calibre educators --- hired the properly trained
staff and facutly?, etc.

So, again, #2 and #4 are not the same things.

so the question, for each of us, then, becomes "would I send me kid
here, to this charter school, if I had one?"

We need to be honest. disregard those statistics that can be
construed any way.... juts answer that simple question....

if you answer is, No, then there is something wrong with or not
adequate about THESE CHARTER SCHOOLS....

personally if I were to have a kid, none of these Hmong charter school
would see him or her. first of all, if I were to have a kid, I would
be able to teach him or her by myself (well, maybe not the first 3 or
so years, as those are tough years!, which I have no clews as how to
teach!, but lower middle school through high school?, when it comes to
analyzing history, literature, and doing mathematics and science,,, no
problem).

for socialization purposes, he or she would go to a good public or a
private one....