Charter school gets OK
The Academics Plus Charter School in Maumelle, which has been troubled by financial and personnel issues, has convinced the state Board of Education that it's righted itself and is ready to operate another year.
The Board today gave the school approval to continue to receive state funding. The school has lined up 334 students to attend after figuring it needed a minimum of 286 and a state Education Department spot check indicated the students were serious about attending. The school will operate grades 3-12. It emphasizes a rigorous core curriculum and offers high school students the possibility of graduating with sufficient collegiate hours to qualify for an associate's degree.
Comments
We may as well have kids take the core courses in high school. They are prepared as they'll ever be for an upper-level CJRU class at UALR if they've had 7th grade English.
I'm a student at UALR and am appauled at who can graduate with a B.A.. I've seen some writing from Juniors in the Criminal Justice Department that would make Jr. High teachers flinch.
Best wishes to Academics Plus. I would have loved to have that opportunity when I was in high school but I guess my AAAA school was too worried about building a new field house than paying someonw to teach AP classes.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 10, 2006 04:44 PM
I am glad the school will continue to operate for another year. Parents need options for their children, and charter schools can provide avenues when parents are no longer interested in public ed.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 10, 2006 05:36 PM
well, anony #1, my school had lots of ap classes, but now the principal has decided that running the school like nazis is a better idea than focusing on keeping great ap teachers around. so now they still have the ap classes, but with the remaining teachers doing loads more work. bill barnes has RUINED mills high school.
Posted by: little rocker | July 11, 2006 08:58 AM
The state of education in Arkansas is truly " appaulling "... .. or even "appalling " as most prefer to spell it; especially as regards the teaching of spelling.
Speaking of education.......
Ron Crawford is a real piece of monumental hypocrisy. He's a wealthy business man whose claim to fame and thus his primary obsession is AAU Basketball. He's also a rabid right-wing republican who like so many of his ilk( Broyles, Sutton,etc.) has hugely benefitted from athletically gifted African-Americans he would probably not otherwise acknowledge on the streets.. This suspected underlying racism is probably the "elephant " in the room that explains his personal fight for his grand-kids' right to remain in an academically inferior (albeit probably all-white) school out in the middle of nowhere. It may also be a factor in his children's desire to reside in Paron.
Flexibility would seem to be the key to resolving the real travel hardships and other issues in the Paron type cases. Perhaps the special skills teachers could do the travelling and go out to outlying schools a few afternoons a week to the kids, rather than structure it so the kids travel every day to large schooling centers.
Posted by: Roy | July 11, 2006 09:59 AM