Tag Archives: Pathways in Education

Part 2: Red flags abound in Caldwell’s newest proposed charter school

This is part 2 of a multipart series. I encourage all readers to also view part 1 here.

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Unfortunately, the red flags continue to stack upon the previous five detailed yesterday for Pathways in Education’s (PIE’s) charter application.

Red flag six: The student-teacher ratio is astronomically high for an alternative school.

The budget allocates for only 6 FTE classroom teachers. At an anticipated enrollment of 300 students, that results in a bloated student-teacher ratio of 50 to 1. Fifty to one.

This ratio would be considered much too high for a public school in general; however, for an alternative school in particular in which the focus is on small class sizes and additional interaction time for each individual student, this ratio is obtusely top heavy.

See page 207 for more information.

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Red flags abound in Caldwell’s newest proposed charter school: Welcome to the era of Charter Management Companies in Idaho

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Caldwell School District has received a fresh application for a proposed charter school.  This particular proposal for the charter entity Pathways in Education is interesting in the sense that not only will it will be the first time that Caldwell will consider a possible alternative high school under a charter, but it will also be the first time that Caldwell will consider paying an outside “consulting” company in order to manage the charter.

Pathways in Education (PIE) is the latest of a series of charter schools promoted and managed by married former Hollywood teachers John and Joan Hall (their daughter, Jamie, and son, John Jr, are also both intricately involved in the family enterprise).

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