Chicago has just seen another upsurge in youth violence, and different observers have different solutions.
This post by Parents Across America argues that what is needed to reduce youth violence is a closer connection between communities and schools.
It maintains that the city’s decade-long policy of closing neighborhood schools and opening charters and schools of choice has severed young people from the watchful eyes of their community.
Charter advocates argue that charters are the antidote to youth violence because they provide quality choices that save students from their failing school.
What do you think?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I think Parents Across America is right on target. Daily reports of shootings, primarily in segregated low-income Chicago neighborhoods, have been skyrocketing. Charter schools are not anchors in communities, since their very purpose is to compete with neighborhood schools, not collaborate with them. One has to wonder if that excerbates gang rivalries. If charter schools treat kids like they are feral animals in need of draconian taming methods, what we may be seeing is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
“severed young people from the watchful eyes of the community.”
This statement implies that regular public schools have been ‘watchful’ and concerned about their students. If that were the case, how could you explain the decades of violence that has occurred in urban cores across the country under the ‘watchful eyes’ of regular public schools?
From my personal experience over the last 8 years teaching in charter schools our students are less violent because of the supportive environment we created; the students feel safer at the school than in their own neighborhood. Yet, I’ve taught at a regular public school that created a similar environment, and in all cases it’s the PEOPLE IN THE SCHOOL that create that environment.
Perhaps the tension of hopelessness is being felt by those who lost the lotteries, those who never applied and those who have been TOLD over and over and over that the teachers are failing them and their schools are horrible? The staff of the school and the community surrounding it can be the only support these kids get, but as community support has rescinded, families are stressed beyond measure, police in large urban areas are actually under attack and the talking heads keep telling people we are horrible the frustration goes up.
Teens who never succeeded in school for multitudes of reasons, begin to realize in their 20’s that maybe they needed an education. After their parents, who for another multitude of reasons, gave up or allowed their child to quit. They get tired of the 20yo sleeping on the couch, eating their food and say go get a job. That is usually when the reality hits and the tension rises. The economy is bad in so many places but the blame they hear is placed on the teachers! I went to a community event this summer and walked by some people there handing out fliers in support of the new charter school in Shreveport. A women next to me said to them, “Yeah, we need that! If my daughter had gotten a decent education she wouldn’t be living with me right no with no job!” The lady handing out the flier said, “Yep, and it is only getting worse!”
Yet, in the news it seems like the general public without school age children is ignoring or struggling themselves so much they have taken little notice of the battles in public education, or where their tax dollars are going. When they finally look up and see what has happened it will be too late! Then the anger will become worse, humans don’t always react to social change issues until it directly affects them and with the sneaky nature of change, especially in Louisiana, many are apathetic because they haven’t been affected yet.
I pray for teachers in these big urban schools once school starts, the lotteries are over and parents and youth begin to ask themselves , “Now What!?”
” Then the anger will become worse, humans don’t always react to social change issues until it directly affects them and with the sneaky nature of change, especially in Louisiana, many are apathetic because they haven’t been affected yet.”
How right you are, Confused. I believe their are educators in
Louisiana, as there are elsewhere, who still or won’t accept what is happening. Rather frustrating. Isn’t it?
Did you read Joe Nocera column today “Addressing Poverty in Schools”? Was very surprised your name never came up, but the premise was very good. Unfortunately he still believes teacher accountability must be evaluated through testing although he feels there are too many tests. And he is still touts charters over public education even though they expel the students he describes in this piece.
‘Part of the debate over school reform is about poverty itself, with the reformers taking the view that a great teacher can overcome the barriers poverty poses, while the other side says that the problems of public schools can’t be solved until poverty itself is alleviated.”
While I do not know Dr. Pamela Cantor’s work, I do appreciate the fact that she acknowledges discipline problems in these schools and is trying to find a way to work with students, teachers and principals. I only hope she recognizes that in order to increase academic achievement, you can’t follow the teach to the test mentality.
Charter schools may contribute to the violence depending on how new students are enrolled and allowed to stay. As stated before, if they don’t get chosen in a lottery, they may feel they lost their only shot. The other possible contributing factor is if the child is accepted into the program, but doesn’t perform up to the school’s standard, is the student kicked out? What damage could either of these senerios have on a struggling young person? Public education, on the other hand, doesn’t discriminate. If a student comes we will educate him/ her. We want young people to succeed, not so we look good, but so students are empowered to succeed in their own lives.
I think that there is a correlation between the charters, which disconnect the community from the community public school and increased violence, but this current rise in violence in Chicago has been attributed to a law that was just passed that makes it easier to send high ranking gang leaders to prison leaving only young, inexperienced, volatile gang members who are also very bad shots. They are also more immature and vying for vacated leadership positions within the gangs. That is what the police are saying, and given the recent sweep of gang leadership into incarceration, it makes sense.