Critics of charter schools have noted that they undermine neighborhood public schools and decimate communities. By offering a slot to a small proportion of students in the neighborhood, they break up any sense of community spirit centered on the community school and they simultaneously promote the free-market fetishizing of consumer choice. Add to the charter movement the effects of NCLB: labeling a school with low scores as a “failing school,” which causes families to abandon it and demoralizes teachers; and the effects of Race to the Top, which encourages school closings as a remedy for low scores. All of this is a great avoidance strategy, a way of not facing up to the most consistent predictor of low test scores: poverty. Yes, poor kids can learn, and yes, it is possible to create a high-test score school composed of poor kids, but neither of those facts contradicts the consistent correlation between poverty and low academic achievement. Corporate reformers like to pretend that poverty doesn’t matter, because they know of 1 or 20 schools where poor kids got high test scores. But that is a non sequitur. There is no district in the nation, even those run by the most ardent reformers, that has closed the achievement gaps of race and income. Certainly not DC or NYC.
A reader reflects on this scenario:
One of the less-developed discussions about charter schools is their role in destroying the neighborhood school – now effectively accomplished among NYC high schools, for example – and how that is integral to the class and racial reconfiguration of the neighborhoods in which they are being placed.
As Mark Naison perceptively wrote weeks ago, throughout the grim Reagan, Bush I and post-NAFTA years of deindustrialization that hollowed out so many communities, the one place that remained was the neighborhood public school, which often employed neighborhood residents and provided an island of stability. Now, as developers have their eyes on some of those communities, they have allied with charter school operators. It’s no coincidence, for example, that one of the most active real estate developers in rapidly gentrifying Harlem (Gideon Stein) is on the Board of Eva Moskowitz’s aggressively metastasizing Harlem Success Academies. It’s a vicious irony that, hyped as a panacea for poor Black and Latino urban children, charter schools in many cities and neighborhoods are in fact a vehicle for ultimately displacing them. After all, as census data has been showing for a while, the slums of the future are forming in the suburbs (charter operators take note: a rapidly developing market!), and the urban core is becoming whiter and more affluent. Charters, whether brick-and-mortar schools or virtual sweatshops started by ex-felons (as is the case with K-12 and its founder, Michael Mlken) are not just about busting the unions and monetizing every last data point generated in the school building, but are also a real estate play, eliminating what is often one of the last public, universally accessible institution in these neighborhoods, and making way for more desirable consumers who don’t rely upon or care about the ongoing destruction of the public realm. |
is this the same gideon stein who is head of Future is Now charter school network?
Want to learn more about the battle for neighborhood schools in suburbia? Google Bullis Charter School in Los Altos, or Pacific Collegiate School in Santa Cruz. Both schools were founded by private school families and teachers to use public dollars to seize treasured neighborhood school buildings for their exclusive programs.
And they got away with it.
Divide and conquer
There are no charter high schools in my community, but there is private high school. It has been in existence for only about five years. Will it destroy my community or is there a difference between charter and private schools? I should add that the private high school offers a limited number of scholarships to low income applicants.
People pay for private schools. Charter schools get public funds and create a dual school system. I realize you are not a historian, but have you heard of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. It involved students in Topeka, and all over the nation. You should read it.
The state government in my state allocates funds to local school districts based on enrollment. If a student leaves to go to a private school, the public school looses that money.
The private school gets no public funds, but the public school does lose public funds. A sort of half charter?
Can I ask what Brown v the Board of Education in Topeka Kansas has to do with any of the discussion about charter or private schools?
Bad community schools are still bad schools. As successful charters “metastasize” each one becomes a community in itself, except students/parents will choose to belong to these communities instead of being assigned / confined by geographic proximity.
Charters to be sure offer no silver bullet against the blight of poverty, but at least charters can develop with a specific focus on building self-esteem and achievement (whether college prep or vocational) for these students, instead of supposing that one state/federal mandated educational model with centralized (and expensive and non-responsive) bureaucracy can work in any and all communities in the state.
Yes, but most charters aren’t successful. Only 17% perform better than public schools, according to Stanford’s CREDO study, still the most comprehensive and respected research done on charters to date.
About half of charters do “no better” than public schools, but over 1/3 do “significantly worse”.
Why do charter backers start with the premise that what they offer will be “better”, when all evidence points to the complete opposite?
Charters don’t allow parents to “choose”; it’s either self-selection or random chance that permits entry. The real effect (and intent?) is to divide funding, divide resources, divide families and divide students.
If the backers of charters—and their enablers in the media—didn’t have such a vast advantage in funding, and hold such dominance in the mainstream media, this “debate” would’t even be close.
The only reason charters keep going is due to the affluence and arrogance of their financial backers.
When you say do better, do the same, or do worse than public schools, what exactly do you mean by “public schools”? The average? Statistically significantly higher or lower than the mean public school? Is this comparison made between schools with equal number of students from disadvantaged backgrounds?
Stanford has a nice site here, and I recommend people take a look at it. It appears that the public school standard is a the scores on the state average NAEP exams. Only 17% of charter schools perform better than this average, but of course only 50% of public schools score better than this average.
The issue for children’s education is if children who switch from the public school they are allowed to attend to a charter school, will they be better off? The answer is almost assuredly no if the student goes to one of the elite public school magnet schools. I doubt any parent would choose a charter school over the Connecticut International Baccalaureate Academy or The Maine School of Science and Mathematics.
The interesting comparison is between the charter school and the public school the children would otherwise have to attend. We need to drill down in the data (yes Duane I know you think the numbers are meaningless, but indulge me here) and find out if the students who switch to a charter school are better off compared to attending the actual public school to which they would be assigned.
This reminds me of the insurance add that say the average person who switched to Allstate saved $300 dollars. Of course they did. Would you switch to Allstate if was more expensive? The same here: would you switch to a charter school if your student attended an excellent high school? Would you switch if your student attended the average high school?
Bad community schools are still bad schools. As successful charters “metastasize” each one becomes a community in itself, except students/parents will choose to belong to these communities instead of being assigned / confined by geographic proximity.
Charters to be sure offer no silver bullet against the blight of poverty, but at least charters can develop with a specific focus on building self-esteem and achievement (whether college prep or vocational) for these students, instead of supposing that one state/federal mandated educational model with centralized (and expensive and non-responsive) bureaucracy can work in any and all communities in the state.
Someone else previously posted this comment, word for word.
Were you copying his or do you have an identical brain?
Is this the “Official Party Line” you’ve cut and pasted here? Or just the “Talking Points” sent out to the paid bloggers at one of the Broad-Gates-Walton groups?
Your hoary cliches didn’t impress me the first time. Why would they do any better on the second try?
So there is a charter high school in my area that is successful, nurturing has an outstanding curriculum, and implements best practices from schools in Canada and Finland.
My local school district is mediocre at best, focuses on sports over academics, and the administration and school board resists all efforts by students and the community to change.
Should I send my children to the mediocre high school just to preserve a sense of community? Should I deny my children the chance at a superior education just to preserve a sense of community? Should the leaders of the local school district not have any competition just to preserve a sense of community?
There are very few successful charter high schools like the one you describe, so you are very lucky to have one in your community.
Do it include kids with disabilities? English language learners? Is it racially integrated?
Or is it one of those enclaves of privilege?
Just asking.
Thank you for the reply. The charter school appears to have the similar demographics and I cannot speak to the number of students with disabilities or ELL I would assume they are less.
I do not understand your point and I feel like you avoiding my point.: Should I deny my children to preserve community spirit? Should all the children in our district be ‘condemned’ to suffer the mediocrity that the district school offers?
Of course you will do what is best for your children. But take the long view for a minute and ask what will happen to America if we re-create the dual system of schools that existed before 1954. You won’t change your mind, but at least you might wonder for a moment what’s best for the nation and for the rest of the children in the community. Bear in mind that charter schools enroll about 5% of the nation’s children. Is that a systemic answer for the nation? Shall we all retreat into our little enclaves of privilege, or should we work together to build good schools for everyone?
Great points. So why do district school administrators settle for medicore and refuse to improve? In our district they rave about their schools being better than the state avereage, when our state is at the bottom and our students need to complete globally. How do we change that? I and other parents want the local distrct to do better but they refuse. For my children I cannot wait.
You speak of enclaves so I wonder what your view on district magnet schools is. Typically these schools are selective, have entrance tests,
and do not serve the disabled\ELL populations. These schools seems to be the pinnacle of enclaves. Do you rally against them? My children are smart and hard working but not brillant.
cont: and likely would not get into a district magnet school. When I found out the charter was not selective I was stunned but elated. Here is a school that will take hard working students who are not jocks and who are not gifted. Again, why is it so hard for the distrct schools to offer this?
Cynthia:
“Should all the children in our district be ‘condemned’ to suffer the mediocrity that the district school offers?”
Please include both the criteria that you use to define “mediocrity” along with credible citations to prove that the district school is indeed “failing” your community.
You’ve used terms like “mediocre,” “superior” and competition,” but you are not explaining just what exactly these indicators mean.
I think people could answer you more effectively if you actually provide definitions to explain your POV and evidence to back up your claim.
LG wrote…”Please include both the criteria that you use to define “mediocrity””
– High teacher turnover
– Lack of course offerings
– Focus on sports
– Hiring of inexperienced administrators
– Underperforming neighboring high schools with identical demographics
– A ‘That’s how we have always done it” mentality and strong resistance to change.
I never wrote that it was failing our community. They do an adequate job. Why won’t they do an excellent job?
Cynthia:
First may I say, kudos to you for caring as passionately as you do. Your concerns are important, and by having them, you demonstrate that you are the kind of parent your community needs.
This kind of “movement” to change a district can never be characterized by over-simplification. These claims are serious enough to discuss in depth, and there are many points to consider and analyze for validity. My comments are an attempt to dissect your concerns by addressing each one on some level of detail.
Earlier you stated that your district school “focuses on sports over academics.”–This claim seems very subjective—how do you determine that it is indeed taking place? Is there a regulatory violation in play here? Has your district been remiss in satisfying the guidelines for academic excellence as set forth by your county and state DOE curriculum requirements? Is this your own personal disagreement concerning the amount of athletic programs? Have students been adversely affected by the athletic programs, and if so, how has this affect been measured?
“…and the administration and school board resists all efforts by students and the community to change.”–What efforts have been put forth and to what degree have the students and the community asked for change? In other words, has the community asked for the administration to be fired? Has the community appeared before the board of ed. armed with evidence of wrong-doing? Have members of the community contacted the county and state DOE to discuss regulatory violations, if any?
“- High teacher turnover”–What is the experience demographic of the district teaching staff: Are teachers leaving because they are retiring or are non-tenured staff members not being renewed en masse? Are active duty teachers finding jobs elsewhere? Has there been legislative action that might encourage early mass retirement? Is there an economic reason for teachers to be leaving this district? High teacher turnover can be affected by many things over which the district may or may not have control. It appears that you believe it might be indicative of an administrative problem. If this is the case, a grass roots mobilization of the parents could ask for an investigation into the hiring and firing practices of the board of education. I do not know the protocols regarding the chain-of-command in your locality, but there must be a DOE on the county and state level that could look into the situation.
“- Lack of course offerings”–What are some examples of courses that are offered and courses that you feel SHOULD be offered either in addition or instead? Is this district not fulfilling state and local curriculum regulations? If so, perhaps you should talk to your state DOE to inquire about more rigorous options. If not, you need to take this matter to the next level of education government instead.
“- Focus on sports”–This seems subjective. Are other types of activities non-existent? Are participation regulations for the district’s sports programs working in conjunction with the academic requirements or against them? Once again, how do you measure this?
“- Hiring of inexperienced administrators”–Experience level of eligible administrative staff is usually governed by a state DOE regulation, not a district one, although I cannot speak to your locality (as I said before) and therefore I do not know if there are different rules governing your state compared to most other states. Many states have minimal requirements for credentialing administrators due to a shortage in the pool of eligible administrators. You may find that once an administrator has the credentials, whether or not that person has the experience may or may not be an issue for the board. This could be due to a shortage of admins or even a budget issue.
Many districts use the same experience-contingent staffing model with their administrative staff as they use for their teaching staff. The really successful ones try to make certain there is a nice balance of inexperienced, more experienced and veteran staff within the confines of one school or school system. I would contact the board president to voice your concern about the level of experience of school administrators. The board works for you, and as such, should be open to dialogue. If not, contact the next level of education government.
“- Underperforming neighboring high schools with identical demographics”–Not sure how this affects your district unless the neighboring high schools are IN your district. Beyond that, what criteria are you using to “measure” performance?
“- A ‘That’s how we have always done it’ mentality and strong resistance to change.”–This attitude, whether intentional or not, is damaging to the community.
You are in a position to voice your concerns and do some real research to determine what is driving the district position on the points you have made. If the school is so completely mediocre that you feel you deserve more, you can certainly strive to place your children elsewhere, but think about whether this action will help or hurt the community.
The way I see it is: You can either work to improve your community by helping to improve your schools, or leave your community behind by running to a charter. I do not want you to think that I am criticizing you for wanting something more than you feel you already have for your family. As stated earlier, you are the kind of person your community needs—your community is only as strong as the people in it. If the people left behind who are still in the public school fall apart because so many good people like you abandoned that school, there goes your community. Your infrastructure will take a hit, your property values will fall, and your community will be divided by virtue of the educational institutions.
By just abandoning and giving up on the public’s school system for your own children, while noble for you as a parent, is not helpful to the community. Not all parents have the foresight that you have—you would be helping and enriching your community at-large by taking an interest in ALL the children.
LG,
Thank you for the reply.
Trust me, we have tried with board members and the administration and received nothing but ire and ostracization and the brush off with frankly some the terms you use above. “We are meeting the state minimums’ “We are meeting state law” “We are aligned with state standards” blah, blah, blah. Alignment and minimums are not good enough. How about exceeding those rules, laws, and standards and setting high expectations to go along with it.
But back to the topic at hand, should ‘community spirit’ be preserved above all else. ‘Community spirit’ may make for great crowds at the Firday night football game, but it is not going to allow our students to compete globally.
Cynthia
I agree with you and have made this kind of argument in the past. The basic question, if you should be required to keep your children in a school when there is better alternative available to them because it is to the benefit of someone else, has never really been answered.
Cynthia, I think the biggest question here is how much of an investment in the community do you feel you should make?
The whole issue with “what’s in it for me and my family” goes against the concept of community. Charter schools tend to divide communities into the people who want one thing and the people who want another. So rather than allow your community to proliferate the two-system method of education, why not work to improve the community standards? The public schools teach your neighbors–if you value your neighborhood, you would support these schools by working to improve them doing whatever it takes.
There is nothing wrong with striving to be the best you can be, but the attitude of “what about MY situation” has allowed so many aspects of our societal thread to unravel.
The hardest part about living in a society is maintaining your individuality without abandoning your “citizen obligations.” A community’s values are always represented in its community schools.
If the school district is not serving your needs, yet it is not in violation of the state standards, then find out how the state department of ed. standards can be influenced to be more rigorous. You must carefully state your wishes, though. To simply say “sports are more important than academics in our district” is to make a subjective statement. Arm yourself with evidence of this. Do some research as to what courses are available to students and what courses are those that you want to see made available. Again, arm yourself with something tangible. Arming yourself with rhetoric does nothing to change a community.
This is an arduous process and not for the faint-of-heart, but you are just the kind of person to lead the way. If you are not willing to take this fight to this level, you can move to a state or an area within your state with schools that reflect your values.
Moving is not always an option especially in this financial climate, so then you need to make a decision if you are going to invest in the community in which you live or not. If you want more FOR your community, your community must demand it. You are your community, not some charter school.
I guarantee that you would not want your fire, police, or emergency personnel to simply abandon the community because they disagree with what it has. They would stay and work for the community because they believe in it.
People do not like it when their communities do not serve them, but what do people do to serve their communities? (“Ask not what your country can do for you…etc.”)
LG
I don’t think you have the biggest question exactly right. Cynthia can decide how much of an investment she wants to make in her community now, even with the existence of charter schools.
You argue persuasively that the community would benefit from her enrolling her children in the public school. She argues that her children will get an inferior education. Lets assume that both of you are right. I think the biggest question is if the government should be able to require Cynthia to enroll her students in the local public school despite the costs to her children.
If your answer is yes, am not sure why you would discuss moving in order to change school districts. That is simply a way to get out of the obligation to your community to improve the community. Potentially it also lowers the funding base for the school, further degrading the quality of the community.
If your answer is yes, what other obligations do Cynthia and her children have to others in the community? Should participation in community events like band concerts and art shows be required like public school participation? Should blood donation be required?
There are, of course, some other interesting issues.
Cynthia has asked about magnet schools. Though they are “public schools”, they would seem to play the same role you see being played by a charter school. One of my children would have loved to go to a top magnet school like Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Virginia, but we live in a big square state in the middle of the country, so we don’t get access to any magnet schools. Do magnet schools destroy communities in the same way? I would like to see you address this question.
Going with a list of courses you wished the high school to teach seems very impractical. That same son is very academically precocious, and it would be foolish for our local high school to offer the classes he needed to take. If there had been a charter school in my town that specialized in students with his individual learning needs, it would have been a great option that would have allowed the public high school to focus its resources on the more typical student. We were lucky that we lived in a university town, so we could use the university as our charter school (though we did have to pay significant tuition for the privilege)
I hope this can continue an interesting discussion.
“I think the biggest question is if the government should be able to require Cynthia to enroll her students in the local public school despite the costs to her children.” Well, the government does not require anyone to enroll in the public school if they have another option. It only requires citizens to pay into the infrastructure (which included public education).
Yes, moving out of a community lowers the funding base for the school, further degrading the quality of the community, but moving out of the community is her prerogative. If she chooses to stay in the community, but not take an active part in the neighborhood schools, the community–her community–will be affected. If she moves, her new community will be affected by her. Many people DO move out of communities when they are unhappy with them. It’s the ones who stay and don’t support the schools that are actually doing a disservice.
In regard to magnet schools, one needs to define an example of how they serve their constituencies. Are they, in fact, public schools? Is the system a regional system that serves a large school district where the funding is distributed throughout the region? There are far too many questions to answer before someone can answer your question: Do magnet schools destroy communities in the same way?
“Going with a list of courses you wished the high school to teach seems very impractical.” Cynthia mentioned a lack of course offerings–I asked for clarification of just what course offerings she would like to see NOT lacking. I was addressing her want that there needs to be something more by asking specifically what it was since the school claims it is following the guidelines of the state. What is the justification for the claim? The practicality of such a question should not be an issue–she said there was a lack of course offerings. What would she have the district offer compared to what it already offers? A legitimate and fair question, I think.
“That same son is very academically precocious, and it would be foolish for our local high school to offer the classes he needed to take.” Not necessarily. A school should be able to teach its constituency or at least find a placement school for students with needs beyond the school’s level of service.
“If there had been a charter school in my town that specialized in students with his individual learning needs, it would have been a great option that would have allowed the public high school to focus its resources on the more typical student.” There are plenty of schools that work in conjunction with the local school districts to help these students–no need for a charter if there is a support system on the county level.
“We were lucky that we lived in a university town, so we could use the university as our charter school (though we did have to pay significant tuition for the privilege)” In my state, the local school district sends its per-pupil funds for a student with severe special needs to the county-run specialty schools. The money is, in effect, leaving the local system, but the county still has it–it still goes to the public. In a charter school situation, where does the money go?
“I hope this can continue an interesting discussion.” Me, too. Everyone is raising excellent points.
LG-
I apologize for being unclear about my initial question. I was not asking if Cynthia has the right to move out of the public school, I was asking if she should have the right to do it. That seems key to the discussion about the existence of charter schools and what the community can require of its citizens, and key to her concern about the future of her children. I will restate it so I am clear: should Cynthia be allowed to remove her children from the public schools in the community and place them in an alternative school, regardless of the economic circumstances of her family (I would bold “should” if I knew how to do it).
As for the communities issue, I am at a loss to explain why the people who flee a community physically are morally blameless, but those who remain but do not participate in the public school system in that community are morally blameworthy. If Cynthia sends her children to another school without moving, she will join that school’s community and contribute to it. Is the act of moving across a district line, sometimes perhaps just across the street, so significant?
I am also surprised that the discussion of magnet schools requires such nuanced and detailed information, given the lack of detailed and nuanced information required to condemn charter schools. I have never seen any discussion about how charter schools serve their constituencies on this blog, never a discussion of the size of the school district or funding model, yet these schools axiomatically divide communities or in other entries destroy communities. Why does the title “charter school” automatically condemn a school as a community divider while a “magnet school” must be carefully analyzed about the specifics of the school and how it functions, a process that is far too involved to be considered in the discussion of a blog entry entitled “How Charter Schools Divide Communities”? Perhaps the key is when you ask the question “is it in fact a public school?” What would make a public magnet school like the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology not a public school?
Next, we have course selection. This might sound bad and a bit personal, but I will say it anyway. The son I was talking about is on the extreme end of the academic spectrum, especially in science and math. Most of the teachers in the high school did not know what do with him, and it was only after he scored 598 out of 600 possible points in the state math assessment at the end of his sophomore year that the administrators of the high school were willing to get a little bit out of his way. (Yes, Duane I know you think it is a meaningless number) In the end, he graduated at 16 having taken 9 AP exams; all scored a 5 (He prepared for two of the exams with traditional AP courses. The others were based on independent studies, an online course in a subject he had to take due to state law, the AB physics class (the only one offered) but doing the C physics exams, work done in college courses (he took the math BC exam because he wanted to win the Siemens AP prize for the state, which he did), and a couple of weeks of discussion with me about introductory microeconomics). He also finished with a years’ worth of credit at the state flagship research university, including an honors course, several upper level undergraduate courses, and an upper level graduate course. Public high school was a horribly frustrating place for him, and he despised it. In the large, square, low population state where I live, there was no alternative. If there had been one, we would have jumped on it. He made it through with the help of professional counseling.
That son was certainly not typical, but he was also not unique. I know of two other high school students who did graduate work at the university in mathematics while at his high school in the last decade. You say “no need for a charter if there is a support system on the county level.” From this I assume that you think there is a need for a charter if there is insufficient or no support at the county level. There is no support system on the county level in my district, so perhaps charter schools are justified here. I know my son longed for a community of scholars. If a charter school provided one, we would have enrolled him.
Finally, where does the money go in a charter school? Well, mostly the same place it goes in a public school: it pays teachers, buys materials, pays staff, purchases food, buys and maintains buildings. The usual things you have to buy when running a school. For the most part, it still stays in the community. If it is run by a for profit enterprise, there might be some money paid to the shareholders. Some of the shareholders might even be members of the community; some might even be public school teachers. Public employee pension funds are among the largest owners of stock in the country.
I could say more, but this has already gone on too long. In particular, it seems to me that the success of your argument in favor of Cynthia keeping her children in the public school system hinges on how likely she is to change the public school system. I hope to be able to discuss that with you.
I apologize for the lack of spacing in my post. I was too fast with the post comment button.
I’ll turn the question around: why should all of the other parents in the district have to pay for the lucky few who can get into that charter, when their own kids don’t have that option ? This is exactly the point of the original post. Why fix the system you’ve got, when you can just abandon it for a shiny new one (ignoring the people who have no choice) ? Why do we need “competition” to change a school system when there is a democratically elected school board ? If you don’t like it, throw the bums out ! You’re not powerless!
So the school board has a 4 year term and the suprtintendent has a 3 year contract which is ‘evergreen’ and renewed every year. I don’t have 6-7 years to affect change for my children, assuming it could even be done.
Why should all the other parents in the district pay for the lucky few who go to the best (however you measure it) elementary school in the district when their children are denied that option?
Why do all the parents in the district pay for state of the art athletic facilities for the lucky few who make the varsity teams when other activities, like drama, are given no operating budget?
We can start down that road if you wish, but it is a very long road.
I ask again, since you didn’t answer: so what about all of the parents in your district who don’t have the option of a charter ? Is it fair that they subsidize your kids while theirs go begging ?
See above
Charter folks out in droves today, eh!!
At least one was smart enough to “individualize” the talking points.
I’m not extremely happy with my government right now. It never completely satisfies my wants. My needs are being met in this country, but my wants sure aren’t. And I’m not sure that the government is doing what’s best for my kids. I definitely want more for them. . . Can we start talking about a charter government?
I don’t know why discussions about the best policy for problem A often include statements that if the solution for A is not the same as the solution for problem B, the solution for A is incorrect.
You are sooooooooooooo correct, teachingeconomist. When will start realizing that this supposed choice and competition that is supposedly so good for businesses is NOT good for public education?
and if choice is bad idea for governments, that does mean it is a bad idea for schools. Lets think about the merits of the individual cases
There’s always Canada.
LG, you do know I agree with you, right?
Oh yes, but I would move to Canada before I would stand for the privatization of my government.
Expect that could be another conversation, huh? Seems like our government has already been taken over by the privateers money. Is it already privatized? :-0
Not entirely–not yet, and I hope not ever or I will be buying sweaters and brushing up on my French. We still have social security and medicare on the federal level, and state health and pension systems. We still have people working in infrastructure who are overseen by government rules, regs, and protocols crafted by a representative body. People still can vote for who makes these decisions.
There is a difference between salary and profit. If you can prove that those in charge of oversight in government are getting both, you can call it privatization. I don’t mean to over-simplify the issue, but the bottom line is that we do not have a fascist state–yet.
I agree, but I sure wish we could get big money out of influencing public policy. That would help in all issues including public education.
You can say that again, Stef. Follow the money. Follow the money. You will understand if you just follow the money.
I grew up in a small town. We had laborers, professionals, small business owners, public employees, and farmers in our town. We had people of different religions and political affiliations in our town. No doubt we had many different ideas of what schooling should look like, but we only had one public school. This public school served all of us. When our Civics teacher gave us extra credit for going to a political caucus, I went with my dad to the republican one, while my friend went with his dad to the democrat one. And yet we stayed friends.
Now granted we were not as diverse as many communities are now, but even in our diversity, we came together under one school system. We were proud of our sports teams even though not all of us were great at sports. We had a really bad chemistry teacher. . . while he lectured, he just allowed us to talk. In fact it got to the point that he stopped talking and just let us socialize. So my chemistry skills right now are not strong, but maybe another area of my schooling provided me with a passion or curiosity so that if I wanted to know more about particular subjects, I would have the strategies to do so.
My parents never requested teachers. While my brother thrived under some, I sure didn’t but expect I did get something out of it. My parents had friends who were never happy with something or other in the school and took advantage of choice whenever they could. Some wonder if this could be part of the reason their children continue to expect things and never figure out on their own how to be happy. Of course I can’t speak to the poverty issue as we had a few people on welfare but for the most part were middle class.
I just wish we would work harder on focusing all of our energies on improving all public schools. In Finland, their goal was to improve schooling for ALL children, which in turn created one of the best schooling systems in the world. While we continue to fight over the false promises of choice, we should focus on creating a place where everyone can get the best education we can offer them.
When does a person’s want get in the way of a society’s needs? I don’t know and I don’t know if any of what I make sense, but I just can’t help but wonder if, in our selfishness, we are creating an even greedier society?
And I think this choice idea has nothing to do with improving ourselves globally.
@teachingeconomist: not sure what your point is ? Because unfairness exists in other contexts, this makes Cynthia’s situation fair ?
My point is that your definition of unfairness is far too broad. It includes many things that would typically not be called unfair.
To teachingeconomist, August 8, 2012 at 1:46 am:
(This column is so thin, so I put the latest response here separately.)
I love this debate, and I apparently need to clarify my position.
Pulling public funds together to run public systems, such as public schools, is what communities do. By taking out the “per pupil” funds for the children going elsewhere, the community suffers.
The public school IS the community’s for better or worse. Therefore, the community MUST take pains to make it the best it can be in order to provide for community success. I think working to improve the public school is what some in Cynthia’s community are trying to do. However, it appears that the wants of this faction of the community are falling on deaf ears. This is where the community must take the fight to the next level.
Here we are getting into very subjective territory of “wants.” If the school is not in violation of its “requirements,” then it appears that Cynthia and friends want something that the state does not require. The high turnover rate of teachers concerns me a great deal—and I think the community members have a real case to bring to a higher level of the education system with evidence of the school’s trouble with staffing.
However, there has been no real discussion of just what was wanted beyond a vague list. I am interested in knowing what courses are wanted at this school that the school does not already provide? Where is the evidence that sports have a higher priority over academics? So far, all that’s been offered is philosophical conjecture based on a list of perceptions.
This is not to say that the members of the community that have been trying to improve the school have not outlined their wants in detail to the local school board. I feel that the details of their requests and the evidence to support such are germane to the discussion we are having here. So far, very little concrete information has been offered here with the exception of “sports are king and courses are lacking.”
Cynthia claims that her public school is serving her needs but not her wants, and she wants something better. The endeavor of seeking something better is commendable and I encourage her to pursue it, but it’s important to examine the purposes and support systems that exist for citizens in society. In order to do this, I will take this argument one step further in terms of “citizen wants.”
The cost of living in my community and state is through the roof, but there are advantages to living here. I take the fact that I’ll never be able to afford my own free-standing home and will be living in a tiny condo for quite some time as the price for living here and enjoying some of the other advantages of this community. Believe me, I want to live in a McMansion like so many people do here, yet I want to pay next to nothing in taxes like so many people WANT here, as well. However, I cannot get what I want because of the cost of real estate where I live.
Now, if my community is not serving my needs and wants, I need to go to a community where my funds will serve my needs and wants…OR…I need to contribute to this community to make it better. I have chosen the latter. I have no children as of yet, but I have chosen to stay here and invest in my community and its infrastructure. And yes, this means, I have chosen to invest in the public schools because public schools are part of the commons that both support and are supported by all citizens.
I have attempted to establish that the community is supported by the citizens and its systems support the citizens in return. Now let’s move to the concept of “per pupil” funding.
“Per pupil” funding (in the charter school argument) is often treated like a tax break for parents to educate their children.
This is wrong.
Public education serves the community, therefore “per pupil” funds belong to the community, not the individual parents.
If you do not believe that the “per pupil” funding belongs to the community, let me play devil’s advocate for a moment:
Since I have no children, should my tax money go wherever I want it to go to meet MY needs? No. Why not? Why should MY tax money go to pay for Cynthia’s children to be educated? I didn’t ask her to have all those kids, and I certainly did not ask to have to pay for them to go to school. However, I do pay into their education because their education supports the community.
“Per pupil” funding belongs to all of us, not just to the people who have kids. If you are giving parents a choice of what to do with the “per pupil” funding, shouldn’t I have a say as a taxpayer, too? WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME, the childless taxpayer who is paying so that YOUR children could go to school?
See? The “me” argument is not conducive to a strong society. I am glad that I contribute to my society—an educated society benefits everyone in the community. If you don’t think so, I hope you lock your doors at night because the people who grow up on the street because they had no access to strong public education will do whatever it takes to get by, even if that means stealing from you.
I support the infrastructure in my community which means I pay for the children in my community to get educated because I am a citizen in my community and public education serves my community. Therefore, it serves me, kids or no kids.
If your subjective needs are not reflected in your community, I would say, move elsewhere and put your public funds to good use in that community. But if you stay in your current community, do not take your public funds out of the system that supports your community. We cannot always have what we want in life—there is no perfect system that caters to individual wants.
By running to a charter with “per pupil” funds in hand, these community members abandon the children left behind in the public schools. Abandoning the public school is abandoning the community children whose parents do not have the wherewithal to send their children elsewhere.
In Cynthia’s case, she feels that the public schools are “adequate” but apparently not good enough for her children. If her children are worthy of so much more, why doesn’t she continue the fight to get more for all of the community’s children since they are all in this together?
The original idea behind charter schools was to complement and improve the public schools they serve by offering alternative learning situations within the public construct—experiments or “think tanks” of a sort—to help serve the public better.
Today’s charter schools rob the public schools of the students whose parents care while leaving behind the students who desperately need someone to advocate for them. If you think the community is NOT responsible for all children, think again.
This isn’t about “what’s in it for me”—it’s about “what’s in it for the community as a whole.” The “me” attitude is what’s inherently damaging to the public and what drives much of the rhetoric in the charter school debate. You’ll find this “me” attitude permeating many other public issues. I believe that this is the philosophical crux of our political problems as a country.
Charter schools are being misused as institutions that compete AGAINST the public schools—why else would Cynthia be considering one? The public in each state needs to be very wary of charter school laws and how the charters are funded, run, and implemented.
Each state has its own version of the charter schools law, but here is an example of how charter schools in one state divide the community.
I found a blip about Wisconsin public charter schools on the web (see below) that states that these schools are open to the public…BUT they have waiting lists due to space limitations.
Why? If Wisconsin’s charters are open the public, why are their space limitations? How can you call public charter schools “public” when they limit space and then enrollment is limited as a result?
Is that serving “the public?” Not at all. This limitation is unacceptable and will seek to divide a community into those with the luck of getting in to a charter and those without the luck that have to stay behind in what’s left of the community’s public school. Granted this is just an example of charter schools in one state, but it gives you food for thought.
http://www.wicharterschools.org/faqs.html
If magnet schools are part and parcel of the public school system, they are operating with public funds and they are overseen by the public entities in charge of them.
Charters do not have the same regulations as the public schools yet they are siphoning “per pupil” funding that belongs to the public away FROM the public under the guise of a “public” institution with limitations in serving the public. This is dangerous to the public, no matter how you slice it.
I will be thinking about this some more, but before I do, let me make sure I understand your answers.
1) Cynthia should not be allowed to choose a school and have tax generated revenue follow her students to any school outside of her public school district. The reason for this is that it is harmful to the other people in the community.
Can I assume you have the same objection to government programs like Pell Grants, Stafford Loans and other government spending on higher education? These funds could be restricted to public institutions, but under the current program they often go to private schools at the discretion of the student.
Simmilary, my state, and several others, have begun establishing residential public schools for highly gifted students. These schools are geographically well outside the community, and funded by state education tax dollars. Assuming that the state money follows the student from the local public school to these residential public schools, does this public school undermine the local public schools? We seriously considered this for our son, but decided against it when we learned that they planned to have no foreign language instruction!
2) Despite point 1, you seem to take some notice of the level of deficiency in the public school. It is not enough that the parent thinks it is deficient, you are interested in an accounting of the deficiencies, and will reach a judgement about the validity of the parents opinion.
Is it even possible that a public school could be so deficient that this would overrule your community based argument in point 1?
3)
Don’t mind the 3), I am trying to shorten my posts.
“Can I assume you have the same objection to government programs like Pell Grants, Stafford Loans and other government spending on higher education? These funds could be restricted to public institutions, but under the current program they often go to private schools at the discretion of the student.”
Great point. You’re correct in the philosophy as a basic concept. However, one cannot simply make an apples-to-apples comparison for two reasons:
1. Local funding is for local programs. Communities are distinct in that they uniquely serve their constituency based on the culture in which the community supports. Due to this uniqueness, community funding is tied to community programs. The student assistance programs you reference are funded by the federal dime and are distributed throughout the country, which is a much bigger machine without local interest.
Local interest is key here. There is some debate on whether or not a nationwide common core curriculum should include local historical stories. Read E.D. Hirsch’s “The Making of Americans” to see a compromise on this topic. While I do not agree with everything Hirsch says, he makes some very provocative points about the importance of a local common school culture within the construct of a national curriculum. The very nature of there being a local government for a local community cancels the argument that federal funding promotes the same type of infrastructure as local funding. If it did, why would there be any delineation of tax money on the local, state, and federal levels in the first place? Why not just put all the money in one big federal pot and give everybody the same amount throughout the nation? The distribution system of income and property taxes negates your argument.
2. Because we do not have a public university system of note—community colleges are not on the same level as 4-year universities—the money at that level of education is utilized quite differently than it is for the level of compulsory education programs of children in the public schools. College isn’t required, but most states have a compulsory education requirement for students aged 5-17 or 5-18. Post-secondary education is not required for good reason—not everyone will or should go to college. There are plenty of other vocations that contribute to our society that do not require a college degree. So what you have in your examples is a pupil-assistance program for adults. I believe that it being called an “education program” is a misnomer, however, in that all adults should have access to assistance programs for everything from job training to raising families in poverty. With the social programs we have on the federal level that address these other paths, we already provide this assistance to those who need it just like we provide assistance to college students. Giving people the public’s money for compulsory education is not “assistance.” The compulsory Grade 1-12 education system is both of and for the people. College is not.
“Despite point 1, you seem to take some notice of the level of deficiency in the public school.”
Actually, I do not take notice of “deficiency in the public school” in a general sense. I do know that no system is perfect and there are instances of quality extremes on both ends of the spectrum within most any system, public or private.
I only acknowledge the possibility that Cynthia’s neighborhood school “may” have deficiencies. I ask that these be presented with evidence, and I ask this from experience with public systems. Are they successful? It often depends on whom you ask.
Leaving it up to the parents alone, you would get a variety of answers, and anyone who has ever listened to the conversations over the fence at soccer games can attest to the mob mentality of a few irate parents who put up complaints about this and that. This is not to say that Cynthia’s community members are doing this—I just would like more clarification of the issues she outlined so that these claims have more validity.
For example, to simply say that a school has its “focus on sports over athletic programs” is not to prove that athletic programs exist to the detriment to the school. I would like to see some hard evidence that the athletic programs are undermining the academics of the institution. Where is the proof? Without it, it’s just opinion and conjecture both of which are not enough to justify a change in an institution. If anything, by making a case for these claims with hard evidence, Cynthia’s position can only be strengthened. I would think that you would not want people successfully influencing changes in your child’s school that may affect him negatively with little to no basis for such suggestions. Publics need to be in charge of their public programs, but only for valid reasons.
Public institutions can and do change with parental persuasion—I find it odd that this school refuses to answer to these requests for change. Several things could be at work here:
1. The school is filled with incompetence at the administrative level, and the board could be oblivious to this, powerless against this, or overly confident that this is not the case—all of which align with Cynthia’s implications.
2. The members of the community who are asking for such changes are a small and very un-influential group, a disposition that puts them at a huge disadvantage—politics at its worst which is also aligned with Cynthia’s implication of the situation. Majorities may hold power over issues, but nobody ever said that the majority is always right. The remedy is a grass-roots organization of other parents so that this group becomes the majority instead of the minority.
3. The members of the community asking for such changes have an agenda that is not community-minded. To rule out this situation, I have asked several times for Cynthia to elaborate on specifically what makes this school so “mediocre” in comparison to what it already is. Obviously every institution can improve—these are the processes that publics go through, i.e. forming and re-forming—but just what are the details of what is being asked and how is the public school system being judged to determine these requests? I ask for simple evidence to the claims Cynthia makes.
“It is not enough that the parent thinks it is deficient, you are interested in an accounting of the deficiencies, and will reach a judgement about the validity of the parents opinion.”
While the public oversees the public systems, lay people are not experts.
Would you expect those who use the road and bridge systems to be able to judge their structural integrity or would you want professionals trained in civil engineering to oversee the building and maintenance of such?
I expect there to be good reason to challenge a school besides the visual evidence of a couple of “potholes.” Their depth is where their true detriment lies, not just in their cosmetics. Yes, we all want pristinely paved roads, but potholes are a fact of life. We should seek to fix them, but we should also be aware of when they are threatening to the community and when they are a lesser problem compared to a crumbling bridge.
No, I am not advocating for letting little problems turn into big ones—I’m advocating for being smart about choosing battles, and asking for justification of hiring the cavalry when diplomacy will do.
“Is it even possible that a public school could be so deficient that this would overrule your community based argument in point 1?”
No. Never. Not at all. The public has an obligation to itself to make sure that its public school system reflects the values of its unique community culture. If the community values the school, but a handful of people do not, perhaps those people should move to a community that shares their values…OR convince the community and, by the same process, the school to change. If the community does not value its school, the school AND the community will not be valued.
LG-
This last post has been very informative.
I was not aware of the importance of local funding for your argument. It is true that Federal Government programs funded through national, not local, taxes. It is also true that a significant portion of public school district expenditures in my state are funded from state tax revenue. In addition, state law sets a maximum tax rate for school taxes in each community.
From your description of your living conditions, I have to assume that you are in a large costal city, and perhaps do not often consider the issues of local school districts in the middle of the country. Here is a rough (I am just reading off the state government list and eyeballing it) list of the number of students (FTE) in the ten smallest school districts in my state:
68
68.5
80
84
86.5
99.5
102
103.5
116.5
118.5
For completeness, here is a list of the number of students (again, FTE) of the ten largest school districts in my state:
46,231.1
26,534.7
26,373.3
20,898.2
18,874.4
13,178.1
10,979.8
8,200.6
7,068.8
6,897.8
You place a great deal of emphasis on local funding for public schools. The small school districts in my state depend on state tax revenue (and likely federal tax revenue as well) to fund the public schools in their districts, not local tax revenue. Does the lack of local funding matter? Should I think of those small public school districts differently from the larger public school districts because their budget is not generated locally?
I think my second question has saved us a great deal of time. Your answer to my point number two is “No, never, not at all”. Given this answer, I think you believe the quality of the public school is not relevant to the question of charter schools. By extension, the quality of the charter schools is also not an issue. Even if charter schools clearly provided a far better education for students, they should not be allowed. I don’t want to mischaracterize you. Is this your view?
Finally, I promise that if your answer to the above question is that I understand your position correctly, I will not talk about the educational deficiencies or advantages of any school in further discussion. But since I have put the numbers up here, I would like to make one more point about deficiency. Because of the population distribution in my state, the smallest school districts are likely to border on each other. Think about being the parent of a special needs child who must send that son/daughter to the school in public school district that is designed around educating 60 total students. The nearest teaching specialist currently lives and teaches 200 miles away. Will the district pay that talented teacher enough to move and teach this student for the next decade? Should the district do that? Think about my son, able to accumulate two years of college credit as a high school student because we live in one of the ten largest districts in the state. Put him in a district with 84 total students. There are no public school AP classes of any sort taught within 150 miles. Do you really want to say these things do not matter? They are irrelevant to the issue of allowing parents to choose a charter school over the local public school?
LG wrote, “If magnet schools are part and parcel of the public school system, they are operating with public funds and they are overseen by the public entities in charge of them.”
Ms Ravitch’s topic at hand is that charters ‘undermine and decimate’. Based on her initial reply to my query, I would think that magnets and selective district schools would cause even more damage especially to since they ‘hand pick’ the small slot fo students who are awarded a superior education. Does Ms Ravitch believe this to be so? In my state in addition to charters we have open enrollment and many choose other distrcts to send their students to. Does Ms Ravitch rally against open enrollment laws?
Does an honors college decimate the rest of the campus programs?
I believe neither magnets or charters or open enrollment decimate anything. They give parents options. I used to live in Ohio, the state where a poor mother was punished for sending her children to a district school where she did not live. I am thankful I live now in a state that offers parents options. I tought when I moved into this distrct many years ago that it was one of the best in the state, but a little digging revealed that it rests on it laurels and it underperforms based on it demographics. Trying to change it and being met with the resistance we received was eye opening. Again, thankfully we have options, and I fail to see any reduciton in community spirit just becuase parents have a choice.
As to my perception of the failings of the local distrct, I’ll refer to the supreme court justice who said…
“I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it…”
Yes, and I know BS when I see it. I’m just trying to make sure that you have something backed by real evidence so that it cannot be construed as just “complaints from angry parents whose kids are not all that athletic.” I truly cannot speak for what is going on where you are, but it’s apparent that you need to be able to show that your claims are real and based in fact if you want to really effect change in any public institution.
I was one of those kids who despised athletic programs growing up. I went to a huge football school where two of the players in my graduating class went on to big college teams AND then the NFL, but what did they offer in terms of music? I received what I consider a lesser music education because of the emphasis on football, and I grew up blaming the school for it. Although, the school did offer me areas where I could advance and excel in music through affiliations of my music teachers and their district, region and state organizations, I really felt short-changed. I ended up studying music in college and now have become a professional-level performer and a music teacher despite my feelings about the high school music program from which I came.
You see…I want to make sure that your complaints have some basis. This is what is going to help bring on the changes you seek. If you are simply making statements because you are frustrated on a personal level, the district has no reason to take you seriously.
So what are you using as proof that sports are the focus over academics? Answering this will give your argument strength. It’s really important for you to iron this out before you put yourself in front of the school board again. You can also use this as fodder for going higher up.
Think of the school as a person on trial–you need to provide the evidence to convict and reform this person. Instead, you are making generalized claims of guilt. These charges are very serious and ought to be addressed with reason.
If you care about your community, you will see this through. I suppose it could be much easier to just leave the public school and put your community funds in a charter, but where does that leave the community?
I hate when I do this…
Apologies for misusing a word–it’s quite easy to do when you are writing a small chapter in a response. 😛
In the 4th paragraph from the end (not including the link), it should read, ” If Wisconsin’s charters are open the public, why are THERE space limitations?”
fixed.
I’ll be using this in a blogpost in a few days
Diane, I cannot tell you how many people I met over the weekend at the NJEA Summer Leadership Conference who appreciate your work. It seemed that every time I turned around, the most vocal “fighters” for public education mentioned your contributions to the debate.
Thank you for the opportunity to dialogue about these issues. As well, thank you for showing that you value the thoughts of those of us who believe in the cause like you do. Whether we agree or disagree, the debate has a home here.
Thank you. There is always room for critical discussion. And I value the thoughts of the many readers who teach me every day.
LG,
Have you thought of writing around your thinking here? I think your ideas would make a great editorial, and I would sure love to use it. 🙂 Or a chapter in a book? Can you continue to flesh out this community issue and choice? I’ve been thinking a lot about how choice when it comes to the “me” isn’t necessarily what’s good for the all. But I’m not as good as writing with the logic you are writing with.
Hmmm, I can’t say that I have ever given it much thought. I have always had a secret desire to work as a book editor for any publishing company, but nobody will even look at you without a degree in English or journalism. I do love to write, though.
If you’re interested in an editorial, what ideas do you have–maybe we can put some of our thoughts together? 🙂
You should know that everything I’ve learned about life came from Star Trek including: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one.” Haha…just kidding.
If I knew how to find you on facebook??? Because I have a real nugget and great place for your thinking!!! Can I e-mail Dr. Ravitch and maybe she’ll be willing to forward my e-mail to you so we can get this started? Once she reposts your comments, I plan to put it on a few facebook pages where it will get a lot of traffic. 🙂
LG-
That exact quote is the first thing I thought of when reading posts about eliminating charter schools. I hope we can get to the point where we discuss other ways in which we should require community members to sacrifice for the good of their community.
To teachingeconomist :
“I was not aware of the importance of local funding for your argument.”
I mentioned local districts several times. Local funding is tied to the community. My comments have always been about investing in the community and its systems including the public schools. The entire “per pupil” funding argument has been covered ad naseum in this debate.
“It is true that Federal Government programs funded through national, not local, taxes. It is also true that a significant portion of public school district expenditures in my state are funded from state tax revenue. In addition, state law sets a maximum tax rate for school taxes in each community.”
Yes, on the state level there are two levels of taxation distribution: local and state. This is why governors are in the news every day about making decisions that affect public education by promoting policies that affect school funding on the local level through their state funding models. I cannot speak for EVERY state in the U.S., but most states have a very intricate web of state/local funding. Local districts have the responsibility to demand that their schools are adequately funded. This fight is going on all across the country.
“From your description of your living conditions, I have to assume that you are in a large costal city, and perhaps do not often consider the issues of local school districts in the middle of the country.”
No, I am not in a large city at all. If you are characterizing me as someone operating on an assumption based in geography, it is a false one.
I am in a small and historic town in one of the states that are among those with the highest local taxes. Yes, it is a coastal state, but we are still a small school district. We have a very large immigrant population, and our schools are busting at the seams with children. The tax revenue each year is not keeping up with the demand.
There was a recent proposal to open a charter school here, but it was shot down by the local school board because it would actually cost the district far more to run than the public schools cost now. I suppose the charter’s apparent quality benefits were seen as equal to the public schools’…or perhaps the money is the real issue, not the so-called “quality.” (I unfortunately could not have been an active part of that debate as I attend graduate classes on the night the school board meets. I missed the entire proposal, but I will continue to be vigilant.) So whether or not your argument speaks to my point-of-view is irrelevant. I am not biased by demographics or geography—I am speaking in a general sense when I stress that local districts ARE the public.
“You place a great deal of emphasis on local funding for public schools. The small school districts in my state depend on state tax revenue (and likely federal tax revenue as well) to fund the public schools in their districts, not local tax revenue.”
Federal money does not go directly to the districts. It is funneled through the state. Again, state funding is still more local than federal. This is part of why your Stafford/Pell argument falls short of the issues we are discussing here, and it should not even be an issue on the table.
“Does the lack of local funding matter?”
Absolutely. My recommendation to those local districts with under 100 students is to move toward a joint school-district system or at least adopt a “shared services agreement.” You get more out of a system with shared services.
As an example of how publics form and re-form: The law in my state allows for shared services where necessary. This is what my local district is doing with a few of its Kindergarten classes. They are bussed to a neighboring district for their classes which are mainly taught by our own district’s certified and support staff. The servicing district is the one in which I teach and in the school in which I teach. My home district rents the space and some of the services from my work district as per the shared services agreement that was set up due to space issues in the home district. My team actually provides teaching services for the Kindergarten students for one period a day despite being employed by the hosting district.
Charter schools do not operate on the “shared services” ideology. However, it would behoove them to do so. I am in full support of charter programs that are an extension of the local schools, not separate entities. Since they are taking funding of the local schools, they ought to be part of the system. They are not required to be by very virtue of the charter concept, yet they take the funds—this is where I take issue.
“Should I think of those small public school districts differently from the larger public school districts because their budget is not generated locally?”
Small districts are different to the degree that they may be at risk for not meeting the various needs of their constituency due to their small revenue source, but they are the same in that they are still responsible for the education of their community.
I know plenty of very small school districts that actually serve their communities on a very high level, however these are normally in affluent communities. If you are talking about a middle class or lower middle class community, the risk is there.
One of my teaching colleagues (yes, in this coastal state) lives in a town so small (about 180 students) that it relies to a large extent on state funding. The school has decided to cut music classes for its students because it cannot afford to pay for a music teacher due to a reduction in state funding. This is unacceptable to her as her husband is a musician—she is currently working to re-instate music into the system. She and her family cannot afford to move at this time, but she certainly can lend her voice to the community movement. Does this scenario sound familiar? My answers are the same whether it’s my state or yours.
Another small local district in the next town over has combined with a small rural one. They have an amazing network of schools that serve two municipalities. This was the smartest move on the part of their municipal governments because their students have access to more varied and comprehensive courses and services. Smaller local districts obviously can benefit from joining with each other to create a system such as this. Rather than abandon the public schools, these municipalities should be fighting to get as much as they can for their schools by combining forces. The people in these municipalities obviously like the small town or rural environment, but it comes with a price. You either live with it (hardly a solution if you are unhappy with it), or you improve it—but it is never prudent to just abandon it. This has been my mantra throughout this whole debate.
“I think my second question has saved us a great deal of time. Your answer to my point number two is ‘No, never, not at all’. Given this answer, I think you believe the quality of the public school is not relevant to the question of charter schools. By extension, the quality of the charter schools is also not an issue.”
That is not what I am saying at all. I am saying that the public should be vested in its public schools. Charter schools that take funding away from the public institutions and do not share their services WITH the public schools are not serving the public in its entirety.
Your argument stands squarely on the shoulders of another false assumption: “Charter and quality are synonymous and public = lack-of-quality.”
This stance unfair and untrue, and as such, it is not valid as a source of debate.
If the public has evidence that the public school is NOT of the quality that the public demands, the public has the responsibility to change the public school—not to run away from it. By insinuating that charter schools are superior to public schools, you are placing a generalization of subjective rhetoric into the argument, a tactic that weakens your stance considerably, whether you feel it is noble or not. Be very careful of injecting rhetoric into the argument—this is where otherwise very intelligent people make very big mistakes (especially powerful politicians who mean well).
“Even if charter schools clearly provided a far better education for students, they should not be allowed. I don’t want to mischaracterize you. Is this your view?”
Thank you for asking for clarification.
First off, the question I have been asking from the beginning is: “Quality is judged by whose standards and what criteria?” The question, “Who decides?” falls under a very big topic in teacher education coursework.
I have been an educator for a long time—and I am fully aware of judgment issues when making claims about quality. That is my training as an educator, and that is part of my job.
Yet it appears that many people who support alternatives to public education often point to feelings, interpretations of reality, and a reliance on small-picture issues as evidence to the “quality” of their public institutions.
I realize that for most people, all they’ve got are their own personal experiences, but that is not enough. Your money is going to the public—you need to be aware of who shares your membership in the public. Tunnel-vision works to everyone’s detriment.
This aligns with the community-minded arguments that I have been touting from the very beginning of this debate. The crux of your issues is in your concept of how responsible you feel you need to be for your community.
I asked what the criteria for judging “quality” in Cynthia’s case was, and have yet to receive a response. I think I have made that very clear in the countless other posts where I asked about it. So far, nothing has come back. My stance on that issue is still the same: Evidence is necessary for change. Power to change policy comes from fact, not conjecture—anyone who has had experience in the court system knows this. Laws are written with specific language for the purposes of keeping subjective and personal requests for “power that influences changes” out of the equation.
We must think logically and globally here (at least in the local sense, i.e. outside of your household but inside of your community). How do you measure the mediocrity of any school? Evidence will help the case. I want justice for Cynthia, and I feel that evidence to her claims can and will make the necessary changes she seeks for her schools. I didn’t think I could have been clearer about this.
Secondly, I am not advocating that public schools “should lack quality and that’s ok.” I am simply stating that public schools are the first and foremost community educational service in which the public ought to invest. Charter schools do nothing for the community’s education if they exist as an “alternative to” instead of a “partner with” the community education system.
“Think about being the parent of a special needs child who must send that son/daughter to the school in public school district that is designed around educating 60 total students. The nearest teaching specialist currently lives and teaches 200 miles away. Will the district pay that talented teacher enough to move and teach this student for the next decade? Should the district do that?”
It is up to the district to provide services to the child in any way it can. If the services are inadequate for that child, the district needs to have recourse in order to provide the child with what is necessary. This isn’t the same thing as saying, “I want an AP history course for my child.” A call for the provision of educational services for someone with a learning disability issue is not a want; it is necessity. A call for the provision of AP courses to students so they can get ahead in college is a want.
“Think about my son, able to accumulate two years of college credit as a high school student because we live in one of the ten largest districts in the state. Put him in a district with 84 total students. There are no public school AP classes of any sort taught within 150 miles. Do you really want to say these things do not matter? They are irrelevant to the issue of allowing parents to choose a charter school over the local public school?”
Now PLEASE do not misunderstand—I do NOT devalue your want for AP courses at all. I think every school system should do its level best to provide them for its constituents.
There are many students with special learning needs that move in both directions from average. Do you want AP courses but your district does not offer them? Move to where they have them (not so simple) OR encourage your district to implement them.
Special education is necessary for special needs students to function in society—AP courses are not necessary for anyone to function in society. However, if your community wants more for its more typical learners than just “to function,” then by all means, fight for these advanced placement courses, but don’t abandon the school. Bringing this level of coursework to your public school will improve the community.
In the district where I work, the special education services are considered tops in the county. Parents have indicated that they move to our district just so their special needs child gets the care and education he needs. If they can afford it, people DO move to communities where they feel their children will get what they need and want. Not everyone has this option which is why I keep advocating that people ought to invest in their community and its school rather than take their funding to another school system that is not part of the community system.
If it is too expensive for your local district to provide the services its people need and want, perhaps the district needs to consider pulling resources with neighboring districts so that these needs and wants can be satisfied. There is such as thing as “too local,” I believe.
I have heard this argument, time and again, “My child is gifted yet the school does not challenge him. I demand either more rigorous coursework or the money to educate him elsewhere.” I feel for these people, but I believe that the community can serve these children if the community makes the investment to do so.
My brother was (and still is) a genius who worked on developing the high definition constant for television as an adult. He was educated by the same public schools I was throughout his K-12 student career. He was challenged, but our district was not known for its “high academic” record. He worked hard on all levels of his schooling including undergraduate college (didn’t go to a prestigious school there, but he procured a free ride) and graduate university. The boy did well despite not having what many would liken to a “private school pedigree.” The point is, gifted students can still learn (and learn a great deal) in public school environments. Does that mean we should hold them back? Not at all—but to downplay public school environments because you believe they are not catering to your amazing child is an irresponsible action. If you feel the school does not meet your needs, take a look at the community. What needs to change: it or you?
I never said these things do not matter. Parents have the power to change the situation. Charter schools are not solving any issues for your community unless they are operated within the public school system. Otherwise, they just serve their own interests while leaving the public school “leftovers” to rot. Your community will forever be damaged by this practice over time if you are leaving other children behind by taking your LIMITED local funds out of the public system.
I took no AP college courses in my high school because the one (and only one) they offered conflicted with my schedule of two advanced sciences, advanced math, and two performing arts courses. I made the sacrifice for this one AP course because I valued other subjects. If you value AP courses, change your community or get out of it.
Let me address the issue of enrollment in schools. ALL SCHOOLS, public, private, or charter, must ration enrollment if the number of students who desire enrollment or are assigned to the school exceed the capacity of the school. Zoned public schools will do this by limiting the number of students geographically; charter schools in New York at least are required to randomly admit students, though apparently they can manipulate the weights to some degree. You say THERE ARE NO REQUIREMENTS FOR ENTRY, but that is incorrect. The requirement for entry is that I live within a geographic area designed around the capacity constraints of the school. If there is an increase in the number of children in that area, the district boundary will be changed and my child might NO LONGER MEET THE REQUIREMENTS FOR ENTRY, though nothing about my place in the community has changed. There is no hardest zoned school to get into (though of course there are certainly harder and easier magnet public schools to get into) because you are NOT ALLOWED to go to almost all of the public schools in your town, city, or state. Your chances of “getting in” are zero.
I find the defense of geographically based school assignments puzzling because of the general concern here about income, race and ethnic segregation. In my town we have 14 elementary schools. Here is the breakdown by race/ethnicity and number of economically disadvantaged:
School 1: 66.08% White, 9.09% Hispanic, 7.69% African American, 17.13% Other, 44.76% Disadvantaged
School 2: 60.47% White, 12.84% Hispanic, 5.74% African American, 20.95% Other, 40.54% Disadvantaged
School 3: 76.58% White, 5.48% Hispanic, 4.73% African American, 13.23% Other, 20.79% Disadvantaged
School 4: 30.53%% White, 19.54% Hispanic, 5.4% African American, 37.53% Other, 56.81% Disadvantaged
School 5: 62.67% White, 7.14% Hispanic, 10.37% African American, 19.82% Other, 70.05% Disadvantaged
School 6: 82.69% White, 5.00% Hispanic, 2.12% African American, 10.19% Other, 9.04% Disadvantaged
School 7: 58.00% White, 5.50% Hispanic, 9.5% African American, 27.00% Other, 71.50% Disadvantaged
School 8: 70.55% White, 6.55% Hispanic, 12.00% African American, 10.91% Other, 56.00% Disadvantaged
School 9: 66.19% White, 6.19% Hispanic, 8.57% African American, 19.06% Other, 44.05% Disadvantaged
School 10: 77.94% White, 2.52% Hispanic, 8.82% African American, 10.71% Other, 17.44% Disadvantaged
School 11: 56.69% White, 15.82% Hispanic, 12.71% African American, 15.33% Other, 53.04% Disadvantaged
School 12: 67.49% White, 8.70% Hispanic, 7.25% African American, 16.56% Other, 34.58% Disadvantaged
School 13: 71.23% White, 5.14% Hispanic, 7.19% African American, 16.44% Other, 39.73% Disadvantaged
School 14: 81.03% White, 3.59% Hispanic, 7.69% African American, 7.69% Other, 44.62% Disadvantaged
School 15: 72.31% White, 7.55% Hispanic, 3.31% African American, 16.94% Other, 60.33% Disadvantaged
Our local school board is very sensitive to segregation by race and income, so I think it is reasonable to think that this distribution of students is the best they could do given that enrollment must be determined geographically.
My example charter school does a flat lottery with a district preference. Would you agree that admission using this system would should result in less segregation than admission based only on geographic location?
LG-
I am sorry that I gave you the impression that I equated charter with quality and public with low quality. That is not my intention at all. I thought we could simply skip any discussion of the quality of education in schools because any gap in quality does not matter to your argument. I think I can quote from you post to illustrate this:
My post
“I think my second question has saved us a great deal of time. Your answer to my point number two is ‘No, never, not at all’. Given this answer, I think you believe the quality of the public school is not relevant to the question of charter schools. By extension, the quality of the charter schools is also not an issue.”
Your response
That is not what I am saying at all. I am saying that the public should be vested in its public schools. Charter schools that take funding away from the public institutions and do not share their services WITH the public schools are not serving the public in its entirety.
I asked if your position was that the quality of education in a public or charter school was IRRELEVANT to the debate about allowing parents to join a charter school. I tried to illustrate that with the most extreme example of differences in education quality, saying that EVEN THEN, a quality difference is IRRELEVANT to your argument against charter schools. I in no way meant to suggest that this extreme example was the norm.
You say I am wrong about your position, but you don’t responded by talking about the quality of education but by talking about funding losses and differences in service to the community. If I was misunderstanding your argument, I would have expected a response along the lines of “of course the quality of education is important. If we compare learning outcomes……..”
Let me try to be clearer about my question: Do you believe that ANY differences in learning outcomes (they could be lower or higher or mixed) that students may or may not get by enrolling in a charter school ARE IRRELEVANT to your argument that parents should not be allowed to choose a charter school?
Frankly the discussion would move more rapidly if you did find the issue of educational quality to be irrelevant to the discussion. For example you find “Special education is necessary for special needs students to function in society”, but advanced classes for the most academically able “are not necessary for anyone to function in society”. Others might point out that you are assuming the success of the special education class, something that for some special education students may be beyond reach at any cost to society. Others may also point out that highly advanced students who find themselves in unchallenging environments that do not value academics cannot be assumed to succeed or even make it out of high school. We might spend a significant amount of time simply on this issue, and the more general question of measuring learning outcomes seems hopeless.
I seem to have already broken my rule about shorter posts, so let me reserve discussion of school district consolidation to another post. It is certainly routinely discussed in our state legislature and routinely rejected for reasons that I think you will approve.
If you agree that quality of education is not relevant to your argument, I think it would be good to move on to what I think is your main argument and the title of the original post: how charter schools destroy communities. I never considered sending my children to a charter school and I don’t believe there are any located near me, so I have little experience with them. I have been inside one with a college friend who was dropping his children there for the day, so I hope we might use this charter school as an example to structure our discussion. I think you will find it useful to illustrate your points because it shares a building with two public schools, has been reported in the New York Times as the fifth hardest charter school to get into in New York City, and one of the co-directors has been quoted in the New York Times Schoolbook website claiming that the charter school “is a public school”. I am interested because the school clearly thinks it is strengthening the community. I am sure you will find the name ironic: The Community Roots Charter School located in the Fort Greene neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. Can we use this charter school as our example charter?
LG
Sorry about the caps in the post. I would much prefer to bold things if i knew how to do it in the comment section.
(I use caps for the same effect. You do not need to apologize for it at all.)
“I am sorry that I gave you the impression that I equated charter with quality and public with low quality. That is not my intention at all.”
Nor am I positing the idea that charter schools cannot be “quality schools.” I am simply talking about what is best for the community.
Here is my position in a nutshell, albeit a very large one: Public schools serve the public in its entirety. It is prudent for the public (represented by the legislatures) to fund public schools with public money since these schools support the entire community. Charter schools do not serve the public in its entirety. It is prudent for the public (again, represented by the legislatures) to not fund charters with public money since they do not support the entire community. By taking “some” of the public money out of the public schools and putting it into charter schools, the entirety of public funding is not going to the entirety of the public.
Now if private citizens would like to fund charters with private monies IN ADDITION TO funding their infrastructure, legislatures can move to allow charters to operate—at which point, why not just call them private schools and be done with it?
I can answer that…calling charter schools private schools will deter the public from supporting them. It is a very crafty use of terminology to avoid calling these schools “private,” and it’s even craftier to add the word “public” to their names. This practice is certainly duping even the smartest people in the population into supporting charters, isn’t it?
“I thought we could simply skip any discussion of the quality of education in schools because any gap in quality does not matter to your argument.”
My position also includes this point: Quality should be demanded of the systems that serve the public. This commitment to quality is a form of support for the public systems, while abandoning the public schools for charter schools is not supportive to the public systems.
Quality matters to the original argument in as much as it is used as a reason for supporting charter schools. I may be incorrect about this, but it appears that you want me to admit that I believe quality doesn’t matter in this argument—only public schools do. Quality matters to parents like Cynthia who want something better than what they perceive the public already provides—the charter school concept is often promising to these parents.
Throughout the course of this debate, I have advocated for communities to demand quality of their public systems, which is exactly what Cynthia was doing. A public school that may lack the “quality” its community wants can and should be improved, not abandoned.
I think that the concept of quality is a driving force behind the idea of “choice,” and “choice” is actually a fancy way of saying “it’s ok to abandon the public school,” therefore it has a place in the argument, but let’s be reasonable about what affects “qualitative” outcomes.
Quality is subjective, and subjectivity is dependent on contextual circumstances. What might appear to be one thing might be something else with different variables. The quality argument is never objective.
Let’s talk about the “serving the public” variable. Do you think a school that does not serve the entirety of the public should be compared qualitatively to a school that does? Where is the “commitment to quality for the public” in a school that is not serving the entire public?
How anyone say that something serving only a part of a community is serving the entire community? A charter school that “appears” to be better for the community but only serves a portion of the community may be well and good for that portion, but it is not serving the community in its entirety. The community divides and segregates as a result of this “portioning.”
Therefore, the quality reputation of a charter school is suspect: Is it a “quality school” because it is better run, hires better teachers, presents better curriculum, or has better students? Public schools can control the quality of their management, their teachers, and their curricula, but they cannot control the quality of their students. A “quality” comparison between charter and public schools is not an apples-to-apples comparison.
In my profession (music), students often participate in judged competition. When competing as individuals, students are expected to prepare and perform the same excerpt from the same piece and perform the same technical exercises with the same articulation and rhythmic qualities. Judges can make a fairer comparison between individual performances because the variables built into the differences of pieces or technical exercises are not present. The playing field is somewhat level in that there are no discrepancies between each individual’s chosen piece in terms of range, tempo, articulation, etc. The requirements for each student are identical—therefore the validity of qualitative assessment is much greater than if each student was able to choose the pieces and technical exercises he or she did the best.
There is bias in the “quality charter school” argument. Charter schools often do not have the same population concerns that public schools do. To speak of quality when making comparisons, you need an equal playing field.
Here are just two examples of why the quality argument is biased:
1. Charter schools do not present a level playing field if they are not serving the entire public. Better students can learn in just about any environment—students with learning issues will always be challenged. If charter schools control the quality of their constituency, why wouldn’t they “stack the deck” with better students if they could? Wouldn’t that give charters an advantage?
2. In some cases, charters are open to all achievement levels, but space is limited. So how is it determined who is “worthy” of taking up that space and who is not? It seems hardly fair to the public to be making choices as to who is “worthy” of their schools and who isn’t. Space limitations allow charter schools to create smaller class sizes, an educational disposition that public schools may not be able to afford to have. Yet public schools will be judged side-by-side with charters?
These “practices” are what make the differentials between public and charter schools and also what makes a “quality” argument between the two very, very biased.
You have also made references to what Cynthia and other parents are “allowed” to do. Allowance is a function of law—if the laws permit this parental “choice,” then obviously it is allowed from a legal stand-point. Whether it is right or wrong is a topic in the civil discourse surrounding the argument. My position is that it is civically irresponsible for the laws to allow public funding for a not-so-public school at all—however, the mere fact that these issues are discussed in legislative arguments proves that the current public systems need adjustments as the communities see fit and as one would expect of a public that forms and re-forms. Again, that is what publics do.
There is no perfect system, but there are some that are more detrimental to the populace than others. If it is your public school that is detrimental, fix it. If it is a charter school that is going to siphon public funds from the public to educate an elite portion of the public, do not consider it. It is a detriment to the public at-large.
To summarize the “quality” issue: Public schools can control some of their quality variables as mentioned before (management, teachers, curriculum, etc.), but they cannot control their “raw materials.”
Charter schools control their constituency whether it is by placement, such as in the case of your friend’s charter school (“…has been reported in the New York Times as the fifth hardest charter school to get into in New York City…”) or by lottery due to space limitations.
Public schools are not the fifth or the second or the 100th hardest schools to get into because THERE ARE NO REQUIREMENTS FOR ENTRY.
So I ask you, if charters are NOT serving the entire public, how are they better FOR the public? They may be better for “some portions of” the public, but they are not for the public at-large. In case you missed it, that last statement is the most important part of my argument.
One more thing, are charter schools required to keep their students or can they remove the ones who are not “achieving?” Public schools cannot remove anyone unless they have committed a crime.
Until charters serve the entire public, the issue of “quality” is irrelevant. Charters may as well be called “publicly-funded private schools for the elite population.” I guess that name is far too long to be “catchy” in the new language of “reformese.”
I apologize if you do not understand my position, but I have exhausted all of my commentary to the point of repeating myself. You have brought up some incredibly thought-provoking points, and I thank you for the debate. 🙂
I posted this in the wrong place, so I am re posting it here.
Let me address the issue of enrollment in schools. ALL SCHOOLS, public, private, or charter, must ration enrollment if the number of students who desire enrollment or are assigned to the school exceed the capacity of the school. Zoned public schools will do this by limiting the number of students geographically; charter schools in New York at least are required to randomly admit students, though apparently they can manipulate the weights to some degree. You say THERE ARE NO REQUIREMENTS FOR ENTRY, but that is incorrect. The requirement for entry is that I live within a geographic area designed around the capacity constraints of the school. If there is an increase in the number of children in that area, the district boundary will be changed and my child might NO LONGER MEET THE REQUIREMENTS FOR ENTRY, though nothing about my place in the community has changed. There is no hardest zoned school to get into (though of course there are certainly harder and easier magnet public schools to get into) because you are NOT ALLOWED to go to almost all of the public schools in your town, city, or state. Your chances of “getting in” are zero.
I find the defense of geographically based school assignments puzzling because of the general concern here about income, race and ethnic segregation. In my town we have 15 elementary schools. Here is the breakdown by race/ethnicity and number of economically disadvantaged:
School 1: 66.08% White, 9.09% Hispanic, 7.69% African American, 17.13% Other, 44.76% Disadvantaged
School 2: 60.47% White, 12.84% Hispanic, 5.74% African American, 20.95% Other, 40.54% Disadvantaged
School 3: 76.58% White, 5.48% Hispanic, 4.73% African American, 13.23% Other, 20.79% Disadvantaged
School 4: 30.53%% White, 19.54% Hispanic, 5.4% African American, 37.53% Other, 56.81% Disadvantaged
School 5: 62.67% White, 7.14% Hispanic, 10.37% African American, 19.82% Other, 70.05% Disadvantaged
School 6: 82.69% White, 5.00% Hispanic, 2.12% African American, 10.19% Other, 9.04% Disadvantaged
School 7: 58.00% White, 5.50% Hispanic, 9.5% African American, 27.00% Other, 71.50% Disadvantaged
School 8: 70.55% White, 6.55% Hispanic, 12.00% African American, 10.91% Other, 56.00% Disadvantaged
School 9: 66.19% White, 6.19% Hispanic, 8.57% African American, 19.06% Other, 44.05% Disadvantaged
School 10: 77.94% White, 2.52% Hispanic, 8.82% African American, 10.71% Other, 17.44% Disadvantaged
School 11: 56.69% White, 15.82% Hispanic, 12.71% African American, 15.33% Other, 53.04% Disadvantaged
School 12: 67.49% White, 8.70% Hispanic, 7.25% African American, 16.56% Other, 34.58% Disadvantaged
School 13: 71.23% White, 5.14% Hispanic, 7.19% African American, 16.44% Other, 39.73% Disadvantaged
School 14: 81.03% White, 3.59% Hispanic, 7.69% African American, 7.69% Other, 44.62% Disadvantaged
School 15: 72.31% White, 7.55% Hispanic, 3.31% African American, 16.94% Other, 60.33% Disadvantaged
Our local school board is very sensitive to segregation by race and income, so I think it is reasonable to think that this distribution of students is the best they could do given that enrollment must be determined geographically.
My example charter school does a flat lottery with a district preference. Would you agree that admission using this system would should result in less segregation than admission based only on geographic location?
Anyone arguing that the very success to failure ratio of any and all experimentation should be reason enough to halt experimentation itself, must be a bonafide Luddite having never taken time to analyze the abysmal success to failure ratio of Thomas Edison or any of the other great minds throughout American History; The imaginations of whom the self-protecting bureaucrats in America’s public education system were cheated out of never having the opportunity to crush.
Furthermore, arguing that the locations of America’s presently operating charter schools is due primarily to discrimination based upon Racial Demographics only instead points to this author’s blind ignorance to long standing Real Estate Demographics. We have more charter schools in the suburbs rather than inner cities for the most part because it is the homes surrounding aging suburban schools are owned by property tax payers who are by and large less transient than inner city residents. Subsequently, long residing suburban property tax payers who once housed children who once used local suburban schools have aged and their children and their neighbor’s children have now grown up and moved away.
Most of the neighborhoods we see charter schools operating in do not have enough local kids from the area to still fill the seats enough to justify the costs of staffing and operating a facility of such a size as they once did. In most instances where you see a charter school, districts had already chosen to close and mothball these facilities. It would be no less ridiculous to say the facilities housing charter schools were slated for closure due to discrimination against suburban white kids. Current racial attitudes have nothing to do with this but instead it is the means for justifying the operation of an otherwise underutilized facility that instead has everything to do with why it is you see charter schools where it is you see them today.
We don’t see charter schools in the inner cities because the conventional inner city facilities are by and large presently full if not overcrowded and districts do not have the capacity to operate such a facility in the inner cites. The truth is, by staying open in the capacity in which they do, charter schools in the suburbs ease classroom overcrowding in other facilities. – and the ones that pass the experiment, are very successful.
Craig,
If you are responding to my post, I was apparently not clear about my purpose. I am making NO CLAIM THAT CHARTER SCHOOLS LOCATIONS ARE AN ATTEMPT TO ADDRESS RACIAL DEMOGRAPHICS. NO CLAIM, NONE, ZERO, ZILCH.
My argument is that 1) allocating seats based on geographic proximity is rationing seats in a school and 2) allocating places in schools based on geographic proximity reinforces the existing socioeconomic segregation in residential housing.
I mean to suggest that two social goals, integration of every citizen in society no matter the socioeconomic status and the creation of strong communities where the concept of communities is based on geographic proximity, are in tension. If social integration is the goal, it seems to me that a lottery system should be preferred in ANY type of school, public, private, or charter. If community cohesiveness is the goal, a geographically based admissions system should be preferred in ANY type of school, public private or charter.
Craig,
Fact of the matter is is that we do know what works in educating kids. BUT due to federal mandates like NCLB and now race to the top etc. we have not been able to implement what works. If politics and big money get out of the way, we’d be doing great.
Don’t be led to believe that charters are an experiment. They are a deliberate attempt to get rid of public schools and it ain’t about improving. . . Edison worked with inanimate objects. . not real live human beings.
Using which system, the lottery or the one based in geography?
I would think the lottery system, say by guaranteeing students a place in one of the 15 elementary schools but not the neighborhood school, would result in a better socioeconomic balance in the schools.
Is the point of your lottery system to bring a community together for a common goal or to force diversity upon a community when there is none or very little? Communities are unique in their cultures. Lotteries may tamper with this uniqueness.
My point (already stated in another post, this thing is getting scattered) is that the social goal of inclusion and the social goal of community cohesion are in tension in a world where there is significant residential segregation.
If you put great importance on social integration, you might argue in favor of non-geographically based school admissions policy like a lottery. If you put great importance on community cohesion, the geographic admission policy is the way to go.
It is ironic that Dr. Ravitch defends a school system where admission is based on geographic proximity with an appeal to Brown v. the Board of Education in Topeka Kansas. Enforcement of that order required schools to drop the geographic admission criteria.
Let me add, that Supreme Court decision tampered a great deal with many communities uniqueness. I think that was a good thing.
I need a the in there before the Supreme Court. To fast to hit the button, as usual.
I have worked in a charter school in an impoverished area for several years. I am a teacher by trade and by nature and I am patient, caring and kind to my students. Teaching is my vocation. I agree with what is being said about charter schools. The children are NOT getting a better education in fact they are getting a worse one. The sense of community is not there and more importantly the eyes and ears of the community cannot be utilized to watch over those who run them because these corporations are run more than not outside of the state they are operating. Where is the “voted in to office school board?” Oh yeah that’s right we have a CEO and a board made up of people from all over most who have never taught. Charter schools are about the MONEY people. Keep your money in your community and do not allow charter schools in your community. I would love to find a job in a regular public school and be in a union. Charter schools are sweat shops for teachers. I don’t have a choice right now but I do know that my days are numbered in a charter school.
@At the forefront
I have only been to one charter school, and that was with my college friend dropping his children off for the day. It seemed like a very nice, caring community place, so perhaps there are differences in charter schools.
This charter school is located in New York. There are two directors for the school. One is a former K-2 teacher at PS 30 in Harlem, though she only taught there for two years before going to the Bank Street School. The other taught at Midtown West, a public elementary school in the Hells Kitchen neighborhood. She has an MA from the Bank Street School.
The current board of directors seems to have people who are concerned about children, learning, and their community, though many have never taught. Here is a short biography of the members, taken from the charter school website.
Ellen Cogut is a speech pathologist, who has worked primarily with pre-school language impaired children in a variety of settings, including Brookdale Hospital Developmental Center, The League School, and The Little Room of the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School. She is also on the board of The Brooklyn Children’s Museum.
Don Cornwell currently serves as Managing Director in Morgan Stanley’s Investment Banking Division. He is also on the board of East Harlem Tutorial Program.
Katharine Darrow has had a thirty-year career as an attorney and business executive in New York City. She also serves on the board of Resources for Children with Special Needs and The University of Chicago.
Amy Fontaine is currently the Co-Lower School Librarian at St. Ann’s School in Brooklyn where she provides library instruction for students in kindergarten through third grade. She has taught for over twenty-five years, primarily at the early childhood and elementary levels, at several New York schools including the Greenwich Village Neighborhood School. ( I added more here because she is/was a teacher)
Beth Lief has been a leader in public education reform and innovation for more than 25 years. She is currently the Executive Director of The Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation, which focuses on public school reform in New York City. Lief was founding president for 11 years of New Visions for Public Schools, the largest educational reform organization in New York City devoted to improving the City’s public schools. (I added more because she seems to have been involved in education reform in the public sector)
Marion Panas is an associate in the Exempt Organizations Group of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP. She currently serves as a member of the Non-Profit Organizations Committee of The Association of the Bar of the City of New York and as a member of the Pro Bono Advisory Council of New York Lawyers for the Public Interest.
Kate Rodgers Smith is currently a Sackler Educator at The Guggenheim Museum where she designs and leads education programs and tours for children of all ages both on-site and in the schools. She has taught children of all ages in various schools and organizations for eighteen years.
Scott Strasser is a Managing Director of GB Merchant Partners, LLC, the principal investment affiliate of Gordon Brothers. He has served as a volunteer for several non-profit organizations focused on education and college preparation.
Tracey Strauss currently serves as Vice President of Ecommerce at Theory LLC. She received an honors degree in the School of Education at Stanford (and an MBA from Harvard).
Matthew Conroy is a vice president of Octavian Advisors, L.P.. He is passionate about volunteering, was a Catholic Big Brother for several years
A number of the board members seem to have extensive teaching experience and several seem to be involved in education policy, though as you say, many have not taught.
The teaching conditions seemed very good to me when I visited the school. Each classroom has two teachers, one of which always has special education certification. About 20% of their students have special needs.
I am writing all this out because I think there is a wide world of charter schools out there, and you say “charter schools” where you should say “the charter school I work in”.