A teacher in a charter school comments:
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.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’ve had several student teachers shut out of public schools due to the freeze. They certainly wanted to work in public schools and sought jobs in charters only because they were the only ones available to them. I wouldn’t work for a charter on a bet.
I think having taught in an impoverished area as a public school that the same could be said of the public school. It’s true that charters are not a magic cure all to education, but there are also enough of them making a difference ( my brother goes to one in dc that is not at all like the one you’ve described and who is adequately preparing him for college) that you can’t say all are bad. Nor or all good, but at least they give parents a choice. If the public school is the better school in their neighborhood, parents will probably choose it. If not, charters offer an option. I am not one, having working in the system, that believes in sacrificing children’s education on some idealist notion. Kids should go where their learning needs are met. Sometimes it’s the public school, sometimes the charter, and if only all parents could afford smaller classroom sizes in private schools, private school. A one size fit all public school education (or career) does not meet the majority’s needs. Too many kids are slipping through the cracks. A more robust education system with choices is a very viable solution to me that will help differentiate students learning community needs. Teacher’s needs? Only a move to the cushy, rich schools will get you to a place where you are not overworked and underappreciated.
“are not a magic cure” writing on a phone with autocorrect- apologies!
This will come across as a bit harsh… if you know that the charter school you are teaching in is not providing a “quality” education don’t you have a responsibility as an advocate for children to question and speak out against the charter school or leave? You can’t claim to love and care about children and then continue to enable inequality or poor educational opportunities. These corporate charter schools are banking on the fact that teachers will either be ignorant of the real profit motive or be too timid to confront it.
I know…easier said than done when you need income to live.
Eileen, to whom should these teachers complain? to their administrators? to the parents who think the school is wonderful? to the media who adores charters and would never publish anything negative? to the mayor and/or Chancellor (in NYC)? to the Governor ?
If I knew to whom to complain where it might actually make a difference I would be on it.
Teachers need to speak out..absolutely..but there also has to be something akin to the French Resistance.
It might make more sense to stay and try one’s best to provide whatever small amount of quality education that you can for the students in your care.
Sheila, each city or town is different in terms of the level of hostility and corruption. The biggest cities, like NYC and Chicago, are places where I don’t think I understand how tough the realities may be. But, for smaller cities like where I am, we have a few charter schools that are terrible. I taught at one for 3 years, and when I finally started to question what was going on, I realized I couldn’t continue to support the school. I left at the end of the year. Now that I’m more informed about what was really happening I’m trying to figure out how to blow the whistle on them. I’m not currently teaching and can rely on my husband’s salary for now. I’m in a unique position. I’ve been doing more behind the scenes advocacy like blogging, joining a local public school advocacy group, attending NAACP events…I’m trying to become as informed as possible about the general (mis)understandings and opinions in my city. I’m not originally from here so I have to work a bit harder to make connections. When and how I’m going spread the word is a challenge. I’m not sure what to do. I know that I’m going to have some very thick skin and be prepared to take some criticism. Luckily, our local NAACP is very much informed about the for-profit motives of the local charter schools and they are very much opposed to them. The problems with the charter schools in terms of quality education are very obvious. I think when parents are shown a side-by-side comparison of what the public schools are doing vs. charter schools, they will understand that they are being duped. I’ll have to be very careful to frame it around the failures of the corporation and not the teachers (who are working incredibly hard).
Eileen,
You are exactly right-easier said than done! Charter Schools are a company, a business. If you work for an employer then they expect loyalty. Imagine if people working in chicken processing plants, common around here, complained about the inhumane treatment of animals-you get fired. If you work for Hewlett Packard and complain about the outsourcing of jobs to other countries because there are unemployed people here-you get fired. If you have a job driving a truck and complain about the fact you are expected to be on time no matter how many hours you have to drive even if safety is compromised-you are fired.
The rules are such that if you need a job to feed your family, have an indoor place to live and any sort of so called benefits and you take a job doing something you find repugnant and complain-you get fired. In many areas of the country there are no other jobs or the job qualifications and educational background of a teacher are not valued by future employers.
I feel it isn’t so much that the Charters count on teachers being too timid to speak up, and while there are a few teachers who are choosing to remain ignorant so they do not have to deal with the moral conflicts, the Charters are just doing business as usual in the USA. We are being scapegoated as teachers and the public is apathetic for the most part or too lazy to find out the facts. The crisis in education is also competing for attention with the Presidential Election, the Olympics and Kim Kardashian. The people blaming teachers are counting on the fact that our American culture has an attention span of 3 minutes, our national literacy levels are low, people are dealing with the basic levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs dealing with poverty and until they SEE how this all directly affects them, humanity remains uninvolved. Sort of a reverse NIMBY-if it doesn’t affect me and is happening “Over there” it is unimportant; but the real problem is how America communicates information through talking heads who are seen as authorities and are many times idiots, by local elected officials who may or may not know what they are talking about etc… We have so many in business, politics and government who are willing to lie and distort the facts that humanity quit listening. We have so many dis-enfranchised voters, apathetic voters, people who don’t vote because it is inconvienent or they are too busy, thousands of military overseas whose ballots never make it to their state on time to be counted, laws enacted to prevent or make it harder to vote for some, an illiteracy rate that makes reading a ballot impossible for so many adults, incarceration rates and felony laws that remove huge numbers from the voting public FOREVER and a lack of public transportation is many many areas that even if you want to vote you have no way to get there!
Charters are counting on all this; the people who own them are counting on all this.
If every teacher, every one, joined one of the professional organizations, immediately and these teacher bashers suddenly saw that thousands had joined and were now represented, this is a way to “Say” something.
Sheila, you mentioned French Resistance, and I agree. I see many parallels with the training I received in the military in how to resist as a POW to how to survive teaching now.
Confused is right on, there is power in numbers. I don’t understand we teacher don’t want to unite and stand together. join your professional organization.
AMEN! This is one excuse I get: I can’t afford it. Response: You can’t afford not to be. I continue with reasons. Another reaction: I’m not interested. My reaction: Then you must not care about your profession or your students. It makes me wonder why they are teaching. It makes me wonder why they continue to keep their head in
the sand. What’s sad, is both are very often the ones who complain the most. Go figure!
igure!
Don’t really know where the “igure” came from.
The Charter School our daughter goes to was brought into the School District when it opened. It has the same rules to follow, there’s a budget which includes a set amount for parents to spend on the curriculum of their choosing with oversight to be certain it passes state standards etc., A teacher is assigned to oversee our progress, meeting each week. Great program.
I posted a response to the original posting of this entry, arguing that that when this teacher said “charter school” it would have been more appropriate to say “the charter school where I work”.
I have attempted several times to move the discussion from general claims about all charter schools to one where we could talk about a specific charter school and how it works. I have been disappointed that no one here has taken that up. For example, the teacher here (and many others who have posted) said it was all about the MONEY for charter schools. I believe my sample charter school is organized as a non-profit. The teacher here says the board of trustees is made up “mostly of people who have never taught”, so I spent some time listing a short biography of the directors of my example school and the members of the board of directors. No response.
People here are not saying some charter schools are bad, for profit charter schools are bad, charter schools that are part of a chain are bad, most charter schools are bad. The posters here are saying ALL charter schools are bad. I can’t see it in this charter school (unless the only real criticism is that charter schools get per pupil funding) and really wish someone would point out the problems with this school. If you want to look it up, it is the Community Roots Charter School.
They are bad by definition. Public money should go only toward public school districts where there is oversight. Private schools, which charters are in truth, should not get a dime in taxpayer money. After all, they don’t have to be held accountable for how the money is spent and they have no elected boards. Get rid of ALL charter schools. There are more often than not worse than regular public schools yet bleeding taxpayer money dry.
So what you are saying is that even if charter schools were acknowledged to do a better job educating children, they are still bad by definition. Please not that I am not saying they actually do a good job, but that saying they are bad “by definition”, you are saying the quality of education is completely besides the point.
Should be note, not not in the comment above.
After teaching for 7 years MANY years ago, I left the profession to provide for my then-growing family. I stayed in the private sector until 2001, coming back to teach in a charter school in Camden, NJ for three years. I was lured buy the promise of merit pay and a chance to make a difference in an urban setting. What I saw was less than inspiring – the kids were great, eager to learn. The parents mostly placed their children in this school to keep them safe – extended day/year. The teaching staff was dedicated and committed. The administrative staff was so heavily under the thumb of the CEO that turnover was rampant.
When I was offered my present position at a public school in a neighboring township I jumped at the chance to take it.
After witnessing the length of time in ridding the inappropriate teachers in my kid’s elementary school, parents disliked the teacher’s union. On the other hand, the teachers in my kid’s charter school need an association to defend them against the bullying of the principal. Charter schools need more oversight.
Public schools have the same problem, layers of administration. Parents are allowed to speak but then told privacy laws kick in, no further discussion, HR makes the final decision. Common sense needs to prevail.
Neighborhood schools are turned into big box schools to save money but in the long run the over population causes kids to become anonymous & fall through the cracks. There’s no money savings if the students turn off, drop out & become underemployed or a law breaker.
One size or type of school does not fit all. Public charters should be an option in district. They should have parent & teacher input with little bureaucracy.
No. Public funds need to go to public schools, not private schools.
If you don’t like public schools, create your own private school. Don’t use public money for it.
I teach a course on teaching literacy skills to graduate students at a small progressive teaching college in NYC (as well as 1st grade in a NYC public school) . I have had a wonderful mix of students in my graduate course. I have had TFA participants, charter school teachers, public school teachers, people who have never formally taught. I teach with a focus on K-3 grades and balanced literacy (not with a capital B).
I have often heard from teachers in charter schools that they love what I am teaching them, but they don’t know how they can fit it into their day- that things like “read aloud” aren’t part of their program. They are frustrated. When I have issues like this brought up in class we get to work, brainstorming ways to sneak things into the day without “Big Brother” coming down on the teacher.
Students are frustrated- they would love to teach in the public schools, but in NYC there has been a hiring freeze for years. Charter schools are one of the only places hiring. People need to put food on the table and a roof over their heads.
We have to remember to not think in absolutes. Not all charter school teachers swallowed the Kool-Aid, not all charter schools are “evil”, not all public schools are ideal, and neither are all public school teachers.
Charter schools ARE evil. They are scams designed to divert public money to private outfits while at the same time starving public schools of funds.
They aren’t real public schools. The only reason teachers apply to work for these outfits is because they can’t get jobs in public ed.
This tells me colleges are simply graduating too many teachers for the jobs available.
What should colleges do? Start their own form of selection of who can be a teacher and who can’t?
Are you talking about colleges selecting their faculty in general or schools of education determining who can teach and who cannot?
I was commenting/ questioning on the person’s comment “This tells me colleges are simply graduating too many teachers for the jobs available.” So I am asking that person if s/he thinks colleges should be making the determination as to who should get a degree in education based on the market availability. That is what s/he seems to be implying.
In that case I think schools of education ARE selecting who can and who can not be teachers by determining who passes the classes. While they certainly do not have the same number of students washing out as say an engineering school, it must be the case that some students fail out of education schools.
I agree with you. You will probably enjoy the benefits of public school teaching much better than charter school teaching, however, all is not rosy in public schools, either. Whether your efforts are appreciated really depends on the administration you work under. If they are supportive, you will be happy and productive for your students. Otherwise, you will spend your time defending yourself against false accusations of students and their parents because the administration encourages that kind of atmosphere. No matter how good you are, some students have their own agenda and will blatantly lie if you don’t allow them to exercise their agenda.
I taught one year at a charter school after retiring and agree completely that you have no voice or control over your situation. The set up allows for corruption and mistreatment of teachers. Unions in public schools offer some support; but, it is limited, especially with recent changes in most school tenure agreements. Although limited, it is very valuable. The union offers some protection and can save your job. Without it, you are on your own, just as you are in a charter school.
Best wishes to you as you continue your vocation. Your commitment may be all you have to keep you going at times. That is how I managed to survive 32 years as a public school teacher.