A report by the York County Community Foundation proposes that the answer to the county’s educational needs is an all-charter school system. York county schools have below average performance and many students are impoverished.
The study group cited the inflated claims of New Orleans charter boosters and decided that York county could achieve great things by copying the New Orleans model.
Had they done a bit more research, they would have learned that the New Orkeans Recovery School District is the lowest ranked district in the state of Louisiana, and that two-thirds of its charter schools received a grade of D or F for academic performance.
Eliminating public education does not solve the problems of poverty.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Eliminating public education does not solve the problems of poverty.”
Thank you. I’ll be using this.
Well, unfortunately, York County seems a wee bit inland to be terribly damaged by hurricanes, so I guess this “Community Foundation” will just have to manufacture a disaster.
OK, I’ll bite. What DOES solve the problems of poverty, Diane? The public schools certainly haven’t solved the problem of poverty. And under the Obama economy, the number of jobs for the underskilled has shrunk drastically. As our Lord and Saviour Jesus H. Christ has said the poor will always be with us. Do you think there is actually some way to eliminate poverty? There aren’t even enough jobs for the college educated these days. How, under a social democrat administration, which depresses the economy, can poverty be even reduced, let alone eliminated? What is needed is jobs. The President even said so, though he doesn’t really mean it. The best route out of poverty is jobs, marriage, and prudence (i.e. no drugs or drink). Only the first is possible for the government to do anything about. The BEST policy for the country is to charterize, let them skim off the willing, and leave the public school system as the last resort before prison. It’s a noble goal, and noble work for those who do it, saving souls so to speak for a minimally productive life. At least the charters will take a “no excuses” approach to those who can be stimulated by it. Perfect cosmic justice can never be achieved. We must approach it, but that approach will always be asymptotic. “All” is the most dishonest word in discussions of education. It is the word of evangelicals. Save those who can be saved.
Actually addressing the problem of poverty rather than expecting schools to work miracles would be a start. Schools have never claimed they could solve the problems of poverty. In fact, they’ve claimed exactly the opposite – until we address the problems of poverty, school will always be significantly less effective for a large swath of the population than it could be.
Some starting points, in no particular order:
– Focus on maternal and well-baby healthcare
– Get rid of lead, asbestos and other toxic substances in homes, schools, daycares, etc.
– Provide jobs and equitable access to them
– End the “War on Drugs”
– End the multi-tiered system of justice that allows the elites to get away with fleecing the country while poor people are jailed for minor violations
– Provide universal play-based pre-school (not just a place to further shove down academic material and testing that should start much later)
– Start an open and honest dialogue on issues of race, socio-economic status and discrimination/institutionalized racism (not just another “blame black culture” rant)
– Drastically scale back our military adventures abroad and use those resources here at home
– End “austerity”
Harlan, let’s do it your way: Let them eat cake.
Thank you for pointing this information out, Diane. As a local, I wrote a response to the YorkCounts Charter Reform Proposal. Despite the absence of hurricanes, with this latest charter school proposal, York County has indeed been struck by disaster capitalism.
You can read my take here: http://yorklp.org/york-counts-school-takeover
That’s an extremely romanticized view of Charters, Harlan, suggesting that when charters “skim” they are doing those students they “save” an educational service. In most cases they are not. All too often, it’s “grab money first, and if the data point (child) happens to learn something, so be it. If they don’t, well, we still got the money.” Perhaps you missed the Ohio report on charters: http://innovationohio.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Unfair-Funding-IO-charter-schools-report-1.pdf
Thank you for pointing this information out, Diane. As a local, I wrote a response to the YorkCounts Charter Reform Proposal. Despite the absence of hurricanes, with this latest charter school proposal, York County has indeed been struck by disaster capitalism.
You can read my take here: http://yorklp.org/york-counts-school-takeover
Thank you for pointing this information out, Diane. As a local, I wrote a response to the YorkCounts Charter Reform Proposal. Despite the absence of hurricanes, with this latest charter school proposal, York County has indeed been struck by disaster capitalism.
You can read my take here: http://yorklp.org/york-counts-school-takeover