The Los Angeles Times invited me to write about my
concerns about charter schools. This was brave, because the
editorial board supports charters, although with occasional
backsliding. An excellent editor worked closely to get it shortened
and to tighten the argument. Here
is the result. I wrote this article on the flight from
Denver to Seattle. I do my best writing on airplanes because there
are no phone calls or emails or Internet. Enjoy. Or not. Let me
know what you think.
A site to discuss education and democracy
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You are amazing!!’ KC
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I like it and agree with all your main points. Kudos for getting L A Times to write any pro education piece that doesn’t glorify charters.
It’s a great article, sums the issues up very nicely. I feel that having these parallel school systems is not sustainable in an age of slashed school budgets and very limited resources. Charter schools do drain funds and resources from the actual public schools though the reformers claim otherwise. As Diane has pointed out, charter schools do not work in cooperation with the district schools, they are often in a bitter competition with the public schools. This is an exercise in profligacy and wastefulness; we should not abandon our real public schools for a misguided reform ideology.
Diane, you are amazing (and my Hero)! I enjoyed the little hit you took on “This newspaper’s editorial board “:)
Any teacher who has worked in poverty schools will agree with this article. Dismantling public schools will hurt the poor the most.
Politicians make decisions based upon beliefs instead of taking the time to listen to educators, who are the experts, or study and research the subject of the effects of poverty on learning. Many of our best teachers quit because they are beaten down by bad working conditions, low pay and lack of support. Our public school system is being dismantled in favor of for-profit charter schools.
The Indiana voucher system still requires some monetary payment from parents. Those students in the poorest neighborhoods will not have the ability pay nor to get across town to some charter school with a fancy name.
Researcher Clancy Blair of New York University has an article published in “Scientific American Mind” September/October 2012 entitled “Stress Relief Can Be the Key to Success in School.” He states, “Stress may be silently sabotaging success in school. Its effects are especially potent for children in poverty… The stresses of poverty—such as crowded conditions, financial worry and lack of adequate child care—lead to impaired learning ability in children from impoverished backgrounds … The theory is based on years of studies matching stress hormone levels to behavioral and school readiness test results in children from impoverished backgrounds.” This pattern which is being carried across the U.S. will only lead to a two-tier educational system. The poor and most needy will be left behind and forgotten.
The central problem with charter schools is that they represent a partial solution– an escape hatch for some students, but not a scalable solution for all. In addition, they represent the idea that constant turn over– open and closing of schools, based on perceived quality– is acceptable. Schools are not like restaurants. The attendees are children who do not need disruption in their lives, not diners. Finally, the choice process– competition among parents for schools and among schools for children– provides advantage for the already privileged exacerbating racial and socioeconomic segregation.
I discuss this in greater depth here: http://www.arthurcamins.com/?p=100, and here: http://www.arthurcamins.com/?p=36, and here: http://www.arthurcamins.com/?p=49
As Dr. Ravitch points out there are far more effective means for educational improvement without negative consequences.
First, thank you for asking your readers to comment on your various work. It makes this NC music teacher feel like I matter in ways I don’t/can’t get in NC right now (what with our state being sued by the Justice Dept. and our schools beholden to RttT).
Second, I love this article because it is direct and to the point and does not even allow the conversation of “choice,” which sidesteps the subject of public schools, in.
Very nice. I love that this gets clearer every day, in what I read and in my own mind. What a jumbled mess it was last year when I first sensed something was very much awry.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Joanna, I read everything you write here, as do thousands of others.
Never let the people temporarily running public education into the ground in NC get you down. You change the lives of every child you teach. You change them for the better. Can’t say the same for the legislators or governor of NC.
As I am educator and resident of So. California, and an activist in the education issues, I was both pleased and amazed that the LA Times published this article wherein you expand on the many factors our community faces regarding charter schools. Your name and your academic background carry so much weight.
My favorite line is not to “turn education into a consumer choice rather than a civic duty.”
The push for business models to control schools settings is anathema to education.
Thanks Diane, right on.
Hope to see you tonight and/or tomorrow night.
Diane, you’re making quite an entrance! LA is used to rock stars making grand entrances into our sparkling city, but this is better than that. I was almost moved to tears to see some sense on the LA Times editorial page!
Yet, the LAUSD school board is slated to approve another 15 charter school petitions at its meeting today. Even the board members who don’t support charters out of ideology say they are forced to approve them because of how the law is written. The law needs to change.
Anahuacalmecac International University Preparatory Schools of North America, in East LA, has had to overcome more than its share of hard knocks over the years. Facing down anti-immigrant bantering, terrorist threats that lead to school evacuations, multi-year state deferrals and budget cuts, do-or-die benchmarks for standardized tests, dozens of homicides and shootings in the immediate vicinity of the school and even a local restaurant trying to convert into an adult cabaret next to its kindergarten campus, remarkably Anahuacalmecac remains focused on learning.Our community has called on LACOE to vote again on our charter petition appeal on October 8, 2013. We applaud Ravitch’s call to end the wasteful and illogical testing of schoolchildren on a yearly basis – our lives have been so damaged by the misuse of the “measure to murder” policies imposed upon indigenous charter schools like ours across the country. Hundreds of students and families, and dozens of teachers call on the LACOE Board of Education to do the right thing and renew the charter of Anahuacalmecac. Will Los Angeles continue to impose the painful legacy of colonization, or can we begin a new dawn of intercultural understanding through education? http://www.semillasdelpueblo.org
Diane,
I thought your LA Times piece was great, with solid evidence supporting devastating conclusions. Here are my favorite sentences:
“They [charter schools]have become the leading edge of a long-cherished ideological crusade by the far right to turn education into a consumer choice rather than a civic obligation.
Abandoning public schools for a free-market system eviscerates our basic obligation to support them whether our own children are in public schools, private schools or religious schools, and even if we have no children at all.”
“Eviscerates” is exactly the word, isn’t it? We are tearing the guts out of our democracy.
Thank you for your powerful arguments, and thank you for your recent talk in my city of Philadelphia.
I would add that it is very well written. She had a relatively small amount of space in which to make the most essential points and to achieve just the right effect. In addition, the LATimes is decidedly not neutral in the ed debates. The adjustments a writer has to make given the aforementioned require good judgment, skill and experience.
This is how you make the case for public education and a “better education for all” when the circumstances are far from optimal.
Congratulations!
🙂
Well written! Alabamians need to keep a close eye on the recently formed BEA. One of its goals is to make charter schools legal in Alabama and then start establishing them.
Thank you Diane. It was thrilling to have you twice in one day in the most charterized city in the country! I see that the LA Times allowed the head of Charter association to respond to you.
Thank you for all that you do. Charters themselves don’t seem to understand the effect they are having on students and public education in general.
The LA Times is a rag for corporate America. The charter school movement is a plan to destroy public schools so that Walton, Gates and Broad will have more taxpayers’ money to line their pockets with. Wall St.criminals want teachers’ and other public employees’ pensions for their hedge fund gambling. LAUSD public schools will drown in debt from the ipad debacle. Only those with money will be able to buy an education. This is our future.