Max Brantley is a fearless columnist in Arkansas who dares to disagree with the Waltons in their home state. Yes, there are such reporters who are unafraid to speak truth to the monied power that owns their state.
In this column, Brantley describes the latest ploy by the charter industry: They are opening charters that implicitly will serve as havens for white families that do not want their children to attend majority-black schools in Arkansas.
Brantley writes:
Then there’s Quest, to be run by a Texas private organization faulted in a national study by a charter school-friendly research outfit at Stanford for its poor performance with lower-end students. Not that those kind of students are really anticipated in western Little Rock. There’ll be a lottery for admission if demand exceeds seats, but with a pittance budget for transportation it will be a miracle if it doesn’t reflect the higher incomes and lower black percentages of the neighborhood elementaries potential Quest parents now attend. They don’t want to go to majority black/poor nearby middle schools with lagging test scores. Some are improving, Forest Heights, particularly, and there are plans to make it an academic magnet, but it’s a risk the parents are reluctant to take. Too bad, because it’s project-oriented model sounds truly innovative.
Innovation? Look at Quest’s application. It’s full of meaningless education-speak gobbledygook. It promises to “feel like a private school,” but be free. I think you and I both know what “feels like a private school” means. The application also says bluntly that, since the Little Rock deseg case is over, neither they nor the state needworry one bit about whether the kids they draw from the Little Rock school district will add to segregation there or create a segregated publicly financed school surrounded by the dregs of truly public education.
Sixty years after the controversial Brown v. Board of Education, the charter industry has found a way to render it moot. Remember, it’s all for the children. That is, for some children.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“It remains a white-flight haven for predominantly white, middle-class Maumelle. Its enrollment of black and poor children remains small. But, what’s worse, the neighboring Maumelle schools — with much higher enrollments of poor and mionrity students — do a better job, particularly in the problematic middle school years. Where’s the innovation and performance that charter schools were supposed to deliver? After a dozen years, does accountability ever kick in?”
And no one but him will ever notice or care that they’re doing a “much better job” in those public schools because ed reformers in both government and the private sector simply aren’t interested in something so ordinary as a public school doing a “better job”.
That they’re doing a better job in a political climate that is downright hostile to public schools, where (as an Ohio columnist says) charters are the “darlings” of media, CEO’s and politicians, is what’s extraordinary.
Public schools could really use an advocate in government. I wonder how long they can go without one? As he correctly notes, it’s been more than a decade of reform now. What will be the cumulative effect of the neglect, I wonder? How much damage will have been done?
“Public schools could really use an advocate in government.”
Over the PA system: “Calling Dr. Duncan, calling Dr. Duncan.”
PA system is supposed to be off but isn’t (haven’t all teachers experienced that interruption).
“What, he isn’t a doctor, why is he the head fed guy then? Oh, I didn’t know he didn’t even ever teach, why is he the head fed guy then? Because why? He’s the Obomber’s basketball buddie?. Didn’t know that. Well, what are his qualifications? OHHHH, he doesn’t have any, I see, then why is he the head fed guy???”
Click, Click, dial tone, PA system still isn’t off:
“Well, if he doesn’t know jack about teaching couldn’t he at least lead the cheerleading for our public schools? What, oh no, I didn’t realize that he is a puppet as I’ve never seen any strings moving him. OOOHHHH, they have more subtle ways of working puppets these days? You’re right, I’ve never seen any strings attached to the Muppets. Is he a Muppet, then????”
(all apologies to the Kermit, Miss Piggy, Cookie Monster et. al. . . )
While living in Georgia 4 years ago, all the private schools (and there were many for such a small city) were celebrating the same 50 year anniversaries. The people who attended those all-white private schools, at least had to pay out-of-pocket for their choice to live separately. This sounds like the government and tax-payers paying for this privilege. And it is so simple to set up, just don’t provide bus transportation or lunch service.
In one of my previous posts, I called the setting up of charter school systems as “separate and unequal.” This proves it yet again. Any public interest lawyers willing to take this to federal court?
Robert P. Broderick
You think Brantley’s fearless? Take a Google-look at Joyce Elliott, former schoolteacher heading up the Senate Education Committee. Little Rock’s Central High was the desegregation test case in 1957; the red lines were drawn then and there, and the Christian Right moved to West Little Rock and started private schools to protect their lily-white offspring. Then there’s Lakeview vs. Ark. Dept. of Ed., which revisits Plessy vs. Ferguson, Brown vs. Board, and the state constitution’s requirement for equity and equality in education; conveniently set aside in 2011 by the Ark. Supreme Court in the Eureka Springs decision. (Meanwhile, Brantley has finally woken up…)
I taught in rural Mississippi with Teach for America. We were in the Delta–the poorest area in the poorest state in the nation. Ever since desegregation was forced on Mississippi, they have taken a cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face approach to everything, including education. Black people will have to be allowed in the public swimming pools? Concrete to pool in. Public parks? Close them. Public schools? Set up white “academies” and then vote to keep the public schools the worst funded in the country. While the Delta itself was about 40% black when I was there, the public schools were 98% black. This is nothing new; just a way to funnel more “public” money towards the ever-present segregation.