Emily Kaplan has written a guest column for EduShyster. Kaplan taught in a no-excuses charter school, and she now teaches in a suburban public school. Here she describes the differences, much of which hasty do with power. The suburban parents “own” their public school; the urban charter parents can stay in the school only if their child obeys directions and follows the rules.
Kaplan writes:
“Politically and financially, affluent suburban parents own their children’s schools. Parents of students at urban charters, however, better not push their luck. (They “won the lottery,” after all.) Suburban parents can question the system all they like; ultimately, they are the system. Charter parents are certainly not— and by questioning it, they have everything to lose. (The racial undertones of this environment—black parents should be grateful for the education these white educators so generously provide— are significant.) Unlike suburban students who attend district schools, students at urban charter schools can be expelled or pushed out— and no parent wants to be forced back to the district which drove them to enter the charter lottery in the first place.
“Urban charters wield this power to ensure compliance from students and parents alike. The strict discipline for which charters are infamous is applied to parents as well as their children. Unlike at suburban schools—where parents are welcomed to join the PTA, to volunteer, to lead projects, and to meet with an administration that must earn their support—parental involvement at many urban charters is as unidirectional as it is punitive. If a student accumulates enough behavioral infractions, for instance, he or she must serve an in-school suspension until the parent is able—on one day’s notice—to take time off of work in the middle of the school day to observe the child in class for an hour and a half. Teachers and administrators threaten students who break the rigid rules of the school with parental involvement: “If your behavior doesn’t get better,” they tell these five- and six- and seven-year-olds, many of whom come from families struggling to make ends meet, “your dad will have to keep missing work to come here. You don’t want him to be fired, do you?” Parents who do not comply are told that the school may not be for them.
“Take it or leave it, be grateful, kowtow: we know what’s best for your child.
“Ultimately, this serves no one.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Is it legal to keep a kid out of the classroom and in ISS until a parents can come in and observe? I believe that would violate the least restrictive environment clause for special-education students (not the charter schools really have many students with special needs) . Does any of that language apply to regular Ed students?
The difference between a suburban public school district and an urban charter is the balance of power. Having taught in a diverse suburban school district for many years, we always welcomed parents and considered them our partners. Education works best when parents and teachers work together. Sometimes we had to deal with difficult or unreasonable folks, but that’s the nature of the job when you choose to be a public servant. Charters, often run by corporate chains with headquarters thousands of miles away, do not have to “tolerate” democratic participation. Parents have a limited voice in how the charter operates or the curriculum; the charter has the unilateral power to decide the fate of the child.
“Ultimately, this serves no one.”
This is the one line I disagree with. It does serve some people — the people who profit — either financially or politically — from arguing that charters are better, cheaper, and more admirable than public schools because they claim they are educating exactly the same kids except doing it better.
By the way, I think once billionaire pro-charter folks buy even more politicians, they will move into suburban areas where middle class parents are. It’s simple. Force the public school in Great Neck to give up space to a charter school underwritten by millions in donations from rich people who hate public schools. Lobby and mount a PR campaign to cut money from that public school’s budget. Spend millions to market to parents to enter the charter school lottery and send all the troublesome, low-performing kids back to public schools so that they now are dealing with a increasing number of high needs students with a decreasing budget. That encourages more of the “good” students to choose the charter school, which can now easily replace the low performing ones they counsel out with higher performing kids on the wait list. The students in the charter get all the luxuries of a free private school education which is also free of every child who is a behavioral problem or is low-performing. As the contrast between the well-funded charter school for “good” students and the underfunded public school that includes every student with a behavior or academic problem becomes more striking, soon it will simply be a two tier system with the top half of the class in the charter and the bottom half in what will soon be the failing public school.
Suburban charters that go this route will call themselves “no excuses” in order to come up with the means to rid themselves of the kids they don’t want. That has always been what no-excuses is all about. Affluent kids in supposedly no-excuses charter schools get the “no excuses” lite treatment because the charter wants to keep as many of them as possible while still reserving the right to target for punishment low-performers or high needs students. If the affluent parents in no-excuses charters demand a shorter day for their high-achieving kids, the no-excuses charters will bend over backward to accommodate them. Suddenly, the need for a long day disappears! If affluent parents in a no-excuses charter don’t like their 5 year old humiliated for not being able to track the teacher at all times, the teachers kindly remind them and don’t really notice if a high performing kid wriggles a little.
You may recall the in NJ, pro-charter Gov. Chris Christie happily allowed a charter school to open in a suburban neighborhood — his pals wanted to start making inroads in the middle class “education market” where public schools were still flourishing. He thought he had it made, until the parents managed to get some publicity to fight it and he had to desperately backtrack. But don’t think he and Gov. Cuomo aren’t looking to make their very wealthy donors happy by trying again. No doubt in a few years — with the help of a US President just as pro-charter anti-public school as Obama was — they will finally succeed.
Some suburban families are very satisfied with their traditional schools. Some are not.
Suburban charter schools in Minnesota vary widely.
Some are schools for students with whom traditional schools have not succeeded. One is a school created by a group of parents and educators frustrated with what district & charter offerings were available for students on the autism spectrum. Others have a particular theme, such as a Montessori elementary school, or Spanish Immersion, or Spanish/Chinese immersion, or project based school.
I am looking forward to when the big chain “loss leader” charter schools move into the Minnesota suburbs and give some of those good public schools a run for their money. I hope those charters have lots of private donations to convince the parents to choose the “free private school” instead of their local public schools which has to educate all the students, including the ones who cost far more money. With a little help from the politicians demanding cuts to public schools, and demanding that public schools spend resources on testing “products” and of course, underwriting charter schools, I doubt it will take long before the nice public school gets worse and worse. And the charter school starts looking more and more appealing.
This posting makes a lot of assumptions of what surburban means. I live in a suburb of a major city and my children attend public school. Many of the teachers are fantastic. Certainly parents are “encouraged” to join the PTA, but the idea that “where parents are welcomed to join the PTA, to volunteer, to lead projects, and to meet with an administration that must earn their support” is not true My kids school is nearly 60% FRM and of nearly 500 students less than 100 of them are Caucasian. The majority of them are Hispanic or African American. The principal has commented time and again that she had more resources when the school was Title I (i.e. when there were fewer families of means). as more families like my own have decided to join the school, the percentage has of FRM has decreated so the school is no longer title I.
As someone invovolved in education, I have volunteered numerous suggestions and ideas to support students, from helping lead math nights to explain curricular changes, supporting fund raising (ideally with teacher help) to support after school clubs in STEM and other similar activities. I was deemed disrespectful to the administration when I emailed a teacher at the school to follow up on a conversation we had about raising money for after school STEM clubs.
Many parents are not fans of the principal, however they fear retaliation towards their kids if they speak out…
So, it’s not all roses in surburban schools…It really depends on the school….
Ditto on jlsteach. I’m at a highly rated urban school with limited funds because we ARE a highly rated school. It’s ridiculous that we don’t have textbooks, computers, resources for SPED and ESL students because everyone does such a great job. The schools that are not as highly rated are given more funds. How is this equitable?
Clearly it’s not fair. Would you mind sharing what city? Do you receive fewer funds because some other nearby schools are receiving federal $ because of their low performance on standardized tests (not defending this but I know this is how it works in many states).
Or are you receiving fewer $ per student because you are not receiving many Title 1 $.
Thanks for your important work.
“Ultimately, this serves no one.”
“To Serve Man”
When man is served
On silver plate
A fine hors d’oeuvre
Is human fate
To Serve man, it’s a cookbook!
There is no question about the fact that there is a difference in power in different school systems. As a parent of a child in a “lucky zip code” with high test scores my experience resembles that of jlsteach. There is little opportunity for meaningful input in the decision making process and parents are mostly encouraged to contribute financially and in situations where they are not a threat to the power structure. Any questioning of the system is considered disrespectful.
I don’t think this issue should be broken down into urban charter vs. suburban public. I taught at a high-performing public school in an affluent neighborhood in NYC and my daughter attends a popular public school in NYC, and at both of those schools which vary in socioeconomics, parents are treated and act as if they “own” the school. I think it comes down to charter school versus public, and has nothing to do with suburban vs. urban.
Reblogged this on rjknudsen.