Mitchell Robinson of Michigan State University has been debating charter advocates lately. Given the abundant evidence of charter failure in Michigan, they have a lot to defend, but their chief debating point is: Well, what would you do?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Failure, Michigan, Privatization

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Susan L Osberg says:

August 6, 2018 at 9:16 am

This is exactly what we should have been doing all along. But, there are those, even in the ranks of public school supporters who seem to wear blinders when it comes to inner city schools. “Equal” does not mean that every school should get the same amount of money…..that leaves the inner city schools terribly short of the needed finds. Instead, spend the funding to bring up schools in our poorest districts to the level of those I. The more we’ll-to-do districts and then work to maintain that. Hire teachers who are well trained (as mentioned in Mr. Robinson’s article) and find ways to support them in the inner city. Do what LaBron James is doing with wrap around services to help the poor and disadvantaged. A generation of this should bring our public schools to where they should have been all along. Not a bandaid, but real solutions are never a “quick fix”.

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Laura H. Chapman says:

August 6, 2018 at 9:18 am

An excellent list of remedies, including this one:
Let’s demand that all schools offer a rich, engaging curriculum, including music, art and physical education, and let’s stop referring to these subjects as “extras” or “specials” – our children don’t see them as “extras.” For some kids, these are the things that make school worth going to.

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- ciedie aech says:
  
  August 6, 2018 at 1:58 pm
  
  LET’S bend to research which repeatedly shows kids thriving when their days are full of movement and creative outlet.
  
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GregB says:

August 6, 2018 at 9:19 am

Brilliantly concise. Just sent the article to a candidate running for my state house district. Although his child attends a public school, he seems very unaware of the issues at stake. Mitchell’s concluding riff should be the template for every politician running for office who cares about public education.

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- mrobmsu says:
  
  August 6, 2018 at 3:57 pm
  
  thanks!
  
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retired teacher says:

August 6, 2018 at 9:50 am

Public education has always assumed that all students should have a fair opportunity to learn and grow. The ways in which we fund public education through property taxes created uneven opportunities for young people along race and class lines. Every aspect of market based education is worse and more unfair, again mostly along race and class lines. These same students that already were shortchanged by public funding get their meager resources depleted even further through charter and voucher expansion. This system of robbing the weakest to help a few students is not the type of democratic institution that was envisioned in the concept of “common schools.” It is the wrong message to send to vulnerable students in a society that has extreme income disparities and the largest prison population in the world. Like Melania’s jacket, it reads as “I don’t care.”

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bethree5 says:

August 6, 2018 at 10:53 am

RE: the comment thread to the Mitch article. Most of the charter supporters sounded like armchair blowhards venting their choice & competition ideology. But the ones I heard loudest were Detroit parents – one who has found physical safety for his schoolchildren in charters, & another nostalgic for the [now-ruined] DPS of her youth who’s found something similar for her children at charters. It breaks my heart to think of the other 49% of Detroit kids languishing in the unsafe squalor of ruined pubschs whose funds are regularly robbed to pay Paul of the ‘lucky’ 51%. And it burns me up to think of the cynical state govt that turned its back on the foundering publics devastated by the slow-motion collapse of the auto industry.

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- GregB says:
  
  August 6, 2018 at 11:34 am
  
  Thanks for bringing this our attention. I’m sure the most ill-informed of them would tell a surgeon how to cut and sew. But I really liked the comment by Sister Elizabeth. She know parochial and public education can survive and thrive together.
  
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  - dianeravitch says:
    
    August 6, 2018 at 12:18 pm
    
    Charters are killing Catholic education. Catholic education has been hit by numerous issues, including the huge payouts to sexual abuse victims, leaving less or no money to subsidize Catholic schools. The shortage of nuns and brothers willing to provide free labor. That’s why some Catholic bishops want vouchers. But they should recognize that even in healthy parishes, charters are sucking out their students with zero tuition.
    
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- mrobmsu says:
  
  August 6, 2018 at 12:02 pm
  
  thanks for this comment, bethree5–I agree completely. there are so many parents who have turned to charter schools because their community schools have been systematically devastated–in Michigan by Betsy DeVos–and I do understand their frustration, and anger when their choices are questioned.
  
  it’s a parent’s job to do what’s best for their children–it’s up to policy makers to make sure that every public school is funded and supported by policies that allow for safe classrooms and full, rich curriculums–and certified teachers. in Detroit, that’s not charter schools.
  
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LeftCoastTeacher says:

August 6, 2018 at 7:56 pm

My local newspaper, the Times, is owned by a pharma billionaire, and its education reporting has been bought by real estate/insurance/banking billionaire Eli Broad. It’s mostly corporate propaganda which I rarely read anymore, especially given that its website violates EU privacy laws. But, I read a Times article this morning that claimed public schools are unsafe. It’s the racist trope used by charters to instill fear of people of colors, that public schools are “the jungle” (I am recalling the opening scene of the film, “Lean on Me”), that charters provide safety in (racial) homogeneity. No longer are charters claiming to have good ideas to share, to increase test scores, or to in any way provide better academics. They just provide segregation. “Well, what would you do” is their chief debating point? Allow me to answer. Yes, everything Mitchell Robinson said about adequate and equitable funding, but also, I would stop pitting racial groups against one another and instead support the reality that integration helps all groups.

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Yvonne Siu-Runyan says:

August 7, 2018 at 8:54 am

Charters and vouchers = JIM CROW

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Beata says:

August 8, 2018 at 3:04 pm

Sound like a broken record, racism and wall street, nothing more to be said

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