Loretta Prisco wrote this for her local paper. Circulating it is the next step.For a PDF of the following list (laid out 3x on a legal size page), please write: GEMnyc@gmail.com.
Charter schools are paid for with taxpayer dollars, but privately operated.#10. Charters don’t serve children with special needs, English Language Learners, taking the potentially highest achieving students.Still want charters? Have a deal for you –
#9. Charters don’t allow parent or staff participation in decision making.
#8. Charters that are for profit serve shareholders, not students.
#7. Charters are huge moneymakers for investors exempt from union rules and some government and labor laws that provide oversight.
#6. Charters counsel out students who are low performing or discipline problems.
#5. Charters are invading our public schools and pushing them out of their buildings.
#4. Charters have been reported for corruption and incredibly high administrative salaries.
#3. Charters are taking needed resources from traditional public schools.
#2. Charters are creating a two tier system – separate but not equal schools as corporate dollars are pumped in to initially capture the student market.
And the #1 reason:
National studies show that traditional public schools are outperforming charters!
I don’t want to swim in the public pool. Build a swimming pool in my backyard with taxpayer money; I’ll invite only those with whom I wish to swim.
4 comments:
I may be a public education advocate, but I'm no fool. These blanket statements are not entirely true - some charters are guilty of all of these accusations, but there are many high quality PUBLIC charters that aren't guilty of ANY of these accusations.
If your research base oncharter schools includes the recent Stanford study, then you know that high quality public charters outperform traditional public schools in terms of serving low-income children - so please save your inflammatory rhetoric for the low-performing schools - charter and public schools - that fail our children.
It's simply criminal to label all charters as being the same, given that there's evidence to the contrary.
Dear Anon 1:18pm
"If your research base on charter schools includes the recent Stanford study, then you know that high quality public charters outperform traditional public schools in terms of serving low-income children"
Answer this question: Are urban/and or low income public schools flooded with money? Do urban/ and or low income public schools have small class sizes? Top of the line technology?
There is nothing that a charter does that a public school can't do.
"Criminal?" You must be talking about our immoral ruling elite who have bankrupted our nation and now want to regiment teaching and learning in order to create submissive automatons.
Sincerely,
Antonio Gramsci
Antonio, it seems you need to do some research before publishing any articles or commentary about charter schools. Apparently you are not aware that all charters are not alike - do you realize that many charters have been started by young Black and Latino teachers who are trying to devise innovative ways to serve some of the most disadvantaged youth of colour in the highest poverty neighborhoods? (It's easy to research the gender and ethnicity of the majority of the high quality charter school leaders, so please take the time to at least google or visit a few schools before you write.) Do you know that many public charters - even high quality charters with stellar results - receive LESS per pupil funding than traditional public schools (with categorically WORSE results) in the same school district (see the KIPP UJIMA Baltimore story in USA Today)? Do you know that many of these same charters have average class sizes of no less than 30 students, and many serve upwards of 35 students per class (again, the research is easy to find, but apparently you can't be bothered to back up your claims)? Do you know that many of these same schools DO NOT the latest technology or an average of one computer per student - but instead share computers across a group of students yet still achieve high rates of technological literacy (again, look at technology model for the KIPP Academy in the South Bronx, one of the highest performing PUBLIC schools in NYC before you make egregious claims, PLEASE!!!)?
And as a parent of a Black child in the public system, I reiterate - it is CRIMINAL of you or anyone else to look me in the eye and tell me that the traditional public schools in NYC - which fail 50-60% of Black and Latino children (especially boys) on a yearly basis - are as good as a public charter that has no more money than a public school, that has the same class size as a public school, that has the same technology as a public school, but achieves better school engagement, higher rates of on-time grade promotion, high school completion, and college matriculation.
If there's an innovative public charter like the Urban Assembly Academy of History and Citizenship for Young Men in the Bronx or the Community Coalition's new charter school for historically and currently underserved youth in South L.A,. and I have the chance to help my kid avoid the likelihood of going to a terrible public school that's likely to push him right into the prison system - then I am going to vote with my feet (another question - do you know that lack of choice is the hallmark of the oppressed, so maybe choices for parents and kids in high poverty communities WHO ALSO PAY TAXES is a GOOD thing?) and put the pressure on the "immoral ruling elite who have bankrupted our nation and now want to regiment teaching and learning in order to create submissive automatons" to get their acts in gear and fix the damn system so poor Black, Latino, and Native American kids don't have to wait a generation to receive the quality educaiton they deserve.
Please, do us all a favor and do your homework before you step in front of the class.
To Anon. 11:53: Everyone who reads this blog is "doing homework" on this subject and is very "aware," so please let's not go down that road.
I suspect most of us will agree with a number of things you say, particularly that not all charters are alike and that people have to get their "act in gear" and fight for quality education.
But, your statement is filled with conjecture (e.g., who's to say what "stellar" means), broad condemnation (e.g., comparing a whole school system with a single charter school, as you do in paragraph 2), and makes no account of the fact that most charter schools do not service kids with special needs (ELLs, spec. ed, etc.)
GEM is fighting for quality education across the board, and I think they understand that when parents are excited about the charters their children are attending, they feel threatened by people working to change the system. But, many of us teachers have had great experiences inside traditional schools and know what can be achieved there even with the existing resources. (Not as much recently with all the testing, but that's not the school's fault, that's coming from BloomKlein.)
Charters are not the panacea. Cut class size, let teachers and innovative admin people do their jobs, stop the lawbreaking and unionbusting, stop the the intimidation that bedevils the whole system, and immediately welcome parents and teachers into the decision-making process.
That doesn't need schools souped up with private monies, or lotteries, or selective services, or PR teams to sell this stuff.
It needs a change of ideology and the political will to uplift entire communities, not just a few kids.
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