Charter Schools as Cure for Urban Public Schools' Problems - Your opinion?

[Sparkly]

I'm writing a LTTE in response to this article, which pissed me off, and would like your thoughts:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/05/AR2005080501387.html

The author (who by no coincidence is part of Governor Ehrlich's Commission on Quality Education and is a founding board member of a charter school) contends that Baltimore City and Prince George's County schools are miserable failures, because their test scores haven't achieved parity with the more white & affluent areas of the state.

First, he ignores continuing improvements in those test scores in both math and reading. But more important, his solution is to divert taxpayer money into charter schools. If there's something they can do better, why not do that something in the public schools so it's accessible to all students?

What irks me is the Republican tendency to view schools and children as if they were factories turning out widgets, and as if they existed in a vacuum, rather than in communities that are affected by local economic and social conditions. I say we need to invest in urban communities themselves – employment, crime, housing, healthcare, daycare, etc. – rather than expecting schools alone to meet underprivileged students’ varied psycho-social needs, and blaming them if they can’t.

And meanwhile, FUND the PUBLIC SCHOOLS!!

What do you think? I'd especially like to hear from teachers.

[FloridaPat]

1. The kids are widgets to the repubs. They should all be fed the

same crap to they are dumb, pro-military, unable to have any thinking cells at all. They should be good little consumers, workers, and soldiers and let the big decisions be done by those in Washington.

[wellst0nev0ter]

2. Been There, Done That In Minnesota

And the charter schools are no better, and in some cases worse, than the public schools they were supposed to improve upon. I guess the only way to "improve" a school is to open private schools that gets to select which student actually enters.

[DefenseLawyer]

3. I am no expert

on education, but as a casual observer, I think that a lot of the problems in education seem to coincide with the consolidation movement of the 60's and 70's. I have no data on this, but it just seems like common sense that personal attention and discipline among other things were easier to achieve, not just by smaller class sizes, but by smaller community schools with an overall smaller student population.

[noamnety]

4. I don't understand what you wrote

they can do better, why not do that something in the public schools so it's accessible to all students?

Charter schools
a) are public, and
b) are accessible to MORE students than a traditional public school that has enrollment lines drawn by geographic neighborhoods. Try sending your inner city Detroit student to a public high school in nearby Grosse Pointe. You can't, because the Grosse Pointe public school is not accessible to him.
c) cannot by law reject applicants based on ability.

The enrollment policies at a charter school are the same as any other public school - and in fact are often more open, because you don't need to reside in a specific neighborhood to attend one.

I'm speaking as a teacher in one of the best integrated schools in the country - in the most segregated region in the country. If it weren't for the VERY PUBLIC charter school where I work, inner city detroit kids would not be going to a tuition free school alongside kids from Grosse Pointe and Bloomfield Hills.

[Generic Other]

5. Privatized for-profit schools have failed across the nation

The strength of our Democracy depends on strong public institutions.

[wli]

6. pure bullcrap propaganda

It's funnelling money away from the poor to the rich again.