It's interesting to me that whenever I do a post on public education, the pageviews go down. My guess is that it seems like such a niche issue, and when people read me squawking about Charter Schools or the Common Core, they think that's my problem, but not theirs. But if anything I've been saying about Neoliberalism and its toxic effect on American society, then you need to understand how Neoliberal education reform is reshaping and reinforcing the dark, Social Darwinist angels of our nature. What's happening in our public schools right now is a perfect laboratory for understanding how Neoliberalism is reshaping American society in its image.
Charter Schools are a perfect example. They seem innocent enough. I thought they were a great idea when I first heard about them. Why not give parents choices? Why not open up different possibilities for families? Why not fight the education bureaucracy? In theory nothing is wrong with that, and there may be a few school districts where charter schools actually perform that function. But it's not New Orleans, it's not New York, and apparently it's not Hoboken.
I'm glad Josh Eidelson at Salon is taking Neoliberal education reform on as part of his beat. The interview this morning can be very helpful in showing how Charters are a tool that seem innocent enough, but which create bigger problems than they were created to solve. The whole thing should be read, but this excerpt will give you a taste:
Supporters of charter schools have sometimes argued that offering a charter is a way to keep parents within the public school system who would otherwise just go to private school – or as some of the HoLa parents have suggested, leave the city entirely.
. . . I believe that the initial charter schools in Hoboken shook a lot of people up, and I personally had no problem with it. They have just reached a critical mass now, that they’re fostering white flight, and they’re bankrupting us …
The private school parents are great. They’re paying taxes, and they’re taking responsibility for themselves … But the fact is, when you want … local funds to subsidize what in some cases is essentially a private school, it just goes against, I think, the intent of public education.
When you say “essentially” in some [cases] is “a private school” – how so?
When you have massive fundraising drives where you can raise $100,000 … I wish the public school system had as much money to devote toward our children as at least one of the charter schools does …
They have tutoring … These parents are wonderful — they’re the best of the best. So in fact, I view them as a private school that puts [a] significant amount of their own money into it, while getting funds from the city …
They have the best of both worlds: They have some very, very active parents, involved parents, motivated parents … And they have these incredible fundraisers. And they’re also able to get money from us …
Their demographic mix is certainly interesting, and their class – if I could use the word — classist mix, is certainly interesting.
How would you characterize that mix?
Some of the best and the brightest of Hoboken choose to send their kids there. And it’s a loss for us — both in terms of our demographic mix, and it’s frankly a loss in terms of the students …
They’ve created an alternative school system …
Exactly. In Seattle, we have alterantive or option schools within the public school system. There are ways to innovate and offer options to families that don't penalize those who stay in normal neighborhood schools. But the charter system creates ways for clever people to game the system, and for "winners" to take public dollars away from the "losers" to feather the already well-appointed nests. It only makes sense if you think that winners deserve everything they can manipulate the system to get, and that losers deserve to be losers. The intent of public education is to provide equity of educational opportunity to everybody. Charters undermine that intent whether intentionally or not.