For the last decade, but specially the last couple of years, I've heard from the media rabble and the right about the horrible problems with our educational system. Well, not all of the system, just the part that all Americans have a stake in--public schools. I've heard how its failing, failing, failing and its all because of those union thug teachers!!! Making all those millions of $$ and just sitting around eating bon bons...funny, the teachers I know seem to be working pretty hard, they start about 7 in the morning and usually don't finish until evening. Sure they aren't "in the office" for some of that time, but they bring work home all the time.
So the right keeps telling us how much greater our education system would be if we got rid of the antiquated public education form..Private Schools!...Charter Schools! They work so well and everyone that goes to them do so much better! Sure...too bad the stats don't really bear that out.
First: Both private schools and charter schools get to pick and choose the "cream of the crop", you know those kids that aren't a problem and don't have those stupid learning, behavioral or physical disabilities. OK that means that they already have at least "C" students to start with. In May of 2010, there was a story in the NYT magazine explaining how much better charter schools were by comparing a charter and public school that were not only in the same neighborhood, but shared the same building! Same kids, same community and you know that charter school soared much higher on standardized tests than the public school so that just goes to show how much better the charter is, right? Umm, not really.
A deeper look at the data showed some illuminating facts about those kids...yes the came for the same neighborhoods but again the Charter School gets to choose their students.
At the public school, 20% of the students were in some form of special ed and about 2/5 of those students were considered "severely disabled"...the charter school? They did have about 17% of special ed students, but none were considered severely disabled.
The public school had 13% of their students which English was their second language, only 2% of the charter school were ESL students.
The public school had 20% more of their students that were eligible for free lunches(68% of the students qualified for free lunch, 49% in the charter) and a 10% homeless rate for the public school kids, the charter only had about 1% of homeless students. Now, are these two populations the same??? And since the public school(which teaches to all, not just the easy ones) did improve on the tests after the charter school raided their best and brightest away, shouldn't those public school teachers get an award for doing as good, if not better than in the past? OF COURSE NOT! Their job is to teach and we know there are bad teachers because the UNION protects the bad ones...
So, the teachers at charters allegedly get paid better, better benefits so that means the best come there, right? Again, not necessarily. Charter schools have a much higher turnover of staff than public schools which does hurt the continuity of service...having to train the teachers over and over. Why the higher turnover? Because charter school teachers have more responsibilities and longer hours. Also, without collective bargaining and union membership, teachers aren't treated fairly across the board...its a brown noser's paradise. Most professional teachers prefer the traditional public school, not because they're lazy, but because they are treated on a fair basis.
Another issue of charter and public schools is segregation. Historically, private schools(most being religion-based) have been notoriously segregated. Charter schools also have the same inclination, in fact there are white supremacist sites that extol this as the best reason to send your kids to charter schools, not better schools. Oh, and the scandals that surface with charter schools? Shoved under the rug of ignorance.
And all in all, after all of the high marks of the media, corporations, "civic" leaders, charter schools, in general, do not do better than public schools on the same level as Stanford University has studied, time and time again. It seems all charter schools really do is break the union(although some charter schools are now organizing), segregate school children and take more money out of public funds into private bank accounts.
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