Discussion for article #223714
Brilliant. This clear-eyed analysis needs to be condensed into “talking points” and used repeatedly.
Ta-Nehisi Coates’ piece on reparations would complement this analysis - providing a backdrop to why there is such a lopsided percentage of children in poverty who are black and brown - why we have literally abandoned whole generations of children because they are black and brown.
1 Like
You know, it might have a bit more credibility if Canada wasn’t paying himself more than the President of the United States to run a charter school program for 1500 students. (http://dianeravitch.net/2012/07/28/charter-school-leader-paid-553000-yearly/)
The last thing that either the schools or the social safety net need are privatized systems with hyper compensated executives.
It’s why we get things like Geoffery Canada “firing” what would have been his first graduating class of seniors because they would not allow him to hit his numbers. (http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2013/05/12/canadas-legend-ary-ted-talk-lie/)
I have no doubt that there are good charter schools, and charter school directors, out there, but all of the high profile charter school managers (Rhee, Canada, Vallas, etc.) turn out to be a combination of fraud and self-aggrandizement.
Tiny Finland is a poor comparison. We have fifty states of different ages, forms, and political cultures, many larger than most other countries of the world, and about 14,000 local school districts. Each state has more or less consistent rules, guidelines, and support systems for the districts within its jurisdiction, but these vary widely across states.
All disputes and conflicts are resolved politically, whether in courts or the legislature.
Good ideas, logical policies, and pursuit of the general public interest are irrelevant.
We are so large and diverse that the more than 80,000 local governments in the country have only one thing in common, the shortage of public funds with which to pursue public services.
When thinking about questions such as the one you raise here, first pause and ask yourself to whom you refer when you use the pronoun “we.” The libertarian “I” wins out.
Let me guess. You’re a do-gooder who worked for a year in Teach for America and then bailed.
Nope.
Did some undergrad TAing in E-school, but that is it.
I am not a teacher, though I am married to a real (MSEd, primarily special ed, who now fights school districts to get services for kids with special Ed).
What I do know is that the charter movement is built on getting underperforming children to leave (witness Canada firing what would have been his first graduating class, and his claims of 100% graduation, which are predicated on getting underperformers out before Senior year, and his taking over $3000 per student in his charter network as just his salary).
Charters, and TFA are about creating a space for the private financialization of our public education system, and while I have seen one good charter (My wife worked there before we moved, and it specialized in Special Ed kids, as opposed to systematically trying to get them to leave), when you look at the folks making the noise, you find out that it all resembles how crap mortgages were repackaged before the crash.
What’s more, you find evidence of looting, even on the non profit side (Mr. Canada’s excessive income, Moscowitz using political pull to kick an autism program out of the public schools, Rocketship’s 50:1 student teacher ratio and its board members financial ties to the for profit company that supplies the schools’ software, Edison’s long history of embedding hidden bombs in their contracts, etc.)
I have no problem with a public and open process that allows for educational experimentation, though I think that poverty and segregation are the elephants in the room, but in privatizing and making the process proprietary and secret, we are creating a Dickensian system,