The argument I hear for charter schools is that they don't have to follow all the policies and practices of regular public schools. Like what? If these are constricting policies and practices, why are any public schools required to follow them?
Furthermore, if public money supports these schools, what protects me - the childless taxpayer - from having to support curricula that I may see as racist, homophobic, anti-feminist, WASP jingoism?
Some interesting questions have been raised about charter schools, but also some misleading questions/points.
I'm not an expert, but I'm going to try and clarify a few things anyway - at least from my point of view.
1) Charter schools are public schools & accountable to the public. I don't see why Gail should have to worry any more about a charter school supporting racist, homophobic, or anti-feminist curricula than she would a regular public school. But, I could be wrong. I don't think that Charter schools have that kind of freedom (or flexibility)>
2) The practices and policies that charter schools don't have to adhere to are primarily bureaucratic policies of large districts and the constraints of union contracts. A charter school puts a great deal more control in the hands of parents and school staff. In fact, our "regular" public schools are trying to do the same thing to some extent, with Site Councils and such - but, its much harder to reform or change a large school district than it is to change an individual school.
At 7:06 PM -0600 1/24/05, Gail wrote:
I'm sure there are many fine charters from which the districts could learn - so why aren't they required to? The idea that public education has to be fragmented in order to be fair and responsive is disturbing.
I don't know of any case in which any group has been successfully REQUIRED to learn something. They can be REQUIRED to attend a class or read a book, but they only learn, when they see it is in their interest. Charter schools compete with traditional public schools and give traditional schools a reason to learn new things. Its clear to me, that the district is learning things from charter schools, because they fear loosing more students.
I'm not sure why folks are so threatened by the notion that some competition of ideas and methods MIGHT be good for education. I can't think of any other public or private institution which hasn't benefited from at least a degree of healthy competition. I find Charter Schools to be healthy competition, unlike private religious schools, which operate under entirely different rules and with different goals.
Final point:
The whole "dark side" of the traditional public school movement is that certain groups of students are "left behind" and sometimes even worse by a huge system that struggles to be all things to all people. We cannot forget about the KIDS that our current system fails to serve - and they are out there...
Charter schools might be one option for some of these kids....
Best wishes,
Tim Erickson Hamline Midway [EMAIL PROTECTED] parent of 2 SPPS students
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Tim Erickson http://www.politalk.com St. Paul, MN - USA 651-643-0722
[EMAIL PROTECTED] iChat/AIM: stpaultim
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