Former principal steps up to the plate
My PSAT homage to principals this week was not misplaced. Retired Simeon Principal Ned McCray sent me a couple of excellent essays which, with his permission, I’m proud to share here. The one today concerns the unfair resource gap between charter schools and the rest of the system.I recognized Mr. McCray’s name from his letters to the editor – this one was actually published this past May in the Tribune.
Wouldn’t it be great if other retired principals joined him in speaking out?
CHARTER SCHOOLS-- THE UNTOLD STORY
by Ned L. McCray, retired principal, Simeon High School, Chicago
The proliferation of charter schools and other selective enrollment schools in urban areas of the country has created a dilemma for society. On the one hand, they provide for the aspirations of the middle class and those who aspire to the middle class, for exclusiveness, selectivity and privilege, and on the other hand create a brain-drain on the schools that remain.
Public school systems throughout the country are being eroded and decimated by this development. The very system that produced past generations of Americans who made this great country prosperous, is being deprived of scarce
Charter best practices – this is new?
In yesterday’s coverage of the next Gates-funded must-have program, here’s the example that was given of a “best practice” of a charter school that should be shared with neighborhood schools:“CPS officials… are taking a look at the Noble Street Charter School‘s leadership development program that identifies, recruits and trains homegrown talent for principal posts within the network.”Wow. What a ground-breaking idea.
Except that when LSCs do that – when, for example, they select their current assistant principal to step up to the principalship – they have been criticized.
For example, a 2008 report funded by (oh, yes) the Gates Foundation says this about LSC hiring from within: