A Charter School Teacher Takes on the Boston Globe
By Nancy L. BloomBoston Globe columnist Scot Lehigh is right about one thing. His ideas about education really do make me uncomfortable—and it’s not just because I’m a staunch supporter of teacher unions. His recent assertion that Massachusetts should lift the cap on charter schools in order to save the children who live in poor, urban (that means black) neighborhoods by providing longer school days and years is simply faulty.
Here’s a question for Mr. Lehigh: have you ever spent an afternoon at an urban charter school? I have. In fact, I was a teacher at one of New England’s biggest for the past five years. Here’s what I would like Mr. Lehigh to know. Those extra 45 minutes are incredibly stressful for students, staff and teachers. Our school day routinely ends in a battle for all-out survival—Team Silence vs. Team Chaos—with only small bits of learning thrown in.
Admittedly, Team Silence won out in some of the classrooms at my old school—but chaos was always pushing