Thursday, July 11, 2013

Other People’s Children | EduShyster

Other People’s Children | EduShyster:

Other People’s Children

Why are white people so eager to advocate for the sort of schools to which they would never send their own children?
Reader: more and more white people agree that strict, “no excuses” style charter schools provide an ideal learning environment for poor minority kids. As proof of this surging enthusiasm I give you exhibit A: a glowing report about Harlem’s Democracy Prep charter school featured in the current issue of theNew Yorker, one of America’s whitest magazines. (Full disclosure: I am white and also a New Yorker subscriber). Which brings us to today’s fiercely urgent question: why are white people so eager to advocate for the sort of schools to which they would never send their own children?
Through the Gauntlet
The New Yorker piece, by writer Ian Frazier, is subtitled ‘Up Life’s Ladder’—but ’gauntlet’ might be a more accurate metaphor. Frazier is dazzled by the spectacle of the 44