Five Ways Charter Schools Are Bad for Children and Other Living Things
Charter schools are the darling of the education reform movement. Appealing to the All-American ideal of “choice”, charter schools are sold to struggling communities as a way to improve student learning through competition. Well-funded public relations campaigns, underwritten by the Walton Foundation and other reform minded philanthropic organizations, work overtime to sell Americans on “choice.” Now rock stars, athletes and movie stars are getting in to the act, investing in and opening charters across the country.
The education reformers have stolen the narrative from those who truly care about public education. At any cocktail party or at the sidelines of a soccer game you are likely to hear people discussing “failing schools” and “bad teachers” and how choice, especially in the form of charter schools is the way to insure a child gets a good education.
But this is a false narrative. Research study after research study has shown that charter schools are no panacea, indeed they are simultaneously providing an inferior education, while draining public schools of needed resources. Even a cursory glance at what is happening in Philadelphia, Chicago and New Orleans will reveal the false promise of charter schools.
The next time the topic comes up at a cocktail party you are attending, here are six things you can say in rebuttal to the charter cheerleaders.
1. Failure to Improve Learning – Two consecutive reports from the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO), 2009 and 2013, have shown that public schools outperform charter schools. In 2009, 83% of charters were the same or worse than public schools. In 2013 the figure was 71-75%, with the slight improvement being due to really bad charters being closed. It is true that some charter schools have been very successful and the Russ on Reading: Five Ways Charter Schools Are Bad for Children and Other Living Things: