empathyeducates – News Flash: Failed Education Policies Will ALWAYS Fail Our Children

empathyeducates – News Flash: Failed Education Policies Will ALWAYS Fail Our Children:

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News Flash: Failed Education Policies Will ALWAYS Fail Our Children

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By Paul L. Thomas, Ed.D. | Originally Published at Alternet. and The Becoming Radical. May 31, 2014

What do third-grade retention policies based on reading tests, charter schools, tracking, and parental choicehave in common?

First, across the U.S., they all have a great deal of public and political support.

Second, the research base on all of these policies (among many other popular policies) has shown repeatedly that they do more to fail students than to achieve any of the lofty goals advocates claim.

My home state of South Carolina is a typical example of how education policy not grounded in the evidencecontinues to fail students again and again. For example, charter schools advocacy remains robust and deeply misleading, as the following statement from Mary Carmichael, executive director of Public Charter School Alliance of South Carolina, makes clear:

We know that choice in education changes lives. We must work together to develop a culture in South Carolina that values education — from our families to funding at the State House. All students deserve access to a high-quality education regardless of their ZIP code, and excellent public charter schools are part of the solution in transforming South Carolina’s future.

This sort of incomplete and distorted advocacy is commonplace in South Carolina, regretfully, even as charter schools here continue to reinforce patterns found across the U.S. that are contradictory to the advocacy:

• Charter schools contribute significantly to the re-segregation of schools, and thus to the exact inequity that plagues schools in high-poverty states such as South Carolina.
• Students in charter schools have measurable outcomes that are about the same or worse than comparable public schools. I have documented this in South Carolina, but national studies of charter schools have shown that nothing about “charterness” offers advantage to students.
• Charter schools are the newest version of the school choice movement that depends on emotional appeals to sloganism, the idea that “parents deserve more choices,” and anecdote. Ultimately, however, empathyeducates – News Flash: Failed Education Policies Will ALWAYS Fail Our Children: