OP-ED: IN ALL-CHARTER SCHOOL DISTRICTS, IDEOLOGY TRUMPS THE FACTS
Mounting evidence indicates that charter schools can’t live up to their hype
- Paul Tractenberg
One of the latest and most ardently pursued urban education reform is the all-charter school district. New Orleans, Detroit, and the District of Columbia are far down that road, and Newark and Camden are racing to get there thanks to direct state operation of those districts. The big looming problem, however, is that the engine driving this reform is powered by ideology not evidence.
In a sense, this is a natural extension of the failed magic bullets of publicly funded private school vouchers, public school management by private for-profit entrepreneurs, and other free-market educational fixes. It’s also an outgrowth of the media and political full-court press to which we’ve been exposed over the past four years touting charter schools as the salvation of poor minority children in our cities. In rapid-fire succession, four full-length and widely distributed documentaries proclaimed the wonders of charter schools and the abject failure of traditional public schools -- Waiting for Superman and The Lottery in 2010, The Cartel in 2011, and Won’t Back Down in 2012 (about the so-called parent trigger law).
A short pro-charter-school documentary, also issued in 2010, may be the most revealing of the films, however. It was produced by the Mississippi Center for Public Policy. Despite its neutral name, the Mississippi Center’s website proudly advertises its mission: “To advance the ideals of limited government, free markets, and strong traditional families by influencing public policy, informing the media, and equipping the public with information and perspective to help them understand and defend their liberty.” Its vision is “For Mississippi to be a place where entrepreneurs are free to pursue their dreams, parents are free to direct the education and upbringing of their children . . . and all Mississippians are free from dependence on government for their daily needs.”
Lest there be any doubt about what the Mississippi Center means by its commitment to “strong traditional families,” its website elaborates: “Marriage is to be a lifelong relationship between one man and one woman. Government has the high honor and responsibility to protect it, to fortify it and advance it for the ‘general welfare’ of the citizenry, but the church should be at the forefront of teaching and promoting biblical principles for marriage.”
What drives other pro-charter school efforts, and especially those pressing for all-charter districts, may be different, but it almost certainly involves more ideology (or, as the Mississippi Center labels it, “perspective”) than evidence. The blunt truth is that there is absolutely no evidence that implementing a charter school regime on a large scale, whether that be district-wide or nation-wide, will improve education, especially for the most disadvantaged students. Indeed, there is growing evidence to the contrary.
Chile and Sweden both adopted school choice in the form of charter or independent Op-Ed: In All-Charter School Districts, Ideology Trumps the Facts - NJ Spotlight: