Charters Are Not Common Schools
Charter boosters continue trying to muster some sort of argument against the decision in Washington State that the charter laws there violate the state constitution. So far, none of the attempts really sing.
Over at Campbell Brown's PR site, the 74, Andrew Rotherham (Bellwether) and Richard Whitmire (general reformsterism) make the argument that charter opponents are "on the wrong side of history" and that charter schools are the true common schools. You will not be surprised to read that I disagree.
In truth, the ideal of the common school is one the country has never lived up to. While we romanticize the common school, people too frequently forget that those schools were at different times not open to blacks, religious minorities, or, until the 1970s, students with special needs and disabilities.
Despite serving those groups today, the continuing trend of segregated housing and the staggeringly uneven performance of different public schools prompts this question: What exactly is all thatcommon about the common school anyway?
First, it's important to recognize the True Parts of what they are saying-- ever since this country latched onto the idea of a common school and public education, we have struggled with living up to that ideal. This is not surprising-- as public institutions under public control, schools have reflected and expressed every twist and turn, every shameful lapse and every difficult step forward in the public life of this country. Public schools have not always delivered on their promise, and in some places, are still not delivering on it today.
So when I oppose modern charters, I don't do so with the insistence that public schools have no CURMUDGUCATION: Charters Are Not Common Schools:
