CURMUDGUCATION: Common Schools vs. Diversity

CURMUDGUCATION: Common Schools vs. Diversity:

Common Schools vs. Diversity

Over at redefinED, a reliable source of reformy pro-school choice arguments, Patrick Gibbons (also a reliable source of pro-school choice arguments) has posted a pretty thoughtful response to the can of worms opened by the Washington state smackdown of charter schools.

In "Common schools and the feat of diversity," Gibbons takes a look back at the actual history of common schools in the US, in particular focusing on how many ways those schools have failed to live up to the promise of public education in this country.

Yet Mann’s common school concept remains a source of conflict today. The ethical and moral lessons of students in a one-size-fits all environment have created a battleground in the American culture wars, from book banning, to the fight against communism in the 1950s, to the fights over textbooksand the Common Core standards.

In this, and in shared criticism that common schools have to often (and still in some places today) reflect the racism and classism of their communities, Gibbons has a point.  

But in his suggestion that charters are the solution, he is indulging in a  fantasy far more reality-deficient that any "romantic vision of free, universal public education."

Gibbons repeatedly slides in the notion that public schools are one-size-fits-all. That's hugely CURMUDGUCATION: Common Schools vs. Diversity: