‘School Choice’ Mantra Masks the Harm of Siphoning Funds from Public Education
Ask an education “reform” proponent about any issue facing public education and the answer is always the same: “school choice.” Whether they’re championing charter schools, vouchers or Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), advocates prefer to frame the debate around the right of parents to send their child to a better-performing school. This is merely a smokescreen to divert attention away from what school choice is really about: the transfer of public money to the private sector without accountability or transparency.
Many school choice campaigns are bankrolled by a faction of incredibly wealthy conservative donors and political groups, including the Koch Brothers and the American Legislative Exchange Council (better known as ALEC). Their agenda is clear: dismantle public education.
But it’s a safe bet you won’t hear their names during National School Choice Week (Jan 25-30). What you will hear is a lot of people parroting messages about “freedom,” “innovation,” “options,” even “civil rights” – buzzwords that underpin the campaigns to expand charter schools, vouchers and ESAs across the country. But the jargon masks the devastating impact these policies have had on public education, particularly on those students who are supposed to benefit the most.
Unaccountable Charter Schools: The Truth Hurts
Many people support the idea behind charter schools, but how many are aware of the mounting troubles the charter industry has experienced lately? Probably not enough. Its proponents work very, very hard to maintain a facade of success and transparency in the face of evidence that many of these schools operate without any oversight, while wasting taxpayer money and fostering inequity and racial segregation.
Take the North Carolina State Board of Education, which just this month rejected the Department of Public Instruction’s annual report on charter schools as “too negative.” Dominated by school privatization stalwarts, the board is determined to prevent any meaningful oversight of the state’s charters and demanded revisions to the report before it could be submitted to the legislature.
Scrutiny over mismanagement in the charter sector is intensifying, The Center for Popular Democracy estimated that charter school waste and fraud squandered $1.5 billion in taxpayer money in 2015.
North Carolina educator Stuart Egan took the board to task in an open letter to Lt. Governor and board member Dan Forrest: “Overall, charter schools seem to lack diversity and operate under a different set of rules according to the report you are trying to squelch. The fact is that many of the charter schools you have enabled are perpetuating segregation 'School Choice' Mantra Masks the Harm of Siphoning Funds from Public Education - NEA Today:
