Former OKC teacher: Low-income children of color hurt most by choice-driven reforms
John Thompson
I've never opposed locally controlled charter schools, but the soundbites repeated during the annual “Charter School Week” are hard to take. For instance, Texas charter advocates still claim that there are 100,000 students on their waiting lists. In fact, 30 percent of Texas charter capacity is underused. Their charters have 108,000 empty seats!
While I respect Oklahoma City's KIPP, the hard fact is that the market for “no excuses” charters maxed out years ago. Some students feel comfortable with their behaviorist pedagogy that works in a few high-poverty charters. But if Oklahoma City followed the lead of Memphis, Tenn., and New Orleans in expanding “no excuses” charters, we would recreate the tragedy of the 1980s economic bust when crowds of erstwhile students wandered our streets throughout the school day. Memphis is No. 1 and New Orleans is No. 3 in the percentage of kids out of school without jobs.
I'm particularly annoyed by advocates who pretend that KIPP serves the “same kids” as high-poverty neighborhood schools. Some even claim that KIPP serves the same children as those who attended Moon Middle School.
Nobody denies that Moon was very troubled. It was mentioned in the “Harper's Index” after suspending 80 percent of its sixth-graders students due to a lunchroom food fight. Back then, when mentoring Moon students, I repeatedly heard that it was “the alternative school to the Former OKC teacher: Low-income children of color hurt most by choice-driven reforms | News OK - Linkis.com: