Overwhelming Majority of Voters Want To Rein In Charter Schools
A new nationwide poll shows the American people overwhelmingly agree that public education should not exist to enrich and profit the charter school privatization movement and they are demanding strong regulatory laws to “rein in documented fiscal malfeasance by private charter schools.”
As Founding Father Thomas Jefferson said on various occasions, “a well-educated” populace is crucial to a strong and lasting democracy. As important as the government educating the populace was to Jefferson, he would have railed against the Republican poloy of using government-funded public education to enrich corporations.
Now, a new nationwide poll shows the American people overwhelmingly agree that public education should not exist to enrich and profit the charter school privatization movement and they are demanding strong regulatory laws to “rein in documented fiscal malfeasance by private charter schools.”
The poll, conducted by GBA Strategies, revealed that overwhelmingly Americans on both sides of the political spectrum “embrace proposals to reform the way charter schools are authorized and managed.” The poll was commissioned by two advocates for democracy, In the Public Interest and the Center for Popular Democracy, who have spent several years researching and documenting the “massive fiscal malfeasance” being perpetrated by private charter school operators across the nation.
According to the report on the poll’s results,
“The public overwhelmingly supports strong initiatives to strengthen charter school accountability and transparency, improve teacher training and qualifications, prevent fraud, serve high-need students and ensure that neighborhood public schools are not adversely affected.”
The report also noted that there were surprisingly huge bipartisan majorities, including the majority of charter school supporters, demanding stronger government oversight, a shift in academic priorities, and robust efforts to make charter schools as accountable as public schools; “especially in today’s increasingly privatized ‘charter school industry’ run by corporate education franchises.”
The poll reaffirmed, according to education experts, that the public wants more experimentation in traditional public schools to accommodate “all students.” That was, after all, the initial concept of having charter schools and something the dominant corporate charter industry opposes vehemently. It is why “overwhelming majorities want greater regulation of the charter movement destroying traditional public schools by siphoning away precious taxpayer funds to profit corporations.”
It has taken over a decade, but the public is finally sick of “the charter industry’s lack of accountability, systemic underperformance, harsh admission policies, and poorly or untrained teachers; all characteristics of the charter school privatization movement.” Voters particularly like the concept of “schools that integrate a dynamic curriculum with after-school and summer enrichment programs. Other ideas for innovating public school options, such as specialty curricula, also generate significant support.”
The term “specialty curricula” means a return to providing occupational courses in various industries that public schools once offered as a matter of course. It is true that America needs a robust college-educated population, but there is also a great need for occupational training in fields students can put to use without spending thousands of dollars for specialty private school courses offered by corporate-run scam outfits. It may come as a shock, but not every student aspires to be a corporate MBA, Wall Street financial advisor, doctor, lawyer, or astrophysicist.
It was encouraging, from an educator’s perspective, that the poll also revealed “that over two-thirds of voters give traditional public schools and public school teachers very high ratings, with twice as many voters saying schools in their neighborhoods are getting better, not worse.” Despite what Republicans, and some absurd Democrats, habitually claim about the public’s hatred of public school teachers, “three-quarters of voters viewed public school teachers favorably; only 9 percent had unfavorable views.” The nine percent are certainly ardent Fox News viewers and the GOP’s religiously-driven “school choice” adherents.
It is remarkable that on the issue of “school choice,” the issue that ALEC, the Kochs, corporations and Republicans promote like a religion “ranks dead last on the American public’s list of education concerns.” Remember, the ‘school choice’ narrative is the primary tenet of, and reason, the GOP Overwhelming Majority of Voters Want To Rein In Charter Schools:
