When Schools Eat Schools – EduShyster

When Schools Eat Schools – EduShyster: "When Schools Eat Schools"

When Schools Eat Schools

In Denver, running schools like businesses produces a predictable side effect: market cannibalization…

Editor’s note: the following piece was written by a teacher who recently left her position in the Denver Public Schools.

Lately, Denver has been in thenews a fair amount for its *successful school reform.* But when I think about the impact that Denver’s reform had on my students, I can say for certain that it hurt them more than it helped.

The students at my school were among some of the neediest in the state in terms of free and reduced lunch funding, and some of the most affected by trauma. In other words, they were students who needed the most support. The budget cuts began in my third year there, and only got worse as students left to attend other *choice* schools that were opening nearby. For students, that meant the loss of our only school-staffed, non-academic elective other than art: drama. For teachers, that meant rationing paper, although we considered ourselves fortunate relative to schools that were rationing toilet paper and paper towels.

Vision quest
Even as we dealt with the impact of budget cuts, we were being pushed to *sell* our school. I arrived at one weekly staff meeting having spent hours thinking about what When Schools Eat Schools – EduShyster: "When Schools Eat Schools"