Are Charter Schools Losing their Cachet? Is the Narrative Shifting?
There is a swell of reaction against “corporate school reform.” It can’t be called a tsunami, but the wave is significant enough that people are paying attention. Thanks to a year of strikes by public schoolteachers, for example, people seem suddenly more aware that the expansion of charter schools has left urban school districts with all sorts of collateral damage.
Earlier this week, the Washington Post‘s Valerie Strauss noted: “This country is nearly 30 years into an experiment with charter schools, which are publicly financed but privately operated, sometimes by for-profit companies. Supporters first described charters as competitive vehicles to push traditional public schools to reform. Over time, that narrative changed and charters were wrapped into the zeitgeist of ‘choice’ for families whose children wanted alternatives to troubled district schools.”
Strauss continues: “Today, about 6 percent of America’s schoolchildren attend charter schools, with 44 states plus the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico having passed laws permitting them. Some states have only a few charters while some cities are saturated. In Los Angeles, 20 percent of children attend charters. In New York, it’s 10 percent. Charter backers say the movement is an important and sustainable feature of America’s educational landscape and any problems it faces are expected growing pains. Yet the movement, which has enjoyed Republican and Democratic support—including hundreds of millions of dollars from the Obama administration—seems to be at an inflection point as supporters and detractors recognize that charters are not the panacea backers had long suggested… What looks like a backlash against charters has been several years in the making.”
Recently, as part of the agreement to end the strike by 30,000 Los Angeles teachers, not only did the district agree to smaller classes and more support staff, but it also agreed to another demand: that the district’s school board pass a resolution pressing the state legislature for an CONTINUE READING: Are Charter Schools Losing their Cachet? Is the Narrative Shifting? | janresseger
