Students need properly resourced schools, not gimmicks like charters
From reading the Southern California News Group publications, one might think that California teachers unions’ charter school policy initiatives were a search and destroy mission motivated by malice, self-interest, and envy. In reality, union policies –including recent, high-profile legislative battles in Sacramento–are a reasoned and long overdue response to charter school abuses and charter schools’ abuse of public education.
Charter backers oppose union efforts to control charter expansion and the havoc it wreaks on traditional schools, asserting that charter schools outperform public schools. What the studies and data they point to actually show is this: if the higher-performing students in a set of schools get the opportunity to leave and go to a school with similarly higher-performing students, the students at that school might outperform the students who did not choose to go to that school. That’s hardly news.
University of Colorado education professor Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center, explains, “the greatest determinants of [a school’s] success are the raw materials – the students who enroll.” Welner identified a dozen methods charters use to get the “raw material” they want–and avoid or discard what they don’t.
One method Welner identified is that charters push parents of struggling students to remove their children from school. Repeated meetings between parents, administrators, and teachers are often enough for mom and dad to get the hint. If not, explaining that if the student stays he will be retained in grade, or will have to go elsewhere to graduate on time, is even more effective. Welner notes that grade retention is used “extensively” at KIPP charter network. KIPP operates 15 charter schools in Los Angeles and over 200 nationwide.
Related to this are the harsh discipline policies many charters employ. One recent study found LAUSD charters suspend students at twice the rate of non-charters. According to Capital & Main, this includes suspending black students at almost three times and students with disabilities at nearly four times the rate of traditional schools. Suspensions often push parents towards withdrawing their children.
It’s easier, however, to never enroll such students in the first place. According to journalist Stephanie Simon, a Reuters study found “charters aggressively screen student applicants, assessing their academic records, parental support, disciplinary history, motivation, special needs and even their citizenship.” Some of the barriers Reuters found include: CONTINUE READING: Students need properly resourced schools, not gimmicks like charters – Daily News
