Is it accurate to say that charter schools are the "boogeymen" of progressive Democrats, as Corey Booker and some reporters claim?
In a NY Times oped this week, Senator Corey Booker argued that the expansion of charter schools had a positive role in improving Newark’s school system and by extension, nationwide. In the process, he described charters as "boogeymen" for other Democratic politicians:
“The treatment by many Democratic politicians of high-performing public charter schools as boogeymen has undermined the fact that many of these schools are serving low-income urban children across the country in ways that are inclusive, equitable, publicly accountable and locally driven."
One could easily challenge his claim that in Newark, the expansion of charters was “locally driven” since Newark’s locally elected school board was disempowered and their schools were being run by Gov. Chris Christie at that time.
But in any case, the main point of this op ed appeared to be to allow Booker to strongly reconfirm his commitment to privatization after some ambivalent statements this summer, presumably in an attempt to strengthen his lagging campaign. In the process, Booker was implicitly criticizing rival Presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, who have both come out publicly against the continued funding of charters by the federal government:
Yet what struck me the most was his use of the word “boogeymen” in connection with charter schools, which rang a bell.
Indeed. this was the second time this same analogy has been used in the New York Times in the context of the presidential campaign.
Earlier this spring, on May 23, reporters Dana Goldstein and Sydney Ember used the term “boogeyman” in describing the teacher unions’ position on charters, in an article on Sanders’ education agenda:
Many Democrats and progressives send their children to charter schools, work within the sector or donate money to the movement. Teachers’ unions, an important constituency to Democrats, have long considered them a boogeyman, arguing that charter schools draw students and funding away from traditional public schools.
There is no evidence presented for the claim that many “progressives” work within the charter sector or donate money to the charter movement.
Just six days later, on May 29, Michelle Hackman, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal used the term again, describing how charter schools had become “a boogeyman of CONTINUE READING: NYC Public School Parents: Is it accurate to say that charter schools are the "boogeymen" of progressive Democrats, as Corey Booker and some reporters claim?
