Monday, June 25, 2012

Seattle Schools Community Forum: So Why Don't They?

Seattle Schools Community Forum: So Why Don't They?:


So Why Don't They?

The people who say that we need charter schools have no trouble pointing out the obvious fact that the bulk of our public schools don't work for the students, particularly minority students, students from low-income homes, students with IEPs, and English Language Learners.

The people who say that we don't need charters respond with two powerful arguments:

1) We don't need charters to develop and implement strategies that are effective with these populations. We can point to a number of public schools that show strong results.

2) There is no reason to believe that a charter school will do any better than the public schools with these challenging populations. The simple fact that the school is a charter does not mean that it will do anything different or better than what a public school does.

I have made both of these arguments myself. Usually I make them to charter school supporters who aren't really