This is in response to recent editorial, “Dumb idea.” This editorial takes into consideration current events, not the history of the movement, the funding, the real motivations for the movement and how they have changed.
Bashing public schools reveals a chilling indifference by the basher. Public schools must accept all students: rich or poor, children without enough to eat, the behavior disordered, children whose parents snorted cocaine while they were in vitro, developmentally disabled, physically handicapped, children with reading disabilities, and now, autism. As societal changes brought on awareness of new or formerly unrecognized learning problems such as these, public schools sought new programs from gifted to alternative schools with a good amount of success and the help of federal funding. Meanwhile, the charter school movement continued to grow. By the ’90s, “choice” was the by-word.
The drain on public schools is not addressed in the editorial, only the popularity of the charter school movement, an increase “13% nationally since the pandemic.”
What happened? Public schools have been like Oliver Twist holding out his empty bowl for literally years. In the state where I went to school in the 1950s, our state ranked 40th in the nation based on standards then. Teacher pay was a modest income. Those teachers were some of the best in the nation with their schooling in some of the best universities. I can write this because of them. Public schools in most districts — except the more affluent who enjoy a healthy tax base where some of that money goes to schools — have become the orphans when it comes to state and federal funding. Public schools were not fully funded when I went to school and for the most part, still are not.
Teachers with degrees in education, and some with post- graduate degrees, began in the ’80s to look for better-paying jobs and new careers. The most recent drain due to COVID-19 found the burden to teach with little or no support from those in charge to repurpose schools and make them safe, the final proverbial straw. They were dumped with the total responsibility for learning under the most adverse conditions in school, at home, online, etc. Educators have again fled careers, which have been criticized, minimized and even humiliated. The exodus of school staffs left a groan of need for well-accredited teachers.
The editorial states that “quality of education” is one reason parents look for alternative schools. And it is the “ideological debates” that public schools are “mired in … over what to teach with regard to race, history” and how “some officials” restrict certain books in libraries, or in plainer language, censorship. Are there no such problems in charter schools? Or do they and parents turn a blind eye to all of that? Are these issues debated in charter schools? How about supporting student debates on these issues that are as important to our daily life as food and water? Isn’t that what education is about? Really? Ah, but I read official policy in Texas, “critical thinking will not be taught.” It would appear that anything to do with thinking is forbidden.
The slightest hint of oversight — of which there is none — from the federal government, pale as it is, (show an “unmet need”) will “worsen our nation’s educational system.”
It is not hard to ferret out a real but perhaps shadowy motivation for the success of charter schools. It is political. It is conservative policy that is to always support business, big business first, not schools and lending libraries. The privatization of public entities. That was the goal for the appointment of the present head of the U.S. Postal Service. Not so shadowy when certain officials talk openly about privatization sometimes without using that word.
In 2000, then-President Bush gave $219 million in grants to support 1,200 charter schools, another $50 million for Choice Incentive, a voucher system, and another $37 million to purchase or lease new charter facilities. President Obama supported charters with his “Race to the Top,” which offered financial support and not much else but competition. In the meantime, public schools struggled to make ends meet.
Why does all of this matter? These are our children, our grandchildren. They face a world full of challenges. What does the word “education” mean to you? We could have a meeting of the minds with parents, students and teachers to talk about these ideas. There is something called “best practices” in professional journals and books that educators have explored, discovered, tested, and find which ones work best. How often have teachers and parents been exposed to these? Learning does not just happen. It is a science that keeps in mind that these are human beings. They do not all learn in the same way. Open some books. Open your hearts. Please. RIP, Ben.
Shirley Rickett lives in Alamo.
