Are Charter Schools Helping?
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This past year I served on the Birdville ISD Council of PTAs executive board. Before that, I served on two different schools’ PTA executive boards for a total of seven years before taking the position on the Council PTA board. I had not thought much about charter schools, except for the fact that I have a good friend who sends her youngest daughter to a charter school over in the Alliance area and two other friends who send their children to the new charter school that opened up in North Richland Hills, and they are happy with it. With the knowledge I have gained in a year and a half of PTA board meetings with the superintendent, several teachers, and principals, I have come to the conclusion that although there is some good that comes from some charter schools, the harm they are causing far outweighs it.
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When I first read the article “Charter Schools Financially Starve Neighborhood Schools” by Timothy Meegan, I had heard of problems with public versus charter schools in New York City, but had not realized that the public schools are being starved for funds in a way to justify privatization of schools. In New York City and probably many other cities there are public schools being closed to allow the opening of more charter schools (Meegan). Meegan shows how there are huge budget cuts in public schools, but both charter and contract school’s budgets are up. How is this fair to the public-school students and teachers?
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I learned that the original intent of charter schools was to increase teacher independence and to find innovative ways to teach. In the article “Charter Schools Are No Better than Public Schools,” William G. Wraga informs us how there truly is not much difference between a day of classroom learning at a charter school versus a public school. If the classroom learning is the same, then why do we need more charter schools? Wraga also writes in the beginning there was no data to show that charter schools would improve education, but now that they have been around a while the proof is not there to support that charter schools are working.
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I know that there are people who think that charter schools will end the causes of low performing public schools, like Diane Ravitch writes in her article “Charter Schools Are a Bad Idea.” Ravitch explains how charter schools will not fix the main cause of low school performance, which is poverty. In the last several years, the charter school industry has become aggressive and entrepreneurial; they want the highest test scores possible (Ravitch). So, if the charter schools only want the highest test scores, are they reaching out to the difficult students in those districts? I do not believe so; sure, the charter schools may be getting some of the difficult students but not all the difficult ones.
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In “Charter Schools Do Not Benefit Needy Urban Students” by Sharon Higgins and Caroline Grannan, I learned that although charter schools claim to help the students in low income and urban areas, they are not really helping the students with the greatest challenges. In this article Higgins and Grannan also write that charter schools get great press about their success, but studies show otherwise because their results are limited. Just like public schools, some charter schools do very well, some are struggling, and the rest fall somewhere in the middle. If charter schools are no different than public schools, with some being good, some bad, and the rest in the middle, then why are they here? Why do parents and communities not get on the same side and make each public school better?
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“The Success of Charter Schools Is Exaggerated” by Brian Jones helps me understand how I feel about charter schools. Jones is a teacher and writes about what he witnessed at a charter school gala in Harlem. He writes about the war on teacher unions and the goal to destroy them. In this article Jones tells about his co-worker who has a grandchild at a charter school in Harlem. He writes that the co-worker and others just like her are happy with the charter schools. Jones informs us that we need to do a better job talking to the charter school advocates about the problems they are causing. In reading this article I agree that we need to be better at telling our family and friends that the new charter schools they like, are hurting our public schools and communities.
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In the beginning, I spoke about friends of mine who have sent their children to the new charter schools that have popped up in Alliance and North Richland Hills. I know for a fact that each of these parents, who took their child out of public school, did it because they were unhappy with the public school they were in or unhappy with the district. In the past, I agreed with their reasoning, but after reading all the articles on both pros and cons of charter schools, I do not think charter schools are helping public schools in the end. If anything, they are making them worse.
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The elementary PTA executive board, I was on was thriving before I left for middle school PTA. When the new charter school opened a mile away, not only did my daughter loose some of her best friends to it and her public elementary school also lose some of their top students, but the hardest thing to deal with is the involved parents that switched to the charter school. Being on a PTA board at a Title One school is hard enough, for there is so much need and not as much support. Schools like this tend to have both parents working or there are other reasons parents cannot or will not be involved.
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What do you think a PTA board with five really active volunteering members looks like for a school of over seven hundred students? Now picture that same PTA executive board one year later with two board members moving to that brand-new charter school that opened just down the street and one board member (myself) leaves for the middle school. Let me just say a PTA executive board of two does not work. This is not the only public school in our district with this problem; no, this will be happening to most of the PTA boards at most of the elementary and middle public schools closest to the new charter school in our district. While I see posts on social media, of how the new charter school PTO is thriving, it makes me sad at what has happened to our district public schools’ PTAs. I think the students at our public schools need at least the same support they had before.
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The one positive thing I can see with the new charter school opening is the superintendent and school board members are starting to get serious about some real change in our district. I feel like our district has been doing ok for a while, but they had become complacent. Our district is not really doing or trying anything new. Well guess what, you get a new charter school built and all of a sudden, the superintendent wants our thoughts on what is working and what is not. I was sitting in a council PTA meeting full of PTA Presidents, and the superintendent looks at each one of us there and asks, “what ideas do you all have.”
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Our school district now has both a STEM middle school and a Fine Arts elementary school in the district. I guess we can thank the new charter school for these innovative ideas, but at what cost? Schools work best when there is a mix of top students, struggling students, and in the middle students. If the public schools are left with mostly in the middle students and struggling students, what effect will that leave and for how long?
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I hope that we as a public-school district can stick together and support our public schools. I sure hope the lower income Title One schools in our district can bounce back from the effect the charter school has brought because all students deserve a great education and school experience. I believe our communities will be stronger if everyone is on the same public-school team and not divided between a charter school and a public school.
Works Cited
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Higgins, Sharon, and Caroline Grannan. "Charter Schools Do Not Benefit Needy Urban Students." Urban America, edited by Roman Espejo, Greenhaven Press, 2011. Opposing Viewpoints in Context, ezp.tccd.edu/login?url=http://link.galegroup.com/ apps/doc/EJ3010399248/OVIC?u=txshracd2560&xid=6a1696db. Originally published as "Charters Exclude the Most Challenging Students, Parts 1 and 2," Change.org, 17 Mar. 2009. Accessed 7 Nov. 2017.
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Jones, Brian. "The Success of Charter Schools Is Exaggerated." School Reform, edited by Noah Berlatsky, Greenhaven Press. Opposing
Viewpoints in Context, ezp.tccd.edu/login?url=http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ3010692232/OVIC?
u=txsshracd2560&xid=0b8ec816. Originally published as "The Charter School Charade," SocialistWorker.org, 13 Nov.
2009. Accessed 7 Nov. 2017.
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Meegan, Timothy. "Charter Schools Financially Starve Neighborhood Schools." High School Alternative Programs, edited by Noah Berlatsky, Greenhaven Press, 2015. Opposing Viewpoints in Context, ezp.tccd.edu/login?url=http://link.galegroup.com/ apps/doc/EJ3010924219/OVIC?u=txshracd2560&xid=2577c94d. Originally published as "CPS Starving Its Schools to
Justify Privatization," Chicago Sun-Times, 30 July 2013. Accessed 7 Nov. 2017.
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Ravitch, Diane. "Charter Schools Are a Bad Idea." School Reform, edited by Noël Merino, Greenhaven Press, 2015. Opposing Viewpoints in Context, ezp.tccd.edu/login?url=http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ3010692251/OVIC?u=txshracd 2560&xid=942aecdd. Originally published as "The Charter School Mistake," Los Angeles Times, 1 Oct. 2013. Accessed 7 Nov. 2017.
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Wraga, William G. "Charter Schools Are No Better than Public Schools." School Funding, edited by Lynn Zott, Greenhaven Press, 2012. Opposing Viewpoints in Context,ezp.tccd.edu/loginurl=http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/
EJ3010770222/OVIC?u=txshracd2560&xid=021310a5. Originally published as Charter Schools: Vehicles for
Privatization," Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 11 Jan. 2010. Accessed 7 Nov. 2017.