The overriding factor in charter schools is separation. The time honored conceptual ideal of an integrated public school that makes every attempt to reach all of its students is being undermined. Since the days of so-called “community schools” of the ‘60s and ‘70s — ignoring the healthy existence of autonomous local school districts — the public school has been dodging the slings and arrows of the reactionary forces to destroy altogether public education. Public school critics, not unlike the Bush administration’s ploy to move a nation to war, systemically parse isolated incidents to excoriate these flaws of the general school system:
Teacher unions are grasping and motivated by self interest.
Resist covering the three Rs.
Local districts are controlled by boards who cave-in to district employees.
The local community has no input to improve curriculum, particularly in the sciences that refuse to incorporate creationism and intelligent design.
Initiative in advance placement and classes for the disadvantaged is racial.
Lax in providing security against violence in the school environment.
Too much or not enough experimentation in methods and subject-matter.
Slavishly and ultimately under state and federal control.
Students have no input in curriculum development, and Regents requirements too rigorous.
School year is too short and too many holidays.
Gerrymandering school districts to insure segregation.
Needless to say, these shortcomings are not the general practices of public education. For a hundred years New York State teachers, elementary and high school science, invented environmental sensitivity; thousands of school gardens were started by students, why, even during WWII “victory gardens” sprouted on school grounds, field trips to zoos lauded animal rights, and to natural museums to sensitize children to nature’s wonders. Science teachers celebrated Earth Day and formed clubs in bird watching, cleanup projects, bottle and aluminum cycling, and trips galore to local, natural sites. Parents, not necessarily teachers, do not want to deny their kids the joys of summer that they themselves enjoyed, nor for that matter the cultural, patriotic and religious observances of holidays. “Reading Labs” were initiated for the disadvantaged; unique approaches to those with learning disabilities and the handicapped, all of whose aim was to mainstream; teachers and administrators pushed for “black studies” and corrective history; competency sequence was initiated long before it became a household word. The Security initiative grew out of the protests and demonstrations of the 60s and 70s and tightened since 9/11. Thousands of proposals for Title I projects were rejected because of lack of appropriations. Unlike charter and private schools to a degree, public schools are correctly mandated to cover curricular material as a safeguard without denying academic freedom. “Special” students — gifted or not — were long known and directed to their needs. Recruitment of black teachers was initiated by the black communities and teacher lobbying. Notwithstanding critics, reading, writing and arithmetic were never abandoned; to this day they take place with dedication and daily instruction. It is an affront to think otherwise, as though teachers are certified in title only.
Critics ignore the great strides the public system has made in meeting the challenges of the public school ideal in reaching out to all students. They conveniently forget the uphill battle in face of forty years of shamelessly shortchanging Title I, and the state’s wink and nod in allocating virtually equal aid to affluent districts. Critics applaud the magic of charter schools that somehow will efface the problems besetting the public schools. Charter schools can select the right students not so much on need, but more so to exploit the selective frustration of the parents. The charter school in fact carries with it the very same psychological motivation of private and parochial systems: the parents want their children in a charter either out of last resort or deliberately separating them from mainstream interaction.
In truth, the charter school is but alternative education that waters down curriculum or selectively enhances special fields of the curricula — capitalizing on the public system’s traditional enrichment activity — but attuned to rigorous disciplines of the field at the expense of the cultural development of the whole child. The charter school actually adopts the philosophy of prestigious private schools, exposing a pseudo-aristocracy, or the holier than thou parochial aim of interspersing religion in its studies.
No amount of offending the public school system will hide the hypocrisy of charters’ robbing the best public school methodologies and enrichment exercises — let alone funds — and the true intent that the conservative element is hell-bent on the nuclear option against an honorable and time tested system.
Copyright © 2005 Richard R. Kennedy All rights reserved. Revised: November 15, 2005.
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