The Huffington Post today has an opinion piece by Clara Hemphill, senior editor at the Center for NYC Affairs at New School University, entitled “Do Charter Schools Help or Hurt?”
Ah, the charter school, that bastion of capitalist educational theory. Let’s give a choice to students who otherwise would be doomed to a life of baggy pants, welfare and drive-bys. Seems like a worthwhile cause, doesn’t it?
While I see the importance of charters in providing an individualized environment for children and often improving student achievement, not everyone can go to a charter school. Lots of kids are left in the lurch. So what do we do? Kill the charters or make so many as to render the public school system meaningless?
I’ll let the Neighborhood dwell on this question. Hemphill’s column is reprinted below or can be accessed through the Huffington Post.
When officials at P.S. 123, an ordinary neighborhood school in Harlem, were forced to call the police this month to keep a charter school from taking over its classrooms, I was reminded how charter schools make it harder for neighborhood schools to succeed.
Some time ago, I visited P.S. 42 in the Bronx, just a block away from a charter school, the Carl C. Icahn Charter School. Both schools serve poor children, and neither school has an entrance exam. However, the charter school gets children whose parents know enough to sign up for a lottery in April – and who know in the spring where they will be living in the fall. The neighborhood school gets lots of children from nearby homeless shelters, who come and go during the year. The charter school has a majority of African-American children, most of whom speak English at home. P.S. 42 has a majority of Latino children, many of whom speak only Spanish. Teachers say children who can’t meet the academic or behavioral requirements of the charter school are encouraged to leave and wind up at P.S. 42, which has a large number of children receiving special education services. Despite these challenges, P.S. 42 received an “A” on its latest school report card. Still, teachers say their job would be a lot easier if all the schools in the neighborhood took their fair share of the most needy and vulnerable kids.
P.S. 123 in Harlem – where the skirmish over space broke out — is a fairly successful school that benefits from strong leadership, an active parent body, and support from a number of elected officials. When the Harlem Success Academy II, a charter school that shares the P.S. 123 building, hired movers to remove furniture from several P.S. 123 classrooms so the charter school could expand, teachers occupied the classrooms and halted the takeover, as reported in the New York Daily News. A Department of Education spokeswoman says there was a misunderstanding and the charter school was ordered to stop.
In poor neighborhoods with terrible local schools, charters may serve as an escape for some children whose parents can navigate the admissions process, much as “gifted and talented” programs serve middle class parents who want to escape what they consider inadequate local schools. But what we need is a strategy to improve schools for all children – not an escape for a few.
Petition to keep the Global History and Geography Regents as a Graduation Requirement
World map – Produced in Amsterdam First edition : 1689. Original size : 48.3 x 56.0 cm. Produced using copper engraving. Extremely rare set of maps, only known in one other example in the Amsterdam University. No copies in American libraries. In original hand color. Français : Carte du monde – Créée à Amsterdam Première édition : 1689. Taille originale : 48,3 x 56,0 cm. Eau forte. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I’m so late to this party that it isn’t fashionable anymore.Yet some parties are so important it’s just as important to just show up.
As it broke in April, The New York State Board of Regents is considering a measure to make the Global History and Geography Regents examination optional for graduation with a state-endorsed diploma. Instead, students would opt to take another math or science course or another vocational course.
However, you still have to take the global history course…because it makes so much sense to take a class but not the final exam (cough, cough).
Never mind the obvious age-old agendas of gutting social studies to create automatons proficient enough in math, science and literacy to be submissive cogs in the corporate machine, yet ignorant of the workings of government, history, economics and geography so that they will be ill-equipped to participate fully in American democracy.
The motives for this one are both sinister and silly.
It is done under the guise of offering more educational options—more options at the expense of the hardest exam in the Regents system. The Global exam had a passing rate of about 60%, the lowest in the state.
So the move is less about well-rounded educational options and more about artificially boosting graduation rates.
Even more incredible, the test is mostly a test of reading comprehension, and less of a trivia contest. The low passing rates have little to do with the content. It has everything to do with students with subpar reading skills—often at or below 6th grade level for 10th graders.
The irresponsibility, deviousness and outright stupidity of this move is so self evident, I won’t waste any more words on it.
Below is a petition from Change.org to try to reverse the decision. The Board of Regents will make their final decision at their June meeting, so it’s important to sign soon.
The link is here. Make sure your voice is heard. Also, be sure to read Alan Singer’s column on the matter in the Huffington Post.
It’s bad enough our kids can’t find where they live on a map. Let’s at least teach them where the rest of the world is located.
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