By the 1960s and 70s, innovative schools were opening in such cities as Philadelphia and Chicago. Then in 1988, Albert Shanker, as president of the American Federation of Teachers, spoke about the meagre 20% of students benefitting from a traditional public education سایت ایران آموزشگاه.
His solution: charter schools, “where teachers would be given the opportunity to draw upon their expertise to create high-performing educational laboratories from which the traditional public schools could learn .”That was the intent, the promise, and, in 1992, the first true charter school, City Academy High School, opened its doors in St. Paul, Minnesota.
In the following years, charter schools found advocates in both Presidents Clinton and G.W. Bush, but it took Obama to make it a federal school reform priority and included it as an application incentive in his $4.35 billion Race to the Top grant program.
Now, Donald Trump is at the helm, and his controversial Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is a vocal charter school champion.
Indeed, her resume includes serving as chairman of the American Federation for Children (AFC). Describing itself as “the nation’s leading school choice advocacy group,” it boasts that it’s “a national leader in the fight to boldly reform America’s broken education system.”
Nevertheless and as an aside, a 2016 Gallup survey found that 76% of parents are “broadly satisfied with the education their oldest child receives;” 36% are “completely satisfied.”
Meanwhile, the AFC site further states, “The American Federation for Children is breaking down barriers to educational choice by creating an education revolution that empowers parents to choose the best educational environment for their children, so all children, especially low-income children, have access to a quality education.”
And that, say charter advocates, is the whole point-the ability to offer parents alternative school settings for their children, ones that are innovative, competitive, and accountable. Moreover, unlike traditional public schools, if performance standards are not met, the charter is revoked, said school is shut down.
What’s not to like? It all sounds so good, so promising, and yet there are opponents aplenty.
Their numbers include countless public school educators and administrators, and the likes of highly esteemed education historian Diane Ravitch and Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education Foundation.
Another is columnist and Education Law Center senior attorney Wendy Lecker, who writes that, “When charters replace public schools, parents lose their voice in education. Charter boards are not democratically elected. There is no requirement that board members live in the community or answer to parents. Often, corporate members are corporate executives with no children in charter schools.”
She goes on to explain: “In reality, choice in the form of charters increases segregation and devastates community public schools in our most distressed cities. As charters have proliferated in predominantly minority cities, children and parents of color bear the brunt of this destruction.”