In response to Jerry Cornfield’s May 31 column on the proposed charter school initiative, I urge Mr. Cornfield and his readers to read Diane Ravitch’s “The Death and Life of the Great American School System.”
Diane Ravitch was Assistant to Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander in the George H.W. Bush administration, and responsible for the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, promoting the creation of voluntary state and national academic standards.
Once enthusiastic about the possible benefits of testing, accountability, choice, vouchers, the free market and charter schools, Ms. Ravitch now sees how these ideas have worked out in reality and is critical. She concludes that they are “diminishing the quality (of public education) and endangering its very survival.”
Although the shining star of the school choice movement, charter schools don’t get on the average better test results than public schools. A small number get high scores; many more get very low scores. But they weaken public schools by taking money away from district budgets, drawing away high performing students, and excluding students who have disabilities or are English language learners.
The students who are hardest to educate are left to the public schools. Charter schools often “counsel out” low-performing students. Those left, of course, might do well, but this is not a model for American public education. Unlike charter schools that can be elitist, democratic public schools must educate all children.
Charter schools divide communities. Instead of everyone working together to support public schools, they fight over resources and space. And this is the real bottom line. Public education offers a huge financial market for those invested in privatizing it. Charter schools are their “foot in the door.”
Ken W. White
Marysville
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