This is a response to Dmitri Melhorn’s post via Jersey Jazzman
1) Using evidence collected by organizations that have potential conflict of interest is problematic. This entire argument hinges on data collected by sources that are not considered impartial.
2) Ability to sift for better children is a fundamental argument against charters. Parental support (required by KIPP and implicit in the charter application process) is the primary ingredient for student success. We can only recognize the quality of schools that can not sort for children and must backfill to maintain similar class size to the schools they “compete” with.
3) Schools that have received additional financial support from advocacy groups in an economy that is defunding and underfunding schools does not speak to the ability of charters to do better. It speaks to the ability of money to do better.
4) Public schools impacted by charters will see increased enrollment of students who are counseled out, fewer of the better cared for children whose parents will choose schools w fewer behavior problems, lower class size and more resources. This trend undermines public education as a social good and does not support equity.
5) Right to choose your school because you have the income to optout of public education is something that comes with more wealth. Charters do not address this issue for the entire public. They allow for some parents to remove their children from public education which further undermines it as a social good. It results in increased segregation by race and class. It results in inappropriate policies in schools that are funded by public dollars because a school can open just to benefit a particular racial, cultural, political or religious group. That is contrary to the vision of universal free public education.
6) The notion that any change is better than the status quo dismisses the very negative impacts that are being reported by multiple charter related scandals around the country. If charters are here to stay, they need regulation and oversight. The idea that dumping “bureaucracy” allows for innovation has resulted in a sloppy free for all that is a burden on tax dollars and has a negative impact for children.
7) When we sift through the information about charters, we uncover the advantages in play: funding matters, resources matter, class size matters, parental support matters. These are the ingredients for a good school. It does not require charters to exist. It requires political will, financial investment, and support for parents. We need every child to have the same resources, low class size and support. We need buy in to our public system not optout of public education for desperate recipients of elitist largesse. – See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2015/10/charter-schools-exchange-part-i.html?spref=tw#sthash.10febgmu.dpuf