White parents in North Carolina are using charter schools to secede from the education system

[mountain grammy]

It is hard, at first, to find anything wrong with the idea that some public schools should have the freedom to be a little different. This was the original pitch for charter schools, as think-tank scholars Richard Kahlenberg and Halley Potter recount in their recent book A Smarter Charter.

“Schools were meant to be laboratories for experimentation from which the traditional public schools could learn,” Kahlenberg told the Post’s Valerie Strauss last week.

[Q&A with Richard Kahlenberg and Halley Potter]

President Obama has lavished praise on charters for this same reason, calling them “incubators of innovation in neighborhoods across our country.” His administration has provided more in charter school grants than any other.

The most recent cautionary tale comes from North Carolina, where professors at Duke have traced a troubling trend of resegregation since the first charters opened in 1997. They contend that North Carolina’s charter schools have become a way for white parents to secede from the public school system, as they once did to escape racial integration orders.

“They appear pretty clearly to be a way for white students to get out of more racially integrated schools,” said economics professor Helen Ladd, one of the authors of the draft report released Monday.

Charter schools in North Carolina tend to be either overwhelmingly black or overwhelmingly white—in contrast to traditional public schools, which are more evenly mixed.

Much more at the link.http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2015/04/15/white-parents-in-north-carolina-are-using-charter-schools-to-secede-from-the-education-system/

This is a new hidden danger in the charter school scam.. good old apartheid. Re-segregating American public schools, one Race to the Top grant at a time.

[redstatebluegirl]

1. They don't want kids with learning issues or poor kids either.

With those two groups out they can show their scores are higher than public schools. When you pick your students you can make sure your school is successful. They want public schools to service the poor, the learning challenged and minorities. Really sick stuff done in the name of education reform.

[KamaAina]

12. Or any other type of disability.

[jwirr]

2. There is nothing new about this and Universities should have been on this long ago. I do have

a question: Are they talking about government supported charter schools or private schools?

This is not new. It started very soon after schools were first integrated. Parents would send their children to some private school or church school. It soon became quite clear that this was happening on a racial or disability basis. That is what the voucher issue is all about. They want their tax dollars for education to go to their own private schools.

Back then it was mostly religious schools and some very exclusive private schools that enabled this and then along came the charter school movement. Claiming to be able to give a superior education to public schools they demanded government support. And their proof of that superior education is testing scores. No one ever mentions that if you take all the students who are having trouble out of the school of course the test scores go up.

But recently more people have been catching on. The private schools are charging huge prices, providing education by teachers who are not always well educated and sometimes even just running off with the money. Private is not better than public - private merely means that it is for profit. Not all schools discriminate but many do. They should not get any tax funded support if they do.

[jwirr]

5. I hear what you are saying and yes not all private schools are set up for discrimination as I have

already said. And the school that is accepting a mix of students is a good example of a good one. But the other examples exist also. As too why the parents take their children out of public schools - I would guess it is a mixed bag of reasons. But in some cases it is pure racism. This OP is talking about NC and what they are seeing there. I wonder what they would see if they visited Minneapolis in my state?

As to our disabled children disrupting our public schools. I assume that they do on occasion but they also bring in a lot of special ed money from the feds to pay for their attendance. When we finally got those children into the local community schools the money that would have been used on institutions was transferred to the school districts to pay for them.

In the early 60s our disabled children were in church basements paid for by us parents standing on street corners selling hot dogs and cokes. And it was not just the most disabled that were in that private school run by the ARC. All levels were not allowed to attend public schools but their parent were paying taxes for the public schools just like anyone else.

I will agree with you that mainstreaming often causes a problem. But then my daughter was so disabled that mainstreaming would never have worked for her. One benefit that is supposed to come from mainstreaming is that the other children will learn about disabilities instead of being isolated from them.

And yes, I think charter schools benefit from the lack of diversity when they take the tests.

[mountain grammy]

4. The article is clear. These are taxpayer supported charter schools.

[jwirr]

7. Then they should not be able to pick and choose the students. IMO

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

6. Charter schools seem to like it when they can send out a rainbow of faces for their PR rallies

I'm curious as to what the breakdown is nationwide of minorities vs white kids.

These parents are silly if they think segregation will be allowed for very long. There's going to be that gifted black or latino kid in a mostly white town with a poor school district who's going to be coveted by a charter school to pad their numbers.

They might as well start homeschooling.

[cali]

8. Hillary Clinton is a long time supporter of Charter Schools. Has she changed on this?

Charter Schools now have a clear record of FAILURE.

[EL34x4]

9. So what if she hasn't?

At least she's not a hypocrite.

There's plenty of charter school opponents in D.C. whose own children have never set foot in a public school. This smacks of the worst kind of "good enough for me but not for thee" beltway elitism that I've grown to loath.

[cali]

10. Charter schools now have a clear and objective record of FAILURE. Is that so hard to understand?

In my state- thankfully- they aren't legal. and the repuke style crap about the democratic elites? It stinks to high fucking heaven.

Welcome to DU.

[Doctor_J]

11. a big reason for the entire "movement". makes you wonder why Obama and Clinton are

On their side. It's almost like they are 1% ers

[Pisces]

13. Maybe they are trying to solve a problem instead of doing nothing.

[mountain grammy]

15. Personally, I think anyone can be suckered into believing charters are great.

Anything can sound good on paper. I was kind of excited about the idea at first also. But results are important, and even more important when a policy is sold as an answer to so many woes. I don't think Obama and Clinton are so much on their side as they are trying to continue something they were convinced would improve public education and they haven't given up on the idea.
As for me, I've given up on the idea. I think charters suck too much money out of public schools. Now, if we want to raise taxes on the rich and put every dime of it into our education system, I think we could afford to experiment, make more resources available for public schools, and offer free college tuition to public universities..

[hifiguy]

14. Why is this a surprise to anyone?

Seriously.

This could be seen coming a mile away.

[mountain grammy]

17. You'd think, but, remember, it's a new world and racism is over..

just ask our supreme court guys.

[HereSince1628]

19. I was in Georgia when Carter was governor..private schools

where that path to get kids into a segregated classroom protected from integration...

In the 90's much of the interest in trying to get taxpayer paid vouchers for private schools in
WI seemed to have come from the same origins...

Both those experiences are old.

One of them ~45 years and the other about 20 years.

Racists pusching for room to be racists is nothing new

[951-Riverside]

16. Good for them

Public schools are a mess. Teachers are under paid, the curriculum is a joke and the policies are fascist.

If I had to choose between a private or charter school vs running the risk of having my child being molested by the teacher or beaten and bullied by fellow students in an under performing Public school, the choice is obvious.

[mountain grammy]

18. Charter schools operate under the public school system.

they are supposed to be public.