To the 1 percent pouring millions into charter schools: How about improving the schools that the vas

[applegrove]

To the 1 percent pouring millions into charter schools: How about improving the schools that the vast majority of students actually attend?

by Gary M. Sasso at Salon

http://www.salon.com/2016/01/07/to_the_1_percent_pouring_millions_into_charter_schools_how_about_improving_the_schools_that_the_vast_majority_of_students_actually_attend/

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Obscured by the rancor of the school reform debate is this fact: Socio-economic status is the most relevant determinant of student success in school.

It is not a coincidence that the so-called decline of the American public school system has coincided with the ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor. According to a 2014 Pew Research Center report, the wealth disparity between upper-income and middle-income families is at a record high. Upper-income families are nearly seven times wealthier than middle-income ones, compared to 3.4 times richer in 1983. Upper-income family wealth is nearly 70 times that of the country’s lower-income families, also the widest wealth gap between these families in 30 years.

As the income disparity has increased, so has the educational achievement gap. According to Sean F. Reardon, professor of education and sociology at Stanford University, the gap for children from high- and low-income families is at an all-time high—roughly 30 to 40 percent larger among children born in 2001 than among those born 25 years earlier. With 22 percent of children in the U.S. living in poverty, this country’s 27th-place PISA ranking—the worldwide study that measures K-12 academic performance—simply cannot be compared to a country like Finland, which ranks 12th and, at 5.3 percent, has the second-lowest child poverty rate in the world.

So, why are wealthy school reform funders so squarely focused on identifying teachers and their unions as the cause of public education’s decline and advancing charter schools as the best solution?



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[Ed Suspicious]

1. Access to a massive pile of cash redirected from the common good to the private owners.

[FLPanhandle]

2. There are issues with poor teachers and union rules that keep them in place

As a parent, we all experience the frustration of a really bad teacher our children have to deal with. Complaints to the school admin are met with "we can't do anything because X has been here and has seniority".

At my daughters public HS, her calculus teacher was beyond bad, but the principal was powerless even though all us parents were livid.

If this happened over and over, I would have quickly pulled my daughter out of public schooling and put her in a charter school.

Luckily she had a great HS and we just hired a private tutor to compensate for the bad teacher.

Every parent has stories of poor teachers that can't be removed.