The debate between Dr's. Woody, Hewitt and Lashley was an interesting and spirited challenge of beliefs and perspectives. Education has always been a subject that everyone feels they have a right to question and make suggestions for improvement. The reason for this interest is everyone feels they know what to do and how to change education. Unfortunately, many of these same people have not been in school since they graduated from high school. While the outside of the school still looks the same, they have little to no clue what is going on inside.
Dr. Woody started the debate with his synopsis of Waiting for Superman. He discussed his perspective of the movie. The movie is not very kind to public education and it points to the problems present in many of our schools throughout the country. He makes an interesting quote, “all parents take a leap of faith with public schools.” I will take this quote a step further and say with anything we involve ourselves with there is a leap of faith. When we eat in a restaurant we take a leap of faith that the kitchen is clean and they are preparing the foods due to guidelines established by the board of health. When I enter a restaurant I always look for the rating that must be posted in every restaurant. While that is an indication of cleanliness, have you ever walked with a health inspector? I have and they each have their own agenda and look for different items. That is also true about this movie and charter school debate, each person takes away their own perspective.
Dr. Hewitt was the parent in the debate and I can honestly say she took her role to heart. She started with, “public schools are factories of failures and the hopelessness of parents that have no other choices.” Charter schools are a bright ray of hope for some of these parents. I have to agree that as a parent I am always looking for what is best for my children. I do question the charter schools as the answer. Charters and private schools have their own problems and one of the biggest is longevity. All schools should be accountable to produce quality educational experiences. I doubt that any public school employee feels that they are not working to produce quality experiences for our students. Dr. Hewitt also mentions the fact of public schools having their hands tied by rules and regulations. Which is part of the problem, but there are many different reasons for the lack luster performance of public schools.
Dr. Lashley was of course our legal expert due to his love of school law. He spent a lot of his time with the reasons for charter schools and the funding issues associated. The rules for operation of a charter revolve around approval from the state and local boards of education. Funding is based on a per pupil allotment that the local agency uses. While the charter schools create choices for parents, it also results in public dollars being diverted from local schools. Dr. Lashley goes on to say that charter schools are “performance based while public schools are rule based.”
Dr. Woody worked to point out the problems with charter schools and even shared some facts. His first fact centered on the fact that “4 out of 5 charter schools perform no better and often worse than public schools. He also discussed how charter schools are not diverse and often turn away students with special needs. The biggest issue with charter schools still revolves around who monitors charter schools. Accountability in public schools has many layers of controls and oversight, while that may seem like a waste of funds. This oversight makes sure that all rules and regulations are followed.
Charter schools as pointed out by Dr. Hewitt have increased their presence and have grown to over 4500. The reason for this change revolves around meeting the needs and wants of individual communities. The question I have for all parents in charter schools is when you make a choice to send your child to a different school, do you not have a vested interest in what happens in that school. The other question revolves around why not get involved in a public school in your neighborhood. Parents who get involved change schools into the desired place of learning regardless if they are public or charter. The only difference often revolves around the hoops which one must jump through to get involved.
The last point which I will talk on during this blog entry is the involvement of corporations into public schools not to mention wealthy business people. Someone during tonight’s debate mentioned Bill Gates and his foundation support of charter schools. I was a part of one of his last interest in education, and apparently that has basically gone to the wayside. Seven years ago one of the Gates foundations major pushes revolved around small learning communities. He believed that once schools became larger than 400 students, they lose their ability to make a difference. We started the North Carolina New Schools project and trained, reorganized, and redesigned schools. While each school had its own measures of success, the overall concept did not work. Once it was determined that it was not feasible to organize schools this way, the Gates Foundation focus changed from school size to quality teachers.
I believe that all children deserve the best possible education to give them a chance at a successful future. Charter schools do have a place in the overall educational landscape, but let’s ensure they play on an equal playing field. Charter schools still have the ability to cream their student body and ensure parental involvement as part of entry. Public schools take all students that live in a district and in most states, especially where funding is equitable, produce good results. When we fix the funding formulas nationwide, then you will see that public education is a great value. I am a proud parent of two children who both attend public school not to mention a proud employee.
