Charter Schools and similar concepts: Subtle privatization?

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I recently was reading the entry of the personal blog of a fellow WP member where he was speaking of the State of Alabama's recent passage of a private school subsidy bill and I asked myself: Is this and the concept of Charter Schools the beginning of the end of free education and/or a subtle attack of the wall of separation between church and state?

For reference: http://geekalabama.com/2013/02/28/alaba ... lity-bill/

Charter schools are almost universally backed by Republican Lawmakers in GOP heavy states. The GOP does not have a good reputation when it comes to public schools. These schools are controlled by private entities free of government control and apparently the parents decide what is taught there. With most of the schools being in the Bible Belt, it is pretty obvious that the parents will want to shove the pseudosciences of Creationism and Young Earth down the throats of young children in what is supposed to be a public facility.

What say you? Have the denizens of PPR in the US encountered this concept?

Last edited by PM on 01 Mar 2013, 2:22 am, edited 1 time in total.

Thanks for using my blog post. I think the Alabama Legislature passed this so charter schools could be created. Also, this is a bill where the rich will be richer and the poor will be poorer. Alabama has had a dark history over greed. The GOP went behind closed doors to add things to the bill without many people knowing about it. Basically many legislators said yes to this bill without reading it first!

When you have State Superintendent Tommy Bice (who knows me) saying this bill is bad, then you need to listen. But I am afraid the Republicans are working on social issues instead of dealing with the state's economy. The GOP has been dealing with school choice, women right's, and gun control instead of dealing with the important issues. That's Alabama for you!

This story will be on the national news, watch it!

Unless Alabama is doing something different, Charter schools are still public schools. One example is Harris Bilingual School in Fort Collins, Colorado

http://bil.psdschools.org/

where classrooms contain an even mix of English and Spanish speaking kids, and where instruction is in both English and Spanish.

Other places may have Charter Schools that specialize in science, and other places may have Charter Schools that specialize in the arts.

I think that charter schools are a good idea.

The creationists are trying to bypass court decisions concerning the insertion of religious material in public school courses.

These so called "charter schools" and publicly funded, but they are disguised as private schools.

Once again the Creationists cheat and deceive.

ruveyn

Oh, Alabama. I probably should have guessed that it was something like this.

When done correctly school choice programs/charter schools/vouchers etc can be a great tool for improving education by allowing competition and forcing the schools to be accountable to the parents of their students. If you run a terrible public school and your failure is constantly subsidized, then what incentive do you have to improve? The threat of public school students choosing to go to other schools is a great motivator for public school administration to shape up. Also, I believe poor students should be offered more choices, because their local public school that they are zoned for is probably not very good. Even in highly socialist countries like Sweden, vouchers have been implemented with success.

Unfortunately these school choice programs are often used to promote creationism, and as barcncpt44 pointed out, unless the benefits of the choices are given to those that are primarily lower income, it will result in more inequality.

"The House and Senate leadership passed a bill behind closed doors that provides a tax credit give-away to rich families zoned for failing schools to subsidize the private school tuition they are already paying."

Deplorable. Like a lot of what the Republicans do, they took a potentially great free market idea and skewed it so that it only benefits the rich.

There is no place for competition in education.

Explain why.

Competition is good in everything. Most religious educations are far superior than any one provided by a public in America. Maybe if you grow up in a rich exclusive suburb it's different but compared to the hellholes I went to in the inner city, I'd take any religious education I can get. There really is no argument against competition in education other than weakens the hold of the teachers cartel.

Education is about making sure the future generation has a brain, not seeing what school is better than the other.

You're implying that the two things are mutually exclusive. When implemented correctly free-market competition raises standards. I'd argue that competition is bad when it comes to things like healthcare (because you can't choose whether or not you are healthy), but effective education is, for the most part, a result of how good your educational environment is and how much effort you put into it. Allowing disabled, poor, or otherwise disadvantaged students a choice out of their bad situation seems quite moral to me. Subsidizing middle or upper-class parents that could afford to send their kid to a private school anyway if they wanted to definitely isn't.

Education and the "free-market" don't mix. Anything beyond offering the parents a choice for a hardship transfer out of a sub-par school is a subtle step towards profiteering. All schools should have a budget according to population and nothing more, no outside donations whatsoever because said donations would mean the rich have an advantage over the poor.

The rich are so greedy that they would deprive their own children of an education.

I'm really confused.... haven't there been Catholic and religious schools for the longest time? Charter schools have been used in the past four or five years as a means for inner-city kids or kids in failing school districts to possibly get a better education (no special dispensation for the 'rich'). Its been more about the teacher's union problems than religion. As for trying to find a proxy to teach creationism - see my first sentence above - it would be redundant.

The issue is that at least in some states, charter schools get their funding by getting a piece of the money that would go to the "home" school district.

Now, undertand that I think that a school district should have to pay the charter school for a more desirable education package for the simple reason....the home district does'nt have to educate said child that year. Yes, I realize the economies of scale and pooling approach issues, but in most cases, the home district has gotten some sort of reduction in cost.

Shouldn't schools function in the principle of cooperation and solidarity, like public schools, not like the privatized schools? The private schools being established in Sweden is a step towards the wrong path in my opinon. I agree in that education needs competition, but it's hard to see that a free-market system with privatized schools will not be exclusionary and discriminating, and not produce more inequality and less choice - but more determinism, less change and more reproduction of poverty and lower class social problems. I wonder what political practice would manage avoiding this.