A view from the left (or not) on charter schools

A couple of unconnected people sent me the link to a long,
well-written, thoroughly researched article on charter schools that
they thought would resonate with me. It does, which makes it amusing
that it’s from the International Socialist Review.

A number of people in this community who fervently support charter
schools and are regularly enraged by my commentaries about them are
viewed as far to the left of me — in San Francisco, my spot on the
political spectrum is often called moderate (sometimes even
conservative). So it’s interesting that I’m the one in solidarity here
with www.socialistworker.org . (And how many people have called San Francisco Board of Education veteran Jill Wynns, the board’s most staunch critic of charter schools, the most conservative member of the board?)

The author of the article, “Charter schools and the attack on public education,” is Sarah Knopp, described as a Los Angeles teacher. Knopp’s tone is academic and generally mild, except maybe when she refers to Bill Gates and other private funders as “jackals.”

Some excerpts:

“ …the concept of ‘autonomy’ —"which the pioneers had hoped would mean democracy—"turned into privatization when it crashed into the slick and well-funded strategists of the ‘Ownership Society.’ “…because the noble intentions of some of the pioneers of the charter school movement (to create laboratories that prove what all educators know: that creativity, individual attention, and curricular relevance are the roots of good education) took shape so recently, and because there are some good charter schools, many progressives are disoriented in the current climate.”

The article quotes the Rethinking Schools book “Keeping the Promise: The Debate Over Charter Schools”:

The question facing the charter school movement is whether it will fulfill its founding promise of reform that empowers the powerless, or whether it will become a vehicle to further enrich the powerful and stratify our schools.”

The article’s author, Knopp, goes on in her own voice:

“Founding promises notwithstanding, an honest look at the balance of forces inside the charter movement makes a strong case for the latter. …"

“Liberals who support the idea of charter schools give cover to politicians who champion privatization schemes.”

Knopp cites President Obama, and adds:

“Not surprisingly, Republican presidential candidate John McCain agreed totally, adding only that any obstacles to the expansion of charters should be wiped away.”

(Note from Caroline: I am a strong Obama supporter — not that I think he’s perfect — but clearly I disagree with him here. I view him as
swayed by propaganda and lobbying in an area in which he has limited expertise.)

Knopp:

“If we recognize the rapid acceleration of corporate-style
charters, and admit that progressive forces are dwarfed by the billions of dollars invested in this movement by the private sector, we should try to group our forces around a completely different movement with a different vision rather than trying to recapture the charter movement (if it were ever ours).”

Knopp quotes longtime education critic Jonathan Kozol; an endnote cites the source as an interview with Kozol from a previous issue of the International Socialist Review.

“Charter schools are, according to Kozol, a bridge toward vouchers: ‘In the long run, charter schools are being strategically used to pave the way for vouchers. The voucher advocates, who are very powerful and funded by right-wing foundations and families, recognize that the word “voucher” has been successfully discredited.... They have now shrewdly decided the best way to break down resistance to vouchers is by supporting charters, which represents a halfway step in the same direction. One of the intentions of this, by creating selective institutions, usually with extra forms of funding, is to discredit the entire public enterprise in America. We already have the privatization of the military, as we’ve seen with the private military contractors in Iraq; we’ve seen the privatization of the prison system. Well, the next step is the privatization of public schools. It’s a matter of
ideology. In rare occasions, a charter school created by teachers in the public system and in collaboration with activist parents in the community have had at least short-term success.... They tend very quickly —" even when they’re started by teachers with the best intentions — to enter into collaboration with the private sector.’ ”

“... As for a coordinated effort, the private incursion into public schools is being pushed by a band of jackals grouped around Bill Gates and the $2 billion that his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have sunk into the education ‘reform’ movement. ... In the beginning, the Gateses used their dollars and employees to push school districts such as Los Angeles to break up mega-high schools into ‘small learning communities.’ But now they are advising superintendents to give up that project and go straight for independent charters.”

Knopp concludes with some ideas about alternate ways to work/fight for effective and equitable education, including the unassailable first principle, “Fight for resources.”

“This is fundamentally about fighting for democracy in the schools,” she declares.