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Blog Post #2- Nicholas Lee
February 3, 2015 | Leave a Comment
Before I read these two articles, I knew very little about what a charter school even was, let alone the controversial situation going on between these two types of schools. My whole life, I had attended a NYC Public school so other than knowing that they were some type of “experimental school,” I was unaware of what was going on. After reading these two articles about charter schools, it opened my eyes to the controversy and problems these type of schools present to public schools and why there is so much debate on their existence and management.
As Noguera states in his article, when the idea for charter schools were originally created in the 1970s, the idea behind them was that they would act as “laboratories for innovation,” and would lead the way in finding new techniques in education that would benefit our education system as a whole. Since then, they have drifted from that mission, instead acting as competitors to public schools and providing an unfair advantage to the charter school students over the others.
While I am for charter schools acting as a beacon for innovative education, I believe there should be limits on how much they take from public schools so they do not impact them negatively. From resources to classroom space, these charter schools are given an unfair advantage against public schools with funding from both public and private sources. Logically, it is not fair that public schools are held to the same criteria and standards as these charter schools when charter schools obviously have the advantage when it comes to funding. In my opinion, I think that instead of comparing the statistics from charter and public schools, the government should instead be focusing on what exactly the charter schools are spending their money on so they can get insight on how to improve the public schools.
While this may be easier said than done, I do believe that comparing two schools with unequal advantages will get us nowhere in terms of improving the program overall. Yes, charter schools do have an advantage when it comes to funding and admittance but in my opinion, these are just the aspects of capitalism making it’s way into the education system. No matter what reformation, whether making them more accountable or making making the charter school’s actions more transparent, Charter schools will always have an advantage over other schools due to their joint public/privatization. Is is an aspect of capitalism that when something is privatized, progress gets done faster.
Do I believe that this is right or fair to the public schools who feel they are at a disadvantage? No, but I believe that instead of pointing fingers on why one school is unfair or why another one is lacking, we should be finding a way to work together with the charter schools that will benefit education as a whole. By working together, charter schools will once again act as a beacon for innovation that can then be implemented by public schools. Based on what I have read, I realize that there are many problems going on with the charter schools, but I believe there is hope where we can use charter schools to our advantage without undermining the public schools.
Nicholas Lee
