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Letter: How Should I Vote On Prop 2?
Letters to the Editor,
02:00PM / Wednesday, October 19, 2016
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To the Editor:

This was the question I was asked by a friend because they knew I had taught in both regular and charter public schools. For those who don't know, a yes vote on Prop 2 [Question 2 on the general election ballot] will expand the charter school program in Massachusetts and a no vote will keep charters at current levels.

To understand how to vote, you need to understand why we have charter schools. Charter schools are the invention of progressives who wanted to create a sort of education laboratory where they could re-create, innovate, and advance modern education beyond the stranglehold of bureaucracy. New education techniques that were proven to be effective would then be introduced into the regular public education system for the purpose of improving education for everyone.

Well, this improvement never came and many of these experimental schools either closed on their own or were forced to close by the chartering authority because of low academic performance, financial fraud, et cetera. It was during this time that one of the oddest things happened politically. This struggling progressive education movement was seen by conservatives as the perfect vehicle to advance their education agenda so they threw their political weight behind it. Cynics say that charters exist to bankrupt the public school system so that the entire thing can be privatized by corporations netting them untold billions.

In reality, the conservative support of charters has probably more to do with their core belief that competition improves everything. If the regular public schools are forced to compete and they find themselves lagging then they will have to step up their game and in the end education will be improved for all, or so the theory goes. I believe this is a more accurate depiction of the motive of conservatives rather than the big corporate money grab. Both the progressives and the conservatives had the same goal, improved education. The question is "Have charter schools improved education?"

Ignoring the '90s when charters were trying to find their sea legs, we should look at some data to see if American education has improved. According to National Geographic, reporting on the educational performance of nations as studied by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the following world rankings were observed: In 2006, in reading, math, and science, the United States had an overall ranking of 27 out of the top 36 countries. Ten years later, we fell two spots to 29th place.

Obviously, we were headed in the wrong direction but that doesn't tell the whole story of decline. During that decade, our reading scores had dramatically improved from 33 to 24, which offset grave losses in math and science. In math we slid from 27 down to 36 and in science we slid from 22 to 28. In a modern world that demands mastery of the sciences and math, we were clearly headed in the wrong direction.

So, how should you vote? If you think that charter schools have improved education for all students then the charter experiment is a success and you should vote to expand the program. If you believe that competition improves everything it touches then you should again vote "yes" and you should also probably push for charter hospitals and charter fire departments, charter police forces and maybe even a charter spouse if you would like to improve your marriage.

However, if you believe the statistics, that the existence of charter schools have done nothing to improve the public education system then you should vote a resounding "No" and redirect our politicians to pursue real solutions that don't suck vital resources out of our regular public schools.

Barry Grauman
Hancock, Mass.

 

 

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