Reply to Charter school parents: why are you okay with diverting resources from public schools?

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[quote=Anonymous]Most people probably choose charters based on a broad, deep-seated desire to avoid failing schools. They recognize that there is a collective action problem in establishing diverse school communities as well as corrective government intervention needed to make things work.

Successful families choosing school communities where most students fail is not normal in America, and that is, effectively, the choice presented to most (but not all) families in DC east of Rock Creek Park. Confidence in success for your children in such a situation is based on going against the flow, not acting like most people like you. It is an affirmative choice.  And many are unwilling to make it.

Many families that have not succeeded in DCPS for generations also have a right to be displeased with this situation.  They want alternatives to failure.  The American educational system does not appear to have come up with good answers for students whose parents have poor educational attainment in schools surrounded by students with poor educational attainment.  (Best I've heard of for this situation is taking small numbers of would-be striver children of uneducated parents and placing them in schools surrounded by only high achievers, in schools with minimal disruptions and deep student support, i.e., rich suburbs, which is not a solution for entire DC wards' worth of children.)

Charter schools have been posed as the alternative.  They certainly have served as such, and have grown with the frustration with DCPS as people have sought alternatives.

I believe that charter openings were too easily allowed and it made joining a charter community rather than joining a DCPS community too easy a choice. I believe that there are differing intensities of interest in (1) alternatives-to-DCPS or (2) the niche-bases of certain charters, and the rapid expansion of these schools as DC family numbers have rebounded since that Mayor Williams inflection point of interest in living in DC has made them easier to wrap your head around than joining schools made up exclusively of failing students from cultures considered less-than by most Americans and parents resentful of your place in society.

The right answer would be a carrot-and-stick approach to encourage a desegregation of DC's schools.  Desegregating DC's schools is probably the best way to see them succeed over time. Successful parents'  their political voices in DC politics can help demand their transformation. A mix of at-grade, above-grade, and below-grade students can help make success more normal for all students.

DCPS has not moved fast enough to encourage the development of schools that create mixed communities, e.g., bilingual schools.  Nothing says DCPS couldn't have its next elementary school in booming Ward 4 be an Amharic bilingual school, just to cite one example, or make Hardy a straight-up just-sue-me knockoff of BASIS MS, but that kind of creativity and entrepreneurial approach is only being pursued in the charter sector. DCPS could throw more money at must-have programming or niche staff than at building empty cathedrals, but has instead favored the buildings.

DC government could also work some sticks in that will make people whine, then turn to put in some elbow grease. Actually place limits on the expansion of the charter sector so that it can't just be the mindless choice of every white upper-class couple with a condo, dog and a 3 year-old in Ward 1 or 5. Take a hardass approach to boundary changes that will reliably place successful students a path from places like Bancroft through Roosevelt.  Don't like it? Don't want to or can't move or get your kid into WLPCS or DCI? Well, maybe in the end you and yours get a differentiated program through MS and HS that means your snowflakes only have to mix with the children of the ghetto at lunch and recess, but that's the start of investment and involvement rather than out-and-out shunning, and mark my words it's the start of a move toward an integrated, reasonable system.

People can call it "social engineering," but how do you think you live your lives? Why does my family speak English rather than Spanish? Why can we afford mortgages? Does the trash get picked up if you leave it behind your house? How do we have 13 Council members and zero Congressmen? WE make choices that create societal outcomes, and I think we can design better ones in this area based on what we know and what's happened.

Let's go beyond complaints about people acting the best way the system lets them and the side-effects and problems the system hasn't fixed and design what we want. [/quote]

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