Reply to Time to Stop Counting on Charters

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Reply to "Time to Stop Counting on Charters"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]Why? The point is not that there is something wrong with charters/school choice. The point is that there aren't enough charters to go around and we need more of them for true choice.[/quote]

actually, the point is the failure of DCPS to be an adequate system to meet the needs of its constituents. Very rarely do you have so much public funding for charter schools--there is much greater 'choice' in DC than in many, many other areas. the problem is that the defaults are so uneven and inadequate. Unfortunately, with so many middle and high SES, educated proactive parents sending their kids to charters, the DCPS schools are drained of intangible resources of involved parents. This can be a good thing--either forcing DCPS to imrpove its game or close its schools (and both are happening, I think), but I think the idea that you are entitled to a huge choice of publicly funded schools is pretty bizarre. Most public education systems do not work that way. [/quote]

This post bothers me because it assumes that help from parents and the community is just some extra bonus that DCPS needs to make itself deserving of, not something that is necessary for public education to function properly. DCPS takes a lot of heat for not being "an adequate system," but [b]DCPCS rarely gets the same amount of heat for only providing a handful of schools that 100s of families try to squeeze into each year while constantly opening and closing schools (wasting a bunch of time and resources that could have gone into helping at least a few neighborhood schools)[/b].[/quote]

False dichotomy.  Charters - whether opening or closing - are not wasting time and resources that could have gone into helping a few neighborhood schools.  Those are resources that were not taken from DCPS (in the form of families who left them) nor can they be given to DCPS (in the form of families being forced to attend them).  The existence of charter schools and worthwhile educations are one reason middle class families have chose to stay in DC, instead of ignoring it as they have done for decades.  Without those schools many, many families will not choose their local school.  They will choose private or leave.  [/quote]

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