Public? charter? Private?

Public? Charter? Private?

Abe Lincoln spoke of this country’s government of the people, by the people, and for the people as a precious heritage, but there is a trend right now toward viewing government as being so evil that one would have to assume Lincoln was just plain wrong. Columnists and TV and radio commentators on the right scarcely bother with specifics; they simply condemn government activity as wrong and urge privatization as the truly American and safe way to take care of whatever functions have been traditionally managed by government.

The first example that comes to mind is Iraq war contractors; they have taken on an enormous part of what used to be military operations. If current indications are accurate, the reliance on contactors has resulted in all kinds of troubles, including murder and huge overpayments by taxpayers for services given. Contractors have made billions; it is questionable whether they have done the job better than the military has traditionally done it.

The next thought on privatization is, of course, about charter schools. The charter school movement is nationwide and the specifics of how these schools function are as varied as the places where they operate. It is hard for the public to evaluate how charters work because some charter companies are nonprofit and some are for-profit; some must follow local protocols and some are freed from almost every such obligation. To compare charter schools - as a generic term - to public ones is to fall into the old cliché of comparing apples and oranges.

Nevertheless, the comparisons are being made. Mostly, they are being used to bulk up the current urban myth that public schools are a failure and to promote the general cause of privatization. Although the comparisons are bound to be open to challenge, they show a mixed result. A Stanford University study of about half the charter schools in the country found that 46% were no better than neighboring public schools, 37% were significantly worse, and only 17% were definitely better. In Philadelphia, the Rand Corporation compared public to charter and privately managed schools and found the charter students did no better than their public school peers. A Philadelphia School District study compared achievement data from the two groups and found that six privately managed schools were better but ten were worse. New York state recently reported that of the ten worst schools in the entire state, five were privately managed schools in New York City.

Moreover, charter and privately managed schools, free of the usual oversight from a public school district, are ripe for exploitation by entrepreneurs more interested in money than student achievement. Diane Ravitch, historian of education at New York University, reported, “A small charter school network in New York City with about 1,000 students paid its leader $370,000 in 2007.” She went on to report “the organizer of charter schools in a Pennsylvania suburb is also the primary vendor of goods and services to his schools and earns more than $1,000,000 annually.”

We know that charter schools are free to cherry pick their students, unlike public schools which must enroll all comers. Teachers may have less difficult conditions in the charter schools, but they also have fewer professional protections.

Charter schools are part of a general move to privatization, and are promoted with zeal by the political far right as part of its anti-government campaign. Schools, the foundation of our democracy and the path of hope for every child, ought not to be the subject of a political movement.