Academic insanity? Charter vs public schools

Across the state the issue of publicly-funded private schools has been heating up. There are two major concerns being raised at this time: First, private schools are not held to the same academic or non-discriminatory standards as public schools; second, the funds that go to private schools can actually drain and damage the existing public school systems.

The latter is a concern to Caddo Schools Superintendent Gerald Dawkins, “The potential for more resources being drained is always there. We have to insure to continue to work on those things to be the parents’ first choice. I say first choice because they want to think of our schools as offering what their kids need. When kids leave our system it does become a problem that could alter the funding landscape. I think you have to continue to try to make the school stronger, make hard decisions and keep pressing on. It’s really good teaching and learning every day: that’s going to get us there over a period of time. It’s a persistent push to bring these kids where they need to be. I only wish that everybody that receives the money is assumed to be accounted for under the state testing formula. If that happens, then at least we know if those students are performing with those kids better than in the public schools. There is some difference of opinion on that. I think that we do a lot better.”

Youthful education activist and now elementary school teacher, Frederick Washington sees things differently but shares some of Dawkin’s concerns, “This session allows minimum foundation funds to be used for private school vouchers. Then the story came out about a church that operated a school was awarded over 300 seats but did not demonstrate that they had the capacity related to teachers or facility. There was not even a site visit. That story revealed that there were other schools that were awarded voucher status but were not able to facilitate the number of students that they were approved. On July 24 John White proposed an accountability plan for the private schools. When you look at the proposal, there’s nothing to show them being accountable. In Louisiana charter schools are issued a letter grade based on their performance, however the charter schools receiving public taxpayer dollars don’t receive a letter grade. If they can keep those slots but they can’t get additional slots.

“I’m an incoming teacher and I’m already exhausted with the things I have to prepare. You’re giving these private schools the economy to do what they want to do but not allowing the public schools to do the same things. If you are going to put our public schools under a letter grade then you need to allow us to be as flexible as you are going to allow other schools that use public dollars.”

“I personally don’t have a problem giving private schools public funds. If you look at the data, the public school system has shamed everybody. But if we are going to allow outside for-profit organizations to educate our children let’s make sure that we are sure we are holding them to actual accountability that says ‘If you don’t do the job, we’re going to fire you.’ What’s going to happen is that people who don’t have the children’s education at heart are going to come in, just seeing dollars. This is what happened with health care. For years the health care industry was looked at as the cash cow. People were going to jail for trying to take advantage of Medicare. Well, health care has cashed out. The new cash cow is education. Louisiana is one of the top five states when it comes it per pupil. It costs $5,000 per pupil to educate a child here, where in some areas, it cost, five times as much. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s about…money.”

But funds and academic accountability are not the only red flags that has parents and education leaders concerned. Public schools are not allowed to discriminate on the basis of race, class, pregnancy, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, special needs or other factors that are common to the general public. This may not be true of charter schools that receive public funds.

In Monroe, ACLU is legally challenging the Delhi Charter School for its policy of barring pregnant students from school. The school forces girls to take a pregnancy test and if it comes of positive they cannot attend classes. A home-study course is offered. Citizens say the policy is discriminatory. The state department of education says that it is now going to investigate to see if there are any other discriminatory policies. But it may be too little, too late. A former school official says that one girl gets kicked out every year. One pregnant girl has already been banned from participating in her graduation ceremony.

The school is being forced to reconsider its policy only because the media and the ACLU made noise. Apparently the Department of Education does check to see what rules and regulations charter schools have or how they enforce them.

For public school advocates this speaks to the heart of the problem. So far charter schools are not held to the same standards of accountability as real public schools on any level. A school may decide to try to determine things like if a girl has had an abortion or even if she is still a virgin. Some may choose to monitor students’ text messages or internet sites for content deemed inappropriate. Some have curricula that alter history to promote certain racial and sexual biases.

The question is, will they be allowed to do these things and still receive tax dollars?

That question has yet to be answered.

This article was originally published in the August 20, 2012 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper