MANHATTAN, NY – Experienced professionals are cautious of the notion that charter schools are the answer to the unsuccessful elementary education systems, as they know that each one is unique and the real solution lies in the classroom.
Two public schools, teaching the same grades, no more than four hundred yards away, have absolutely nothing to do with each other. The schools look similar: both with security guards, gated playgrounds, uniforms and about twenty-three students per classroom. Then what keeps them so isolated? Ross Global Academy is a charter school and P.S. 19 is not.
Recently charter schools have been receiving considerable positive press, an attitude that hints at charter schools becoming the solution to our current problems in elementary education. Karen DeMoss, an Associate Professor of Educational Studies at Eugene Lang for the New School University, has mixed feelings about charter schools and believes there is no way you can discuss charter schools as a whole, because each one is so unique. “They really vary, there are lots of different ways to think about thinking about charter schools,” Dr. DeMoss Said.
A social worker, Emily George with a master’s degree from NYU and a master’s degree from Hunter, who has worked in public schools in Manhattan since she graduated and is now working at The Ross Global Academy Charter School in the East Village, is an advocate of charters schools. She says that they are a good addition to the public school system, but agrees that they are not singularly the answer. “I think that it is important that children have the choice,” Ms. George commented, “I think smaller, more manageable pieces [groups of students], with more specific administration and just working with a smaller group is important.”
The Ross Global Academy Charter School has a cultural history approach to learning, where each grade focuses on specific themes that relate to the developmental state of the student. This is the charter the school created upon opening, which they must meet each year, as well as the New York State standardized test and curriculum guidelines. “There is a lot more accountability for charter schools, for faculty and students,” Ms. George said, “charter schools do work for some kids, but it is about finding the right fit.”
Charter schools began because people wanted another option within public education. Dr. DeMoss explains that historically charter schools were related to privileged people, and some evidence shows that they did practicing creaming, (the process of selecting only the most qualified students and families). However now, charter schools have strayed away from these roots and by law cannot refuse any student from attending any charter school.
There is no application for charter schools, only a lottery process; parents simply enter their child’s name into a hat and keep their fingers crossed. Is this process still unfair? Jacqueline Flanagan, the principle of Public School 19, located around the corner from Ross Global Academy, replies with no comment when asked to speak on her thoughts about charter schools. Albeit, after a pause and sigh, she said, “I have seen and heard of them pushing those [special needs] students away,” and with a smile, Mrs. Flanagan added, “I mean, they get private funding, so I guess I would have an after school program if I had private funding.”
Mrs. Flanagan believes that funding will help solve problems, but it still does not effect what happens in the classroom, and that is what is most important: how much the children are actually learning. “It is about having the right school community, having teachers that care about kids, being really very smart about how to strategically educate children and have them get to that next level,” Mrs. Flanagan said.
Frequently in charter schools the parents are asked to sign a parent contract, enforcing the notion that parents are a part of the child’s learning process and a supportive home life is crucial to a student’s success. Mrs. Flanagan wishes she could implement this sort of program at her public school. “That link has to be there: parent teacher, student,” she said, “I wish there was a special funded program from the government that supported parents and did workshops on parent skills and how to support your child in school.”
Dr. DeMoss explains that as an educator she is hesitant to tell parents how to parent their children, and there is no evidence that supports parental involvement is entirely effective. “I have profound empathy for families that are struggling, I worry a little bit about thinking that everybody can, quote on quote, be involved,” Dr. DeMoss said, “I completely agree with parent support, that everyone can tell their child school is important; but I do not know what parent involvement looks like.”
Rejecting the idea that one resolution will fix it all, Dr. DeMoss remains cautious of conversations that praise charter schools as the way to reform public education. To reinforce her doubts, she sites one of the most comprehensive education assessment surveys done in the past decade. “There are historic reasons to have some general distrust about all of them being good,” Dr. DeMoss said, “only twenty percent do better than the public school system and on average they do not do better than the public school system.”
After speaking with these three women, the only aspect of education each one of them agrees upon, is that the teacher to student experience in the classroom is crucial, and without that element secured, no progress will occur.
No comments:
Post a Comment