Charter Schools, Public Education and Arnie Duncan

I taught for many years in the hardest neighborhoods of Chicago (name a housing project and I probably taught there at one time or another) and I even had dinners once a month with Arnie Duncan, the current Secretary of Education.

When Obama won the presidency, I hoped for a change in the No Child Left Behind program--and even though I am a strong supporter of Obama, I hoped he would change the rules about charter schools.

They do not work.

Research continues to show charter schools cost a lot of money--money removed from the public school budgets--and they regularly underperform public schools.

Under the Bush Administration, thou8sands--if not millions--were wasted on this program. My school had an after school program that worked with only twelve--yes, I said twelve--students, but it's budget was well over two hundred thousand dollars.

What a waste of money.

Just to let you know, my math scores on standardized tests in Illinois for my fourth grade class--and, yes, I'm bragging here--was at 71% (outperforming the local area, the city and much of the state). I never taught to the test. I taught test taking skills once every two weeks for thirty minutes, but what I really did was teach math with a great number of textbooks and other sources. My fourth graders even used a high school trigonometry book to study fractions, division and ratios.

I have been watching the Obama Administration and I have noticed a lot of positive changes. Nonetheless, charter schools are not the way.

Finally, I quote Diane Ravitch:

"If Arne Duncan knows exactly how to reform American education, why didn’t he reform Chicago’s schools? A report came out a couple of weeks ago from the Civic Committee of Chicago (”Still Left Behind”) saying that Chicago’s much-touted score gains in the past several years were phony, that they were generated after the state lowered the passing mark on the state tests, that the purported gains did not show up on the federal tests, and that Chicago’s high schools are still failing. On the respected federal test (NAEP), Chicago continues to be one of the lowest performing cities in the nation."

(I can add to that the year the Iowa Test scores were changed so more eighth graders could graduate.)

OK--I am a strong supporter of President Obama, but I'm not so blind that I can't see a policy that is prone to failure.

When my school became a receiving school, we fell apart and became a sending school. Then we received again and failed again. Only when we stopped this activity--and this was sanctioned under the Bush Administration--did my school begin to stabilize and start to show gains.

With No Child Left Behind, if changes are not made, I will have to agree to disagree with the president.

No president is perfect and I am not a one issue voter so I will continue my fervent support of President Obama, and if he were to ask for help, I would offer it immediately.

Just to let you know.