Diane Ravitch's article "The Myth of Charter Schools" really exposes the trend in education of today. In her article, Ravitch discusses the faults of Davis Gugenheim's film "Waiting for 'Superman'", which is a biased presentation comparing charter schools and public schools. Her phrase "For many people, these arguments require a willing suspension of disbelief." really sums up her thoughts about the film. The film looks at some of the best charter schools and ignores those that are failing while focusing on the worst public schools while ignoring those that are successful.
In my view, the reason that some of the charter schools are successful for two important reasons: student/teacher ratio and expenditures per student. In many charter schools the student to teacher ratio is much smaller than in public schools and the expenditures per student are much higher than public schools. In other words, public schools have less money for more students.
I feel that the answer is not to abandon the large ship for a life raft when the ship is sinking, but to patch the little holes to keep the larger ship afloat. So, instead of providing vouchers or waivers for parents to move their kids from public school to a charter school, just find out where public schools are struggling and work to find a way to improve those areas.
Another aspect of charter vs. public is that while charters serve as "disruptors" in the educational system, why don't we encourage public schools to be diverse? Why does every public schools look essentially like the next one? IF that model worked it would be one thing, but every school tries to recreate a model that many claim does not work. Doesn't make sense to me.
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