CHARTER SCHOOLS ARE NOT FOR ME, HERE IS WHY

I just don’t agree with the premise that charter schools are the savior of the Black community. Why do charter schools have curriculums not available in our ordinary public schools? If such demanding curriculums are needed for our children’s future, why not offer it to everybody? When you allow parents to enroll their children into charter schools, while leaving most other students to a less-challenging curriculum, only proves that the system of unequal educational will live on. Go and visit the home of a Black parent who is hell bent on getting their kid into a certain charter school! They may or may not have had a formal education, but they sure as hell know the value of an education. Where is this insane passion for public schools? Why didn’t you join the PTO then? Why didn’t you participate at the public school? If they only they had that same passion when their child was in public school. On the other hand, there are some Black parents who never had a formal education, and they just don’t understand the value of an education, so in essence they really don’t give a damn. Way too many of our children come from these families. Nowadays, in the United States, the re-structuring of education is really racialized. Ground zero is centered right smack dab in the middle of Black communities, where public schools are being closed, taken over, privatized, and driven by a cut-rate curriculum of preparing lil Black kids for standardized tests. Public and private are racialized code-words. Private is equal to being good and white, and public with being bad and Black. Marginalized low investment in our public schools, closing them, and opening privately operated charter schools in our Black communities is made easier by racist attitudes towards our communities and our public institutions. But you know what? Our failing schools are the product of a history of educational, economic, lack of parental involvement, discipline, and social injustices experienced by us Black folk. Schools serving Black communities continually face deeply unfair opportunities to learn, including unequal funding, curriculum, educational resources, facilities, and teacher experience. The new school and teacher accountability rules has often created these injustices by limiting the curriculum to only test preparation—producing an exit of some of the strongest teachers from schools in Black communities. We need to change the heart and soul of our children’s education, redefining the purpose of education and what it means to teach, learn, and participate in school in Black communities. The education that our youth are now receiving leaves them capable of performing a function within the system, but they will be ignorant of how the system they will eventually work for is structured or operated. This ignorance is a direct result of our mis-education. We should start measuring the quality of our children’s education not by what they learn, but by what was excluded from the educational process. Also, teachers are being driven by standardized tests and performance outcome measures; principals are managers, and school superintendents are now CEOs; and learning now equals the students performance on the tests, with teachers, the student, and parents held responsible for failure. Education, which should be seen as a public good, is being converted into a private good, which is an investment you make in your child or yourself to add value in order to better compete in the labor market. Schools in the inner-cities are no longer seen as part of the bigger picture of advancing individual and social development, but are merely the means to rise above others. Neighborhood schools are being replaced with charter schools or selective enrollment schools that most neighborhood children are unable to attend. School closings have spawned increased mobility, a rise in violence, and neighborhood instability as children are transferred to schools out of Black neighborhoods. This coded policy erases schools that are anchors in our Black communities, contributing to an ongoing economic boycott. In gentrifying areas, closing neighborhood schools and replacing them with schools branded for the middle class makes it easier for the displacement of Black working-class families. I just don’t like the charter concept. I believe in community neighborhood schools. I just remember walking with my childhood friends to Locke Elementary, Tolleston, and West Side High, laughing all the way, knowing that the homework better had been done!!