And the closing of the educantist mind
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
LISTEN. Do you hear that sound? It’s like a jail door slamming shut—an iron-against-iron CU-LANG! It’s the sound of Baker Kurrus’ mind snapping closed at the mention of charter schools.
We’ve heard that sound before. It happens every time a promising new idea is introduced. The mind locks and begins to respond with the same old, well-trained reflexes no matter what reality it’s responding to. The bromides come rolling down the production line: Charter schools cherry-pick the best and brightest. Charter schools leave the “real” public schools with the slower students. Charter schools drain money from the school district. Charter schools bad. No like charter schools.
A new batch of charter-school applications has hit the state hopper. Six have been proposed for Little Rock , where Baker Kurrus sits (ably and courageously) on the school board. One of the proposed charter schools would be operated by the folks who run the math and science school in Hot Springs in cooperation with the University of Arkansas . It sounds promising. But not to Mr. Kurrus.
He told the Democrat-Gazette’s Cynthia Howell that he’s seen two of the six proposed charter schools. “Run of the mill,” he called them. We don’t think that was meant as a compliment.
We don’t enjoy picking on Baker Kurrus; he’s about the best member Little Rock’s school board has. He’s tried to raise educational standards year after year, especially during the school district’s current and thoroughly unnecessary unpleasantness. But we’re disappointed by his rote opposition to charter schools. Mr. Kurrus has always struck us as being open to reform, not reflexively against anything new. Check out the way he’s stood by Roy Brooks, the reform superintendent whom a bare but driven majority of the school board has just run off. A go-along-to-getalong type on the school board wouldn’t have stood up against that Gang of Four.
Baker Kurrus’ opposition to charter schools is worth commenting on because, among other reasons, it’s so unlike him. His string of objections represent about the only remaining arguments the aginners can muster when it comes to charter schools, and they’re all threadbare.
First off, charter schools are public schools. What makes a charter school for math and science any less of a public school, and any less worthy of taxpayer dollars, than, say, good ol’ Hall High or much celebrated Central?
Perhaps most disturbing of all Mr. Kurrus’ objections to charter schools is the way parents tend to get involved in them. It’s another argument we’ve heard before—and it’s just as empty as the rest. To quote Mr. Kurrus: “Even the charter schools that purport to cater to students of great need are set up in such a way that they only really accommodate those who have parental and home support.”
That’s bad? Shouldn’t we be encouraging parental support for those kids who lack it at home, instead of discouraging it where it exists? Kids from poor backgrounds need not just parental support, but the support of church and community and boys and girls clubs and every other kind we can give them.
Mr. Kurrus points to the absence of subsidized lunches and transportation in some charter schools. Then why not make that one of the criteria for approving a new charter school in Little Rock —that it offer such support to kids who need it? Or is Mr. Kurrus really saying that solid, prosperous families need to look outside the public schools if they want to see their children’s promise cultivated and nurtured? Surely not—because that would be a shame.
IF A charter school doesn’t fulfill its mission, if it really doesn’t offer a child the kind of extra attention in a field where he—or she—shows special talent or interest, well, that school will lose its charter. Failing charter schools close. Unfortunately, too many other public schools that fail do not. They stay open, miseducating still another generation of innocent victims of the status quo. The very existence of a good charter school—say, one that specializes in math and science, and is linked to a university—would offer other public schools some healthy competition for the most promising kids. And both kinds of schools would be spurred to do their best by their students.
All these familiar arguments against charter schools fall under the same fearful heading: Thou Shalt Not Have Competition. At least not in the public schools. Even though competition remains the best way to spur improved performance. Either the regular public schools would improve to keep and attract students, or the charter schools would have to stay on their toes to maintain their enrollment. In the best of possible worlds, both kinds of schools would grow and prosper. Which is how competition benefits the competitors—not to mention the consumers.
Look at how magnet schools now provide students for public high schools like Parkview, Hall and Central. Mr. Kurrus surely wouldn’t do away with magnet schools. Yet the reason for their existence is much the same as that for charter schools: to give every kid the best chance we can.
Much as Arkansas ’ worried educantists might like to see it, charter schools aren’t going away. Not even with a state law that tends to thwart them instead of encourage them. ( Arkansas allows only 24 charter schools in the whole state.) In the last two years, 39 charter schools have been proposed to the state’s board of education—a record 20 last year and 19 this year. A good idea has a way of catching on. Why not give this one a fair chance instead of just dismissing it with the same old, tired—and groundless—clichés?
All we ask of Baker Kurrus and all the other good supporters of public education in Little Rock (may their tribe increase) is that they think before repeating these kneejerk arguments against charter schools, and instead re-examine their old prejudices. If they did, all of us might benefit—especially the next generation.
