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BobE's avatar

EZ, i don't know where to begin to address your attack on charter schools and other variations on school choice, w/o writing an essay as long as yours. so i will limit my rejoinder to three elements. 1] you question 'how much choice will there really be for the poor?' well, how much choice do they have in your ideal system? i know that my kids have a choice as to where they send their kids to school. i had choice of where to send my kids to school, back in the day - my guess is you and your wife did, too. why? because we had income and/or assets that put us in a position to choose. don't like your kids' school? move somewhere else, where the school[s] is[are] better. w/o charter schools and other schools of choice, poor people don't have choice - they're stuck with their attendance area public school. - the vast majority of which in big cities fail to educate children at a basic level.

2] you suggest we should get the best and the brightest working on improving public education. let me clue you in - the best and the brightest have been working on improving public education for decades. and the current public education system? WYSIWYG. public education in big cities has been a gross and egregious failure, also for decades. we can discuss/debate the reasons - but it's not due to a lack of effort by concerned citizens, grantmakers and many others to develop models that work, including and specifically for minority children from low income families. there is one answer that is a total non-starter: more money. the real [not just nominal] per-pupil expenditure for public education in big cities has far outpaced inflation over the course of many years. academic achievement is no better, maybe worse - far too high a percentage of kids in those schools can't read even close to grade level, can't write literately, can't do even basic math.

3] last, having known many parents of low income families over the years, almost all people of color, i know that they want school choice for their kids. and i know that they are competent to make that choice. will some make a mistake of choice? of course - the upper middle class and wealthy sometimes make bad choices for their kids' education. but, as i stated earlier, people with income and/or assets always have choice.

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Les Lynn's avatar

Eric, your analysis of the flaws in the pro-charter position on education, and your critique of Vallas's position on education, is Spot On. Highly informed and very in-depth, especially for someone who is not an education specialist, as such. There are important provisions in the education positions of both candidates that are worth delving into and discussing, too, but on this important provision -- the impact that privatization has on education, and the re-direction of charter schools away from their original intended purpose to be laboratories to improve public education for all -- you nail it, in my view.

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