Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Marc Fisher Slams D.C.'s Charter School Movement
Marc Fisher from the Washington Post is a really nice guy. I bought him breakfast years ago and we discussed charter school and vouchers. He wrote an extremely kind and moving piece when I was on the board of directors of the Cesar Chavez Public Charter High School for Public Policy and he attended the first graduation ceremony.
We then had a heated but polite email exchange when the D.C. voucher program was being voted on by Congress (he is strongly, even violently against school vouchers even though he is a D.C. resident whose children attend private school.)
Today, in reaction to the list of school closings announced by DCPS Superintendent Janey, he writes a column which is terribly insulting to the dynamic vibrant charter school movement in the nation's capital. He states:
Unfortunately, research has shown that it takes more than a quarter of all students leaving public schools before the system begins to react. Is Mr. Fisher blind to the very recent proposal by Mr. Chaney to change the way DCPS is educating its pupils? I guess he just is making the choice not to see.
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We then had a heated but polite email exchange when the D.C. voucher program was being voted on by Congress (he is strongly, even violently against school vouchers even though he is a D.C. resident whose children attend private school.)
Today, in reaction to the list of school closings announced by DCPS Superintendent Janey, he writes a column which is terribly insulting to the dynamic vibrant charter school movement in the nation's capital. He states:
Seven years later, enrollment in the D.C. public school system has dwindled to the point that half its buildings are underused, and the new superintendent, Clifford Janey, is doing something: Yesterday, he announced the shuttering of six schools, with lots more to come in the next two years.Mr. Fisher's criticism of charter schools (and Colbert King offered the same objection in my conversation about school vouchers 7 years ago) is illogical. He is implying that parents who are upset about the education their child is receiving are supposed to just leave them in their neighborhood school so that others are not left behind. What is he talking about? He will not even put his kids in D.C. public schools.
This is not exactly the robust competition that boosters of charter schools had in mind. The idea, courtesy of conservatives who view America as one vast retail mall, was to model school choice after a supermarket: Build better brands, and the old brands will improve themselves to keep their customers.
But schools aren't boxes of cereal. Parents who had the gumption to find a good charter pulled their kids out of the regular D.C. public schools, leaving behind many of the children who are most difficult to serve.
Unfortunately, research has shown that it takes more than a quarter of all students leaving public schools before the system begins to react. Is Mr. Fisher blind to the very recent proposal by Mr. Chaney to change the way DCPS is educating its pupils? I guess he just is making the choice not to see.
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