THE BEAT GOES ON!

By Edwin Cooney

Four weeks ago I asked you, the reader, if America might be “fretting herself to death.”  Three weeks ago I followed up with an open search for “the really and truly.”  This week, the beat goes on.

What I’m trying to decide for myself is the value and workability of charter schools.  A few days ago, someone sent me a commentary by Dr. Thomas Sowell asserting that the Obama administration was demonstrating its genuine contempt for minorities, as he claims do most liberals, by limiting the steady growth of charter schools throughout America.  Sowell, a Senior Fellow in Economics at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University, devoutly believes that those who advocate and administrate programs for the benefit of minorities are more interested in protecting their personal careers than they are in benefiting the poor. As a black man who was raised amidst the poverty of both the South and Harlem during the 1930s and 40s, he is especially effective as an advocate for alternative policies to traditional liberal problem solving

Charter schools are generally established and administrated by private groups contracting with public school districts, states or universities to educate school age students under a system that demands more rigid standards than those that exist under the traditional public school system.  Charter schools currently exist in 42 states and the District of Columbia.  Political conservatives and libertarians are generally their strongest and most enthusiastic advocates. However, they exist and even thrive in locations such as Washington, D.C. and New Orleans, cities heavily populated by blacks, Hispanics and other minority groups.  Students and teachers must meet stricter standards of performance or face removal.  Since the economic, social, and even spiritual welfare of our future is largely dependent on a well-educated, prosperous and peaceful population, political as well as practical administrative matters must be considered.

In order to get a broader perspective on this topic, I contacted a friend of mine who was a public school teacher in the state of New Jersey for over thirty years.  Contrary to Dr. Sowell, my friend whom I’ll call “Big Mickey” asserted to me in a responsive email:

“I believe that whatever helps kids is OK, but not at the expense of others.  Charters act like they are so much better but in reality the difference is very small.  Charters should not be "above the law" when it comes to educating ALL the students, not just the cream, or the quiet ones, or the connected.  They do not belong on public property, in buildings with public schools or using public funds that should go to public education. That is discrimination and theft.  We need to focus ourselves on making public education what it should be, not diverting our energies into these charters that only represent a tiny portion of the population.  If public schools were run the way charters are the results would be the same.  Charters are just a different name for the Private School System.  The efforts of some to discriminate AND SEPARATE has failed in the past and school vouchers have not prevailed.  I believe that charters are just another form of "vouchers" that really detract from our main problem which is how to make education important in this country.  Until we raise the cultural importance (as in other nations) we will continue to fail to really meet the needs of our kids and the American people.”

Big Mickey’s final point, the raising of the cultural importance of education in America, is particularly compelling.  Big Mickey insists that the most vital factor in the education of any student is that student’s parents.  “I might have a hundred students in the three or four classes I taught during a particular school year,” he told me, “but on parent’s nights, I’d be lucky if ten parents showed up for consultation.”

Many physical, emotional, intellectual, and social factors invariably come into play when a free society establishes a single requirement of all of its citizens as America began doing in the 1850s.  The requirement that every child receive a free education began in the state of Massachusetts in 1852.  Not only did the Massachusetts law require every town to establish a school, it required that parents send their offspring to school under threat of fine or even removal of children from their homes should parents fail to comply with the law.

Obviously, the time has passed to begin seriously discussing education reform in the United States.  Dr. Sowell’s concern is not without foundation, but whether teachers ought to belong to unions is a different question from “how can we educate our children and thus most likely guarantee our nation’s future?”

A well-educated citizen is the recipient of America’s greatest gift: justice.  Justice, to paraphrase the great Greek philosopher and teacher Plato, exists when one achieves all one is capable of achieving and is rewarded upon that achievement.

As for the wisdom and value of charter schools, I invite you to advise me.  However, in so doing, please address the education of the whole people, not just the highly capable.

If, however, your conclusion is based on your conservative or liberal ideology, skip it and get back to class where you belong!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY