Monday, November 09, 2015

Hillary Clinton's take on charter schools is definitely worth your time to read.

Courtesy of The Washington Post:  

Most charter schools — I don’t want to say every one — but most charter schools, they don’t take the hardest-to-teach kids, or, if they do, they don’t keep them. And so the public schools are often in a no-win situation, because they do, thankfully, take everybody, and then they don’t get the resources or the help and support that they need to be able to take care of every child’s education. 

So I want parents to be able to exercise choice within the public school system — not outside of it — but within it because I am still a firm believer that the public school system is one of the real pillars of our democracy and it is a path for opportunity. 

But I am also fully aware that there are a lot of substandard public schools. But part of the reason for that is that policymakers and local politicians will not fund schools in poor areas that take care of poor children to the level that they need to be. And you can get me going on this…. I mean, the corridor of shame right here in South Carolina, you get on there and you can see schools that are literally falling apart. I’ve been in some of those schools. I have seen the terrible physical conditions. That is an outrage. It is a rebuke to who we are as Americans to send any child to a school that you wouldn’t send your own child to. 

And so we’ve got a lot of work to do to make sure that public schools serve people, but that doesn’t mean we don’t also provide options within the system so that parents can find what they think might work best for their kid.

The Post goes on to say that Clinton was a one time advocate for charter schools, even praising them in her book "It Takes a Village."

However I don't think that this is another example of Hillary flip flopping, as much as it is an example of her views changing in response to new information.

When Hillary wrote her book in 1996, the charter school movement was really just taking off and a lot of people believed that it would help to improve public schools when new experimental techniques used in charter schools were then applied to schools everywhere.

Montessori schools are a good example of that.

However when George W. Bush used charter schools to help pressure and undermine public education that changed everything.

After all you are better able to demonstrate testing proficiency when you can weed out those with learning disabilities or disruptive behaviors.

Public schools do not have that option, nor should they. Therefore by comparison their test scores were considered sub-par, and they received a smaller allotment of money which could have been used to make improvements in their classrooms.

Clearly Hillary sees that and her opinions on supporting public schools are music to my ears.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous2:52 PM

    You go girl!!! Way to call it out for what it is.


    "...the corridor of shame right here in South Carolina, you get on there and you can see schools that are literally falling apart. I’ve been in some of those schools. I have seen the terrible physical conditions. That is an outrage. It is a rebuke to who we are as Americans to send any child to a school that you wouldn’t send your own child to."

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  2. Not everyone can go to a charter, or private school, even if they had the money. Private schools are basically full and entrusting education to private enterprise, is a mistake. Just as private contractors in prisons, military, or any other government responsibility, is a mistake. Give families a, say, $5,000 voucher, or tax break and expect everyone to get their child a decent education: good luck with that. If we gave senior citizens a $5,000 voucher for medical insurance and eliminated Medicare, do you think that will work?

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  3. Anonymous4:16 PM

    Wow, that was good :) Made my day!!!!! A+

    ReplyDelete

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