America becomes captivated by feel-good stories. The stories of individuals who save kids from poverty and failure via new schools is no different from the other stories. We want to hear about the positives of reform and how it will steer American education in the right direction.
However, for every feel-good story, there’s hundreds of untold stories that show the other end of the spectrum. Wisconsin is one of these cases. Breaking up the public school system has been viewed as an answer to America’s education problems, but is shaking up an institution that has been around for hundreds of years really the end-all of answers?
This article is an interesting read because it takes us out of New York and into another state that we might not automatically think to focus on in the charter vs. public debate. It shows that this debate is not just limited to New York State. It does show that the charter school debate is seen is many urban communities. The article focuses on Madison Prep, and if one charter school is causing this much controversy, what else is going on around America? These are questions that we will be continuing to find answers to as the years go on and we have more concrete facts and research to base our answers off of.
I found this article interesting because it not only presented the points of view of the charter school and regular public school but it also expressed the causes and effects of a charter school in a rural area as opposed to the typical inner city stories we hear. Madison, Wisconsin is the focus of this article and Kaleem Caire has addressed the need for a separate school that focuses its attention on children that have been discriminated against in the "white" public school district. I think this is a nice idea, especially to provide a just education for those students that have been wrongly treated, but the costs of running the school that Mr. Caire is proposing is outrageous. If that amount of taxpayers money is to be spent on funding such a school I think it turns the tables on fairness; should minority students be provided so much more money toward their education than other students that do not attend the school? Especially with a district that is already short on funds. The last line of the article sums it up perfectly, "sooner or later we are going to have to drop the heroic, individual approach and work together".
America becomes captivated by feel-good stories. The stories of individuals who save kids from poverty and failure via new schools is no different from the other stories. We want to hear about the positives of reform and how it will steer American education in the right direction.
ReplyDeleteHowever, for every feel-good story, there’s hundreds of untold stories that show the other end of the spectrum. Wisconsin is one of these cases. Breaking up the public school system has been viewed as an answer to America’s education problems, but is shaking up an institution that has been around for hundreds of years really the end-all of answers?
This article is an interesting read because it takes us out of New York and into another state that we might not automatically think to focus on in the charter vs. public debate. It shows that this debate is not just limited to New York State. It does show that the charter school debate is seen is many urban communities. The article focuses on Madison Prep, and if one charter school is causing this much controversy, what else is going on around America? These are questions that we will be continuing to find answers to as the years go on and we have more concrete facts and research to base our answers off of.
I found this article interesting because it not only presented the points of view of the charter school and regular public school but it also expressed the causes and effects of a charter school in a rural area as opposed to the typical inner city stories we hear. Madison, Wisconsin is the focus of this article and Kaleem Caire has addressed the need for a separate school that focuses its attention on children that have been discriminated against in the "white" public school district. I think this is a nice idea, especially to provide a just education for those students that have been wrongly treated, but the costs of running the school that Mr. Caire is proposing is outrageous. If that amount of taxpayers money is to be spent on funding such a school I think it turns the tables on fairness; should minority students be provided so much more money toward their education than other students that do not attend the school? Especially with a district that is already short on funds. The last line of the article sums it up perfectly, "sooner or later we are going to have to drop the heroic, individual approach and work together".
ReplyDelete