On Thursday the Chicago Board of Education voted on extensions for the city’s charter, selective enrollment, and magnet school contracts, and especially the 49 charter schools. Ahead of the vote protestors demonstrated with the familiar hand lettered placards asking that the Board preserve school choice.
The result of the vote was to extend the charter contracts between one and four years and not the usual, and expected 10 years, bringing questions from the heads of some of those schools, and some hand wringing on what has become a worrisome concern for the leadership of those schools.
In a larger sense the issue is a focus on privatization of the nation’s public schools which we have seen under the Trump Administration, when Betsy De Vos was the head of the Department of Education, bringing the issue to the forefront.
It will be tough sledding for charter leaders with the election of Brandon Johnson as mayor and his former roles as teacher and organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union, as they favor strengthening neighborhood schools, and the Board agreed in December with a resolution to do just that.
It’s no secret that Chicago public schools, especially in low income neighborhoods, have been underfunded, and suffer from inadequate resources, aging physical plants, and often inexperienced teachers; but, with a student population that is predominately Black and Brown, in a city that has long suffered from racial segregation, the lack of political will by prior mayoral administrations has exacerbated those problems.
Notably the closing of over 50 schools in those neighborhoods by former Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2013 did not help the perception that the city was disenfranchising Black students.
Caught in the middle, say some educators and parents groups, are lower income Black children whose neighborhood schools are felt to be inadequate. And, in a protest held the day before the Board met many of those parents were there to express their frustrations and fears, that they might lose their favored charter schools.
“How could we possibly eliminate a family's ability to choose the best school for their child?" Noble Schools CEO Constance Jones said. ""How can this board claim to support a quality public education when it is actively trying to get rid of schools exactly that, “ reported ABC7 News.
Of the total of 49 schools, most did receive 4 year contracts, with one receiving a one year contract, and the Board cited those on the shorter end, but overall needed to meet benchmark standards of special education, and students who are English language learners.
For the leadership of the Board a central concern is that the charters are essentially a private school system in a public system funded by public monies and should be held accountable to do the very best for students with taxpayer money.
Elizabeth Todd Breland, board vice president said at Thursday's meeting,“I still maintain that as a private operator getting public money, there should be a higher level of scrutiny,”
The areas of focus for them are academics, finances and operations, corresponding also to state and federal law, points which are not always held in the public arena. And, none of the schools met, or exceeded in those categories at this time.
The end result was that over half of those schools received a contract extension for four years, and forty percent for three years, and none got 5 years.
Taking a closer look at the numbers, we see claims that 75 percent of Chicago public school children are educated in charter schools, but there is also the dwindling population of school age children, especially in Black neighborhoods, due to out migration, has shown a corresponding reduction in student population; and, for some the question of evaluation, and contract extensions is critical, as it is with neighborhood schools.
An ongoing debate is whether students do better in charter schools, socially, and academically, and a decades old media discussion showed that on standardized testing charter school Chicago students performed no better, or worse than public school students. While some objected to that, former Mayor Rahm Emanuel, was one.
The Washington Post, in 2014 coverage found that to be the case, but supporters now say that has changed in favor of the charters.
“A 2013 study by Stanford University's Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) concluded about two-thirds of charter school students perform the same or worse than students in traditional public schools, while about a third of students perform better in a charter school setting. CREDO's director told NPR that African American and Latino students, as well as students whose first language is not English, experienced particularly impressive gains in performance while enrolled at charter schools. However, critics have countered that charter school policies like fines for misbehavior drive students from poor families to drop out. Charter schools also tend to have fewer accommodations for students with disabilities such as autism.”
It’s sure to be an ongoing debate, and both sides will undoubtedly be forced to examine their stances, but as of now, Chicago charter schools are under the microscope.
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