The Emancipatory Promise of Charter Schools

Rofes

Description

This book opens up a critical conversation among progressive educators of various generations, races, perspectives, and social locations concerning one specific school reform initiative—charter schools. Eric Rofes and Lisa M. Stulberg bring together scholars who both study and actively participate in school choice reform and charge them to be "bold in their questioning and assertive in their own ambivalence" about this complex, controversial public issue and to include issues that are underexamined in the school literature, such as the impact of school choice on race and class politics and inequalities. The editors argue that charter schools are playing a powerful role in reviving participation in public education, expanding opportunities for progressive methods in public school classrooms, and generating new energy for community-based, community-controlled school initiatives. The result is a groundbreaking volume that pushes boundaries, questions assumptions, and rocks foundations of progressive thought.

Foreword
Herbert Gintis

Acknowledgments

Introduction
Eric Rofes and Lisa M. Stulberg

1. What History Offers Progressive Choice Scholarship
Lisa M. Stulberg

PART I: Progressive Charter Schooling in Practice

2. Fulfilling the Hope of Brown v. Board of Education through Charter Schools
John B. King Jr.

3. Back to the Future: Ethnocentric Charter Schools in Hawai'i
Nina K. Buchanan and Robert A. Fox

4. Native American Charter Schools: Culture, Language, and Self-Determination
Mary Jiron Belgarde

5. Independent Black Schools and the Charter Movement
Patty Yancey

6. Voices of Progressive Charter School Educators
Melissa Steel King

PART II: Frameworks for Progressive School Choice Analysis

7. The Charter School Movement: Complementing or Competing with Public Education?
Alex Medler

8. School Choice through a Foucauldian Lens: Disrupting the Left's Oppositional Stance
Stacy Smith

9. Charter Schools as the Counterpublics of Disenfranchised Communities: Pedagogy of Resistance or False Consciousness?
Eric Rofes

Conclusion: Toward a Progressive Politics of School Choice
Eric Rofes and Lisa M. Stulberg

Contributors

Index

Sujets

• National
• Central

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780791484326
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

THE EMANCIPATORY PROMISE OF CHARTER SCHOOLS

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THE EMANCIPATORY PROMISE OF CHARTER SCHOOLS

Toward a Progressive Politics of School Choice

Edited by Eric Rofes and Lisa M. St ulberg

F OREWORD BY H G ERBERT INTIS

State University of New York Press

Cover Photo:

Sandie McDadeAllen

Published by State Universit y of New York Press, Albany

© 2004 State Universit y of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, address State Universit y of New York Press, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207

Production by Judith Block Marketing by Fran Keneston

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

The emancipator y promise of charter schools : toward a progressive politics of school choice / edited by Eric Rofes & Lisa M. St ulberg p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0791462358 — ISBN 0791462366 (pbk.) 1. Charter schools—Political aspects—United States. 2. School choice—Political aspects—United States. 3. Educational equalization—United States. I. Rofes, Eric E., 1954– II. St ulberg, Lisa M.

LB2806.36.E42 2004 371.01—dc22

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Foreword Herbert Gintis

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Acknowledgments Introduction Eric Rofes and Lisa M. St ulberg What Histor y Offers Progressive Choice Scholarship Lisa M. St ulberg

PART I: Progressive Charter Schooling in Practice Fulfilling the Hope ofBrown v. Board of Educationthrough Charter Schools John B. King, Jr. Back to the Fut ure: Ethnocentric Charter Schools in Hawai’i Nina K. Buchanan and Robert A. Fox Native American Charter Schools: Cult ure, Language, and SelfDetermination Mar y Jiron Belgarde Independent Black Schools and the Charter Movement Patt y Yancey Voices of Progressive Charter School Educators Melissa Steel King

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CONTENTS

PART II: Frameworks for Progressive School Choice Analysis 7. The Charter School Movement: Complementing or Competing with Public Education? 189 Alex Medler 8. School Choice through a Foucauldian Lens: Disrupting the Left’s Oppositional Stance 219 Stacy Smith

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Charter Schools as the Counterpublics of Disenfranchised Communities: Pedagogy of Resistance or False Consciousness? Eric Rofes Conclusion: Toward a Progressive Politics of School Choice Eric Rofes and Lisa M. St ulberg Contributors Index

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Progressives who deal with American education on the grassroots level have long awaited an intelligent, persuasive, and visionar y defense of school choice.The Emancipatory Promise of Charter Schools: Toward a Pro gressive Politics of School Choiceperfectly fits the bill. It has been more than a quarter cent ur y since Samuel Bowles and I publishedSchooling in Capi talist America. We there claimed that capitalism generates a high degree of within and acrossgenerational inequalit y, that IQ and other test scores ac count only for a small portion of that inequalit y, that schooling repro duces rather than ameliorates that inequalit y, and that schools contribute to worker productivit y in considerable part via the personalit y traits and behaviors they foster, rather than cognitive skills alone. Contemporar y re search has strengthened the empirical evidence underlying our analysis (Bowles, Gintis, & Groves, 2003; Bowles, Gintis, & Osborne, 2001). We are also no less committed today than we were when we conceived of and wroteSchoolingto the vision of making a better, more democratic societ y in which all have the material and social prerequisites for developing their personal capacities to the fullest. But neither there nor elsewhere have we offered concrete steps toward a more progressive educational system. This volume provides a long stride in this direction. When I wrote “The Political Economy of School Choice” forTeachers College Recordsome ten years ago, my progressive friends thought I had lost my sense of reason. Ever yone knew that school choice was a conservative plot to finance the private education of the welltodo, to bleed the public schools of needed revenue, and to add one more roadblock against the

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HERBERT GINTIS

struggle for social equalit y. Indeed, when I started writing about education in the 1970s, I shared this view. Not that I had ever really thought about the matter. I just knew that if Milton Friedman (the conservative Universit y of Chicago economist) was for it, and if the teachers unions were against it, I must be against it, too. Well, we were all ver y wrong. If school choice isfully funded, so that choice schools financed with government funds are not permitted to im pose t uition charges on families of st udents, as is the case with charter schools, then school choice can be an extremely progressive instit ution. Perhaps the most important attraction of school choice—and I use the admittedly broad term in this piece to mean those choice plans that allow for significant autonomy in curriculum and governance—is that a cre ative and dedicated group of teachers can set up their own school without being beholden to rich donors or to unresponsive school boards. This sort of creative experimentation is likely to improve both the average qualit y of schooling and the diversit y of t ypes of educational experience. A second major attraction of school choice is that parents will have much more inf luence over their children’s education than under the current system. In general, public instit utions work best when their con stit uents can control instit utional behavior (voice) and when they can vote with their feet by moving to a competitive supplier (exit). The public schools give parents ver y little voice and no exit. In traditional public schools, principals and teachers are beholden first and foremost to school boards, who hire and fire them, rather than parents, who have no more power than the average voter in making and changing school policy and determining school personnel. By contrast, school choice options, like charter schools, directly empower parents, yet citizens retain general con trol over the choice system by regulating and accrediting the educational instit utions that they fund. A third attraction of school choice is that poorly performing teach ers, and indeed poorly performing schools, need not be tolerated by par ents intent on improving their children’s education. The competition among schools for st udents will make it easier to eliminate deadwood and ineffective management is replaced. Many progressive educators are war y of “competition,” which they equate with the cutthroat capitalist marketplace. It is certainly true that cooperation is often more effective than competition, but in general, cooperation itself is enhanced in a competitive system. School choice allows teachers and administrators to cooperate voluntarily, subject only to the competitive restraint that parents and st udents must be satisfied with the

Foreword

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results of their cooperative efforts. Indeed, competition itself is problematic only when it leads to inequalit y. If choice schools are fully funded, an un equal distribution of financial resources cannot occur. Financial equalit y will not, of course, guarantee that better teachers will not prefer to work with more aff luent st udents, but it will allow the many teachers who are dedicated to improving the lot of the less aff luent to do so much more ef fectively. Nor will financial equalit y redress the fact that advantaged fami lies are more likely to have the time and energy to shop wisely for their children’s schools than are disadvantaged families. But social service agen cies and faithbased groups can be drawn upon to advise poor families how best to use their right to choose their children’s schools. A fourth attraction of school choice is that in choice schools, the in f luence of lesswelloff parents will be heightened. In traditional school, only parents who have the time, energy, and resources to devote to affect ing school policy and the school’s treatment of the children have an at tentive audience with school staff. With school choice, the simple threat of withdrawing one’s children and sending them elsewhere is enough to make school personnel stand up and listen. It is not surprising, then, that parents, st udents, and teachers find charter schools a highly positive experience, and that urban minorities are the strongest supporters of this choice alternative. What about the downside of school choice? Why have so many pro gressive educators rejected this alternative? I think the answer is ver y sim ple: they have taken the workers’ point of view instead of the consumers’, or, in this case, that of the teachers unions rather than the st udents. Or ganized teachers have a vested interest in the traditional school system be cause its monopoly position in controlling educational funds allows teachers’ organizations to bargain effectively, in a centralized framework, for higher wages. There are t wo weaknesses in these arguments for rejecting school choice. First, in many states and communities teachers are extremely well paid, and where they are not, it is unlikely that school choice will leave teachers less well off than they are now. Indeed, since dedicated and cre ative teachers are a basic prerequisite for charter school success, a wide spread choice system might well raise average salaries, both because high salaries will be needed to draw teachers from competing professions, and because the less capable teachers will be weeded out of the system, thus rais ing average teacher productivit y. Second, while the United States might be better served by a strong labor movement, this end must be achieved by labor legislation on the federal level that is applicable to all industries. The