Charter school’s myth vs. fact: What I’d tell NAACP
Two Fridays ago, a national debate in education came to Florida: Are charter schools a good thing, and specifically, are they good for children of color? The second part of the question is particularly interesting to the civil-rights organization that hosted a hearing in Orlando to explore it: the NAACP. It’s also a vital question to me as an African-American educator. So, I made the trip from Polk County to speak.
As the leader of an entire district of charter schools in Lake Wales, I wanted the NAACP’s education task force to hear from someone who has worked for nearly three decades in both traditional public schools and in charter schools, which are also public.
There are so many misunderstandings about charter schools even though they’ve been in Florida for 20 years. Many people think they’re private. (They’re not. They’re funded by taxes and are accountable academically and financially.) There’s also a perception charter schools are not open to all students. (They are, and Lake Wales finds room for any child in our town.) Most unfairly, charter schools get accused of not serving the most challenged of young people. In fact, compared to district schools nationally, charter schools enroll a higher percentage of low-income and minority students. More than half of my district’s students are nonwhite, and 70 percent qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.
I had hoped to share those facts with the NAACP’s task force, along with our unusual history in Lake Wales. Our schools were once part of the Polk County school district, but the community had a low opinion of the system. In 2004, teachers and parents at five of seven public schools voted (by margins greater than 70 percent) to convert to charter schools so we’d have more control locally. Since that time, we have made great strides. I wanted to show the task force the chart where Lake Wales High School’s graduation rate last year exceeded all but one high school in Polk County and is on par with the U.S. average. I wanted to brag that our graduation rate for AfricanAmerican and Hispanic males is the same as for the school overall — 84 percent and 81 percent, respectively, compared to 59 percent and 65 percent nationally. In Lake Wales, we have a program that provides extra support and motivation to our young men of color, and it’s closing gaps commonly seen in education.
Across Florida, nearly half the state’s 650 charter schools get an “A,” compared to only 34 percent of district schools. AfricanAmerican middle-school students in charter schools outscored their peers in traditional schools on math and reading tests by 11 points.
These are facts I thought a task force charged with exploring the inequities of America’s education system would be encouraged by, serving as an indication that the students the NAACP cares about most are being welleducated by the kind of schools the organization is so opposed to — they called for a moratorium on new charters last summer. I waited to speak for three hours before I had to leave. The task force spent nearly five hours taking testimony from pre-selected presenters who don’t work in charter schools every day like I do and, in most cases, don’t work in or attend any school at all. Speaker after speaker reinforced the myths that continue to mislead the public about schools like mine. Teachers union leaders testified and were cheered. (Unions hate that most charter schools aren’t unionized.) The “hearing” was just a show to shore up a shaky policy. I was discouraged to see that from a respected civil-rights organization that has fought for inclusion.
My hope is that somewhere along the task force’s multicity tour, it’ll get to hear from charter-school leaders, teachers, parents, students and graduates. Some charter schools are terrible (like some district schools), and those get shut down. However, the overall result of having school choice is what you can see in Lake Wales: community support, parent and student satisfaction, devoted faculty and staff, diversity and strong academic achievement. Rather than arguing about school type, we should be spending our energy on combating inequity and ensuring that every family, in every community, has a great public school.
That’s what I wanted to say.