DON’T ASSUME

…because I spent most of my working life in independant/private schools that I like the charter school idea.  In the best of all possible worlds the poorest children would have in pubic schools educational programs at least as good as those in the very best public schools.  I’m not going to resent those people who can pay 30 thousand dollars-a-year for each school age child, but I believe everybody else, regardless of income level should have equal educational opportunities offered by the State.  As it has developed, the charter school plan is another scheme to divert public money into privately held schools, the charter schools, within a public school system… not best for the poorest families, the people who have least power to change things for themselves and their neighbors.  In America we live in communities of people who are most like the people that we are.  Doctors and lawyers live in neighborhoods where other doctors and lawyers live… or they live in neighborhoods where people earn as much or more than doctors and lawyers earn.

There are few families living in poverty in areas where doctors and lawyers live.  Poverty hurts children and the hurt goes on as the child grows.  It’s not a matter of which people are more intelligent, which can process abstractions more quickly.  Any teacher in any public school in any city’s poor neighborhood will acknowledge that a classroom full of kids from a poor neighborhood react differently to information given to them by a teacher than do children from affluent families. At any of the schools where I was headmaster, no child was surrounded by people who had experienced stultifying failure and the poverty that often follows failure to get or keep a job.  A job that pays no more than minimum wage doesn’t get a family out of poverty. A child who lives in a poor family is surrounded by other poor people. 

Drive along Sunset Boulevard from the Beach in Malibu to Highway 101 to get a look at the wide varieties of American neighborhoods. Go into any 7-11 market in any strip mall east of Old Hollywood High School and take a look at the people on the sidewalks and in the stores. If you see children, try to imagine what a classroom might be like with 30 to 45 of those children in it.