110833841
To the Editor:
Tom Cardella believes parents should be able to choose where to send their children (“The illusion of school choice,” April 2). The main question is: Who pays for it? Second question: Who has the final choice, the parent or the school? Cardella does not address that point.
“Choice” has taken on a new meaning with the advent of charter schools. In the new age of education as competitive business, they are considered a free “alternative” to public and private schools. No wonder the rise of charter enrollment has been accompanied by closings in the public and private sectors. (My old high school, Saint Maria Goretti, even with boys added, has fewer pupils in its entire student body than we had in our senior class alone.)
The main reason charters are so popular is that they are publicly funded yet managed like private schools – with little oversight. They are supposed to follow the same general rules as district schools, but they make up some of their own, in particular how they admit and discharge students. A student cannot simply transfer to a charter school in the beginning of spring as he can a district school. Charters cherry-pick their populations with every means at their disposal. As attractive as that is to many parents, the school makes the final decision to admit. On that basis alone, choice is an illusion.
Cardella is correct about charters’ funding. The school district per-pupil funds do follow them to the charter with no reimbursement from the state, even with the same overhead. What he does not mention is that, after December, a student can be expelled while his funding remains with the charter. Right before test-taking season, charters are notorious for releasing their most difficult students, who return to the district minus the money. Thus, many charters accumulate reserve funds that district schools can only imagine and can boost their test scores by eliminating the harder-to-teach students. Clever and unfair.
I am glad to read Cardella recognizes the problems concentrated in urban education. There are no easy fixes for a system that must take all comers, including, and this is no exaggeration, children speaking 77 different languages. Expansion of charters, along with the absence of a fair state funding formula, has only added to that burden.
I am also glad he recognizes that education is an essential good all citizens must support and that teaching is a true profession facing unique challenges.
If we really want to guarantee choice, we must provide for a thorough and efficient education for all children, just as it says in our Constitution. We are not responsible for the private and the religious choices of every parent. We just dumped a governor who did not support public education. Let’s be very careful whom we choose to lead our city.
Gloria C. Endres South Philadelphia
110833851
