Steve Newton doesn’t pull any punches with his latest post entitled: A thought on the Pencader mess that will get me into trouble.
When you decide to place your child in a charter school, you are knowingly taking part in an educational experiment. All that “freedom” from stultifying government rules comes with a concurrent responsibility: if you don’t want government rules, you don’t get the same level of government oversight.
Put another way: charter schools are, by definition, experiments, and some experiments fail. That is an intended part of the charter school model–that poorly designed, organized, or funded charter schools will fail.
I’m beginning to believe that many Charter school parents don’t understand what a Charter school is. They don’t understand that the basic tenet of Charter schools is: poorly designed, organized, or funded charter schools will fail.
This is what free market education looks like. You can agree or disagree with Charters, but you can’t change this reality.
Pencader is obviously in trouble – how much trouble is anyone’s guess – and I’ve written about it here. I still think the government has a role to play in this mess, but that role involves finding out if Pencader has violated any laws. It does not involve saving the school.
Steve spells this out in no uncertain terms:
It totally pisses me off to hear parents complain and cry for government rescue when a charter school is failing because it’s hypocritical.
YOU opted out of the system of government oversight. YOU either knew or should have known the risks you were taking with your child’s education. YOU had every opportunity to see the warning signs and either organize to raise holy hell or vote with your feet and get your child out of that school.
That’s going to leave a mark. But… it’s true. There are risks involved with Charter schools. Enrolling your child into one without understanding these risks is dangerous.
Here is a recap (and additions) of a comment I left over at Delaware Libertarian:
Perhaps there should be a law stating that when you enroll your child at a Charter school you will have to sign a form acknowledging that:
- Charter schools are an educational experiment
- Charter schools do not have the same government oversight
- If the Charter school closes after the Choice deadline your child will return to his/her feeder pattern school.
The last point is a biggie. On several sites I have read comments by parents calling for Choice to be reopened should the school close.
Um, NO.
I say this because there are plenty of parents who submitted a Choice application during the scheduled time and didn’t receive their choice. It simply isn’t fair for parents of a closed charter school to butt in line. Simply put, you cannot opt out of the traditional public school system and then ask for preferential treatment when you need to opt back in.
While there are many benefits to Charter schools, there are also risks. When you enroll your child into a Charter you sign up for both.