Wouldn't Saul Alinsky suggest that is when the cover blows off this whole education reform thing? The 'Have's' don't care because their kids are in awesome/precious/high achieving private schools. The 'Have Nots' sometimes care, but we live in a world where the rest of us are (incredibly) relatively comfortable with the 'Have Nots' crappy education options, especially if it means keeping those kids out of our 'good' schools, i.e. "Keep those dirty NCLB kids out of my kid's wonderful public school!"
But what about when the middle- and upper-middle class decides that paying all these taxes for mediocre (at best) public schools for their kids is pure lunacy? What happens when the stroller set decides that they, too, are sick and tired of being sick and tired?
What happens when parents in comfortable pockets of cities like New York, and Boston, and Los Angeles, and Washington, etc. figure out that their kids aren't getting as good an education as the kids attending high-performing public charter schools in the ghetto?
Writing in today's Daily News, former TFA'er Siobhan Sheils takes up the issue:
Charter schools in wealthier neighborhoods make sense to just about everyone, except – you guessed it – the teachers unions. Sure, the United Federation of Teachers is technically on board with the movement – even founding two of its own charter schools.
But while it's virtually impossible at this point for unions to oppose successful charters in places like the South Bronx and Harlem, the politics of charters in richer, whiter neighborhoods can be far more complicated. Parents who are living comfortably aren't supposed to need an "out" from the existing system. But the numbers suggest they do.
Those of us who support good public schools should want them for everyone. Brooklyn Prospect and others that follow in its footsteps could mark a serious shift in the charter school movement. And it's happening not a moment too soon.
Someone should ask the elected officials in places like Park Slope what is stopping them from backing these kinds of quality public schools from sprouting there.