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Impact of charter schools on Chicago students questioned by education group

Story by: Christopher Brinckerhoff

April 21, 2009 – On inauguration day, Wanda Hopkins was moved to tears at her daughter’s school as the youngsters of many races and backgrounds joined together in a prayer with the pastor onscreen.

“To see every child in that room reciting that prayer; it was just awesome,” Hopkins said. “I wanted to be a part of that just to get the experience and let [my daughter] tell me how she felt about it. But to just see all nationalities, all cultures embracing that, it was unbelievable. I never experienced anything like that in my entire life.”

Hopkins, assistant director of Parents United for Responsible Education, and whose daughter attends Andrew Jackson Elementary Language Academy, was very proud of President Barack Obama that day.

But nowadays the honeymoon is over.

When Obama made his first big education speech, Hopkins disagreed with his stance on charter schools.

Obama sees charter schools as one of the key ways of finding new teaching methods in the nation’s ailing education system. During his speech at the beginning of March, the president said charter schools are where much of the innovation in education is taking place, and he suggested that the U.S. remove caps on their numbers.

Hopkins, on the other hand, feels charter schools were given more credit than they deserve. The major flaw, she said, is that some skim off the most talented students, leaving out those who need the greatest help. Meanwhile, Chicago’s public schools must take all comers.

Indeed, her concern has become a growing issue nationally as charter schools grow while public schools struggle.

Hopkins gave an example of one family that has two children in a charter high school. One of the students, a junior, was doing well and getting good grades. The other, a freshman, was struggling. The school officials explained to the children’s mother the freshman was “not the right fit,” Hopkins said.

“But it was the right fit for that other student who was achieving and making them look good,” she said.

While charter schools have more ability to control their student enrollment, according to another Obama supporter, they should not be using that power to exclude students unfairly.

John Ayers, senior associate at the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, an organization that authorizes charter schools in multiple states, believes charter schools are a significant source of education innovation.

Additionally, Ayers said the district system is not equitable. With magnet schools the district is basically set up to serve middle class families, according to Ayers.

“The fact is, we teach the toughest kids in the system, not the easiest kids,” he said. “Now some charter schools individually, yeah sure, they push out kids; and when they do that their authorizers should come down on them like a ton of bricks.”

Not all charter schools are bad; some are good, according to Hopkins. But Mayor Daley’s plan to provide new schools for people who can already afford a private education has damaged communities, she said. The charter schools have, at times, been intertwined with a plan to create schools for families who would otherwise pay for a private education.

“They don’t tell you the whole underlining issue back in 2001 when [Mayor Daley] talked about how he was going to create schools where normally the parents would pay for education would soon be able to send their children to Chicago Public Schools,” Hopkins said. “He’s creating that agenda right now before you. It’s a political game. Obama, I don’t think he understands all this.”

“The charter movement is by no means uniformly good,” Ayers said. “It just so happens that in Chicago we have one of the better charter movements because we’ve taken care of only giving permission to strong groups to start, and closing some of the charter schools that are off of the list. And in some other states that doesn’t happen.”

Will Caref, student services coordinator at Youth Connections Charter School, said their school is different from many of the other charters in Chicago in that they operate their 21 campuses with government funding instead of money from corporations or foundations.

Youth Connections was designed to serve students who have dropped out of the Chicago Public Schools, according to Caref. His main concern is not focused on how many charter schools there are.

“I’m personally in favor of more innovative education,” Caref said. “And where it comes from, what structure is, either way is fine by me, whether it’s public education or charter education.”

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