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I found this website (https://www.publicschoolreview.com/compare-schools) that compares public schools close in proximity to one another. This website gives you the student to teacher ratio, ethnicity breakdown, % Eligible for Free and Reduced Lunch, and other interesting bits of information.

As an example, I did my highschool Coliseum College Prep Academy located in Oakland, CA, and Piedmont High School which is approximately 15 minutes away from Coliseum College Prep Academy. Here is the link to the differences: https://www.publicschoolreview.com/compare-schools/ca/6001/9/131096/10691#results

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For this padlet, you can either examine the results from the example I provided or you can upload an example of your own.                                              .                                                             For these schools to only be 15 minutes away from one another, what did you learn from the reading that helps explain this? What is something that shocks you about the school profiles? How can we connect this to the opportunity gap that is mentioned in Chapter 2: The Anatomy of Inequality: How the Opportunity Gap is Constructed? 

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For this padlet, you can either examine the results from the example I provided or you can upload an example of your own.                                              .                                                             For these schools to only be 15 minutes away from one another, what did you learn from the reading that helps explain this? What is something that shocks you about the school profiles? How can we connect this to the opportunity gap that is mentioned in Chapter 2: The Anatomy of Inequality: How the Opportunity Gap is Constructed? 

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"the accumulated differences in access to key educational resources--expert teachers, personalized attention, high-quality curriculum opportunities, good educational materials, and plentiful information resources-- that support learning at home and at school" (Darling-Hammond, 28)

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Here's an article on the funding compositions of public schools. As a proportion of funding comes from local property tax (22%) , this shows why location matters when it comes to public education

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California now spends slightly more per student than other states-but ranks below average when accounting for labor costs. Although funding levels reached record highs during the pandemic, falling enrollment and rising costs mean schools will face fiscal challenges ahead.

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Additional info on how location affect education!

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Since the Federal Housing Administration was established in 1934, housing segregation has been entrenched in the fiber of the American landscape. By refusing to insure mortgages in and near African-American neighborhoods, the Federal Housing Administration encouraged segregation, forcing minorities to remain in urban centers while whites moved to ever-expanding suburbs.

This tactic has since become known as redlining, which is defined as the "the systematic denial of various services to residents of specific, often racially associated, neighborhoods or communities, either directly or through the selective raising of prices." Although this explicit form of redlining was declared illegal over 50 years ago in 1968 with the passage of the Fair Housing Act, it continues its harm today.

The echoes of this policy still impact our cityscapes. With educational funding tied to property taxes, and in extension the value of the housing in a neighborhood, redlining still contributes to the systematic denial of resources to poor and minority neighborhoods.

Technology provides families with an abundance of tools and options which allow them to find the perfect neighborhood to move their families into. Many families heavily consider an area based on school desirability. Websites like Greatschools allow these families to effortlessly evaluate schools based on quality, test scores, and environment.

According to Greatschools, their rating follows a "1-10 scale, where 10 is the highest and 1 is the lowest." Each rating is assigned a color along a gradient: dark green is a 10, yellow is a 5, and orange is a 1. With parents becoming more tech savvy, it is simple for a parent to choose the school which most fits their desires and budget. Why choose to have your children attend a school rated a 2 when you can move into a similar district with a school rated an 8?

Students are assigned to attend schools based on where they live, which means the amount of funding those schools receive may drastically impact the quality of educational resources available to a student. Comparing neighborhoods in San Diego County, the quality of schools in Carlsbad compared to Vista seems a stark contrast.

In the screenshot below, compare the number of green vs. yellow or orange ratings between the two neighborhoods, and compare the highest, lowest, and median scores of the schools in these districts.

Consider the following demographics of the two areas. The median income for residents of Carlsbad rests at $102,722. In contrast, the same figure is $59,833 in Vista. The average home prices crests at $835,300 in Carlsbad and $548,700 in Vista.

This provides some insight into how one district is rated higher than the other. Property taxes are used as modern day barriers to prevent all students from succeeding in the public school system.

When students receive their educational funding through these means, it reinforces their social standing. There is no freedom in moving to a better school district, as most families are locked into the neighborhoods they can afford. With access to education locked in based on socio-economic status their educational prospects and ability to alter status is significantly hindered.

This self-perpetuating cycle harms every student's ability to succeed. By cracking open these norms and providing low income students with quality education, it is possible to begin to overcome these inequalities and begin to undo the decades of redlining entrenched in our educational system.

Jonathan Jimenez - Research Associate

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Redlining and its stealth impact on Education

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Since the Federal Housing Administration was established in 1934, housing segregation has been entrenched in the fiber of the American landscape. By refusing to insure mortgages in and near African-American neighborhoods, the Federal Housing Administration encouraged segregation, forcing minorities to remain in urban centers while whites moved to ever-expanding suburbs.

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For another education class (EDUC W153: Research in Education), I was assigned to visit the website kidsdata.org and research the differences between racial and ethnic groups in California schools, mainly regarding graduation rates. My findings can be found on the document I attached to this comment, but one of my main findings was that the graduation rate for the “Asian American” and “White” groups are usually the highest in all four California counties I looked at. From the data provided from these four counties, it could be inferred that California’s education system is tailored well to Asian American and White students. This was when I noticed the varying schooling experience based on race was still a prevalent issue in the American education system.

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The Correlation Between Segregation and Income Inequality

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The Correlation Between Segregation and Income Inequality

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Residence and school assignment are closely linked due to the widespread tradition of locally controlled schools, and this residential segregation is related to growing income inequality in the United States. According to the podcast “The Problem We All Live With” by This American Life, African Americans and Mexicans live in worse neighborhoods on average due to income inequality and thus receive education of worse quality, further increasing the gap between them and others.

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Thank you Reynalda for the information! I have found another piece of very interesting text to share with the group https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274171091_The_Resegregation_of_Public_Schools
it pretty much talks about the drivers and impacts of school resegregation in the United States and how it shapes the education system and perpetuate the rigid social structure we live in today.

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Berkeley City College vs Santa Monica College

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Berkeley City College vs Santa Monica College

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https://www.usnews.com/education/community-colleges?int=top_nav_Community_Colleges

Thank you for sharing!
I chose these two community colleges; BCC and SMC, because I studied in BCC for a while, and I heard that SMC was a popular community college in LA, and therefore I would like to compare it to see the differences. Moreover, this website shows me an ethnic and gender distribution, tuition fees, and others information about school facilities.

1.Berkeley City college:

https://www.usnews.com/education/community-colleges/berkeley-city-college-CC00553

2. Santa Monica College

https://www.usnews.com/education/community-colleges/santa-monica-college-CC07613

<Comparison>

One thing that I found interesting was the ethnic distribution in SMC. In 2018, there were lots of Hispanics/Latino and Whites, whereas the BCC’s ethnic distribution was quite well distributed.

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Somethings that makes me shock on the school profiles were the difference of ethnicity distribution and unweighted GPA in CCPA(Coliseum College Prep Academy)and PHS(Piedmont High School). Even if two schools are closed to each other, there are lots of Whites(62%) in Piedmont Hight school, but a lot of Latino(76%) and African-Americans(15%) are in CCPA. Moreover, the difference between the number of students who get higher GPA rates is a lot different from each other. Most of the students in PHS get a GPA of 3.0 or above, while mainly 3.0 or below in CCPA. Through this fact, I began to want to know why there is such a big difference in GPA rate. To answer this, I think that the opportunity gap makes these differences. To begin with, CCPA has a higher rate of African-Americans and Latinos, and it would lead them to have a lack of access to the same quality of instruction. Since in the reading this week, we found out that the quality of instruction to African-Americans or other non-whites were even lower than Whites, And, this GPA difference with different students may cause the opportunity gap, which causes the achievement gaps.

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Link:
https://socialistworker.org/2013/07/17/resegregation-of-chicago-schools
https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1012&context=amst_honors

Chicago was ranked as the most serious city for the segregation of residences according to black and white races.
White people in the Chicago area live in the suburbs and north of the city, black people live in the south and some parts of the west, and Hispanic people live in the west.
Almost 79 percent of Chicago Public Schools are mostly black or Latino, and only 3 percent are white. Only 12 percent of schools in Chicago have more than 25 percent of white students.

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Location affects the students performance 

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Location affects the students performance 

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https://www.businessinsider.com/what-you-need-to-know-if-youre-planning-on-moving-to-a-neighborhood-for-the-good-schools-2012-5
Above is the link to extra resources that depicts the effect of location on  education

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Know what the number 1 indicator of SAT score levels is is?

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Know what the number 1 indicator of SAT score levels is is?

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Zip code.
https://ed100.org/lessons/whereyoulive
and https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED598342.pdf

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Numbers -- Per Pupil Spending highs and lows from Kozol's book (2006)

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Numbers -- Per Pupil Spending highs and lows from Kozol's book (2006)

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I went to Churchill High School.  My father pulled me out and sent me to a private school in 1979 when busing started but before the merger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchill_Area_High_School. (FYI, my middle school that fed into this high school had two African Americans attending.  Two.

then, after the merger and poor policies.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodland_Hills_Junior_/_Senior_High_School
My private School:
https://www.privateschoolreview.com/shady-side-academy-senior-school-profile
(Those diversity numbers are definitely higher now than in the late 70s/early 80s when I went there!)

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I also find the ethnicity composition of the two schools of particular interest - although having nearly the same number of teacher-student ratio, one school is mostly Latino and African-American whereas the other has a white majority. Even though the teaching looks equally when looking at these numbers, the GPA does not reflect the case. This is clearly an effect of the environment that the students are in, and clear evidence that resegregation, or at least the sole concentration of race in schools, is not benificial for minorities and offers them less future oppertunities.

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To me, the most shocking discrepency between the two schools came in the percentage of students eligible for free or reduced lunch. At Coliseum College Prep Academy, 87% of the students were eligible for free lunch, and 7% of students were eligible for reduced payment lunch. That means that 94% of the students at Coliseum College Prep Academy are food insecure. In contrast, only 1% of the students at Piedmont high were eligible for free or reduced lunch. That is an incredible difference that, of course, is a reflection of deliberate socio-economic zoning. I wanted to bring up how this lack of socioeconomic diversity at a k-12 level has a negative impact on our society. Those students at Piedmont are robbed of the opportunity to befriend, attend classes with, and spend time with students from different socioeconomic backgrounds. Consequently, statistics related to poverty, food insecurity, etc. will continue to be nothing more than statistics for them. If, in contrast, those students were in classrooms with students suffering from food insecurity, poverty, etc., they'd actually have the chance to internalize the fact that those are human issues that fellow citizens are suffering from. That classmates are suffering from. As opposed to the much easier to ignore numbers.

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Monta Vista High School vs. Abraham Lincoln High School

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Monta Vista High School vs. Abraham Lincoln High School

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https://www.publicschoolreview.com/compare-schools/ca/6085/9/7351/11843#results
I compared my high school (Monta Vista) with a nearby school in San Jose (Abraham Lincoln). I was really surprised by the massive difference in ethnicity between the two schools. I was born in San Jose, and if my family did not move to Cupertino, I would have attended Lincoln. My high school was mostly Asian (81%) but it seems like Abraham Lincoln is mostly Hispanic (74%), and I remember while I was at Monta Vista, I barely saw any Hispanic kids at the school. I probably would have had a different experience if I went to Lincoln because I would have been in the "minority" since Lincoln is only 6% Asian whereas at Monta Vista I was part of the "majority." Furthermore, there is a big difference in the percentage of students who qualify for free lunch. 47% of students at Lincoln qualify while only 4% at Monta Vista qualify, so there is a big socioeconomic difference between the two communities. Especially at Monta Vista, I think there is not enough socioeconomic diversity, and I recall there almost being an automatic assumption that if you go to school there, you come from an upper middle class family. This is negative for students who are low-income because the teachers there automatically assumed that you had access to technology and whatever resource you needed to finish your work when this was not necessarily the case.

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My High School (Berkeley High School) V. Oakland Tech

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My High School (Berkeley High School) V. Oakland Tech

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The two schools I'm comparing the are the two closest high schools to my house. I went to Berkeley High School, but I almost went to Oakland Tech.

https://www.publicschoolreview.com/oakland-technical-high-school-profile

https://www.publicschoolreview.com/berkeley-high-school-profile

According to the stats Oakland tech is in the top1% for diversity in of students in CA, but other than that it has little to no distinguable statistics, and is a mediocre school. Where is Berkeley High,  is in the top 20% for academic performance in CA and it is fairly diverse with being in top 5% schools for diversity.  One key distinction between these two school districts, is that Berkeley only has one public high school meaning funding isn't as strained as Oakland's numerous high schools. In addition to this Berkeley has a special tax for education funding, which allows for it have better performance due there being a large schools budgets due to the education tax.  All I can say to this is, is that cities should model the special tax plan that's in Berkeley, in order to create better schools. From my personal experience I absolutely loved high school, and thought Berkeley High was a great school!

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So I'm from a international school in Asia, so I am not too familiar with the high school public systems here. From my analysis of looking at the two school profiles, a very glaring disparity is its ethnicity distribution for its demographics as well as its GPA. Firstly, the astonishing difference between the racial makeup of the two schools is something that is hard to take eyes off. In Piedmont High School, the majority (62%) of the student population is white while in Coliseum College Prep Academy, the majority of the student demographic is latino with 76%. This is shocking because the two school districts are only supposed to be 15 miles apart, yet the demographic breakdown is so drastically different. Moreover, the GPA of the two schools are also different with Piedmont High School having majority of its students to be above 3.0 while Coliseum College Prep Academy having majority of its students to be below the 3.0 mark. Although there may be many confounding factors that result in such a disparity in race and GPA, but there sure is an association that reflects that the place affects the public schooling systems; hence, the opportunity gap.

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The official school website

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Piedmont High School is a small comprehensive high school located in the East Bay hills of the San Francisco Bay Area and is in the Piedmont City Unified School District. It has one feeder middle school located on an adjoining campus. The city of Piedmont sustains a strong sense of community. There is a steady priority to maintain educational programs and services and to upgrade or expand school facilities. Parent participation in school activities is extensive; parents and community members have developed a variety of support organizations for academics, athletics, visual arts, performing arts, Special Education and a community-wide educational foundation. Learn more "

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Piedmont High School is a small comprehensive high school located in the East Bay hills of the San Francisco Bay Area and is in the Piedmont City Unified School District. It has one feeder middle school located on an adjoining campus. The city of Piedmont sustains a strong sense of community.

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Coliseum College Prep Academy Official Website

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Coliseum College Prep Academy Official Website

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The following 12 OUSD schools have been selected to participate in the Alameda County Transportation Commission (Alameda CTC) student transit pass program for the 2019-20 School Year: Castlemont, Coliseum College Prep (CCPA), Elmhurst/Alliance, Fremont, Frick Impact Academy, McClymonds, Oakland High, Oakland International, Roosevelt, Urban Promise Academy, West Oakland Middle and Westlake.

This program will provide ALL students at these schools with free AC Transit bus passes that will be valid year-round! Sign ups will begin during registration at each school site. If you have any questions, please contact the school office.

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The following 12 OUSD schools have been selected to participate in the Alameda County Transportation Commission (Alameda CTC) student transit pass program for the 2019-20 School Year: Castlemont, Coliseum College Prep (CCPA), Elmhurst/Alliance, Fremont, Frick Impact Academy, McClymonds, Oakland High, Oakland International, Roosevelt, Urban Promise Academy, West Oakland Middle and Westlake.

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Many people stopped saying “achievement gap” when referring to the difference in academic performance between students from low-income communities and those from affluent areas. The shift of terminology is interesting in a way that reflects the reason why students perform differently academically and socially due to the opportunities that they are given.

While a shift in terminology will not solve the pervasive inequities students face, words have meaning. It’s important to use language in a solutions-oriented way that promotes systemic reform and empowers communities to demand more.

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I have found a website called ProPublica that has accumulated comprehensive data released by the US Department of Education as Civil Rights Data and placed it according to place:
https://projects.propublica.org/miseducation/
(Check the website out, its very comprehensive and explains key details through graphs).

An analysis of the data clearly points out the grievances of racial inequality prevalent in US:
1. White students are approximately 2 times more likely on average to get into an AP Class. It goes up to as high a factor as 2.6 in states like Michigan and North Carolina
2. Black students are on an average approximately around 4 to 5 times more likely to receive stricter punishments when it comes to discipline like education. It goes up to as high as a factor of 7.5 in states such as Wisconsin.
3. Places like District of Columbia that have a non white student composition of 90% have a high school graduation rate of just 69% in comparison to states like Iowa that have a non white student composition of just 23% but high school graduation rates are around 91%.

The stark contrast between how different communities are treated and the kind of access they have to resources coupled with how their location and composition of that location affect their education is a big concern and a proof of resegregation.

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Something interesting I noticed in the reading is that policymakers who receive opposition for desegregating schools (promoted by policies such as affordable housing) are often forced to consider an alternative: allocating more resources to primarily black and hispanic schools as a means of compensating for setbacks and segregation.
Allocating more resources, however, is very hard to do and implement, as it too has seen opposition according to the research paper. This is not even to mention that this is a more expensive option than simply introducing diversity into public schools. The research shows that desegregation is the best option to help minorities progress forward, and the research paper suggests that desegregation can bring new learning perspectives to students of all colors.

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Skyline High School v. Federal Way High School

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Skyline High School v. Federal Way High School

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Thank you Reynalda for sharing this link! I compared my brother’s high school (Skyline) with Federal Way High School in Washington and was surprised to see such statistical differences. While both public schools have large total number of students with comparable student:teacher ratios, I noticed that student ethnicities were the complete opposite. Skyline had a 33% Asian, 7% Hispanic, 1% Black, and 55% White student makeup. On the other hand, Federal Way had 11% Asian, 34% Hispanic, 16% Black, 9% Hawaiian, and 20% White student body. In addition, similar to the results found between Coliseum College Prep Academy and Piedmont High School, the percentage of students who were eligible for free lunch was far higher for Federal Way with 53% than for Skyline with 3%. Students attending Skyline High School have higher proficiencies in math and reading/language arts than the state average while students at Federal Way High School have proficiency rates below the state average. These statistics have unfortunately shown me how significant the location and neighborhood is to different educational opportunities, educational success, and experiences for students in America.

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For my example I used my high school, Heritage, and the high school about 15 minutes away from my house , Antioch High School, that was notoriously for being “ghetto” in my small extremely racist hometown.

Heritage:

https://www.publicschoolreview.com/heritage-high-school-profile/94513

Antioch:

https://www.publicschoolreview.com/antioch-high-school-profile

My high school growing up was mostly white, 47% according to the study, which is lower than the state average. Only about 16% of the students were eligible for free lunch in comparison to the state average of 53%. The teacher to student ratio is high, 24:1, and it is in the top 20% of high schools in the state, with a matching top 1% graduation rate. When you visit the data for Antioch high school, it becomes extremely apparent the major differences between the two schools. It is within the lowest 50% of all California schools in math/reading proficiency. in terms of qualifying for free lunch, Antioch lists 61%, miles above Heritage. However, when you look at the proportion of white students that go to this school it is only 17%, while the minority enrollment is at 83% (6% higher than the CA state average). Therefore, the teacher ratio between the two schools are the same, but the funding provided to Antioch High School is far undeserving its community and minority students. I think what this study truly reminded me of was the reputation that preceded Antioch High School, that infiltrated parents and students alike. The slurs, insults, and general inferiority aimed at the school/students during football and basketball games was abhorrent. It makes me think how many people believed that education was a privilege only given access to more affluent white communities, instead of a privilege in which academic resources should be shared and ALL students valued/heard.

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The only major difference that I found from the two schools upon close inspection is the difference in the student ethnic backgrounds. It seems to me that though the two schools are so close to each other, their performance metrics differ by a large margin, and the difference is mainly because of the mix of student ethnicities. This relates back to the reading, where in Chapter 2, the author mentioned that White students and Hispanic or Black students may not receive the same quality of education simply because they go to schools that are somewhat segregated. And this is certainly true in the case of PHS and CCPA.

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I was actually very interested to see a comparison of my high school, Shasta High School, to our rival high school, Enterprise High School.
https://www.publicschoolreview.com/compare-schools/ca/6089/12/12412/12410#results
The reason I was so interested in doing this comparison is because of the reputation that these schools held in my area. Now, I want to make it clear right now that I did not support or feed into these stereotypes. However, Shasta High School had the reputation of being the "preppy white school" while Enterprise had the reputation of the "ghetto black school." I am not sure where the data on this might be, but many thought that Shasta sent kids to college at a much higher rate than Enterprise. In some ways, however, the discrepancies were actually not as pronounced as I expected. For example, Shasta has a slightly higher student-teacher ratio than Enterprise does. However, Enterprise is definitely more ethnically diverse. Shasta is 73% white, while Enterprise is only 55% white. Shasta has only 12% Hispanic students, as opposed to Enterprise's 20%. In terms of finances, 34% of Shasta's students are eligible for free lunch as opposed to Enterprise's 48%. In any case, it was interesting to explore this data and see how the unfortunate stereotypes may have arisen from this situation.

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For my example, I used the two public high schools that are closest to me, being Huntington Beach High School and Ocean View High School. These schools are less than 5 minutes apart but after comparing their statistics, I found astonishing differences between the two.

Here are the links for each school's profiles:

https://www.publicschoolreview.com/huntington-beach-high-school-profile

https://www.publicschoolreview.com/ocean-view-high-school-profile

One major difference that I found to be notable between these two high schools of extremely close proximity is through examining their ethnicity statistics. I believe that it is first important to understand that Huntington High has just under 3,000 students whereas Ocean View has around 1,400 students. Huntington Beach High school has 13% Asian, 21% Hispanic, 1% Black, 59% White, and 6% of two or more races. On the other hand, Ocean View has 10% Asian, 61% Hispanic, 1% Black, 26% White, and 2% of two or more races. I had never realized how different these high schools' ethnicity profiles are, with Huntington Beach High School having a 21% Hispanic student body whereas Ocean View has a 61% Hispanic student body. Another major difference that I came across while comparing the two was the difference in the percentage of students eligible for free lunch, with Huntington Beach having 16% compared to Ocean View's 54%. Overall, I found these large contrasts in the data of these two schools extremely thought-provoking.

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Choosing charter schools rather than public school

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Choosing charter schools rather than public school

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A difference I noticed between schools in the same city with different exam and ethnicity statistics is the qualification of the teachers. I remember having numerous amount of substitute teachers because they could not find a qualified person to hire that would stay for long. This is not the case for charter schools or wealthier schools. My younger brother attends a charter high school; he has teachers who have doctoral degrees. This causes more segregation because parents will want to take their kids to schools with better teachers. As more parents take their children out of the public education system, public schools will have less funding. In the long run, this will leave the students attending public school at a bigger disadvantage. I appreciate the efforts of charter schools, but people should tackle the problem differently rather than privatizing public education and reinforcing segregation.

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What I find most shocking is the difference of GPA between these two schools. The distribution of unweighted GPA of class of 2021 of Coliseum College Prep Academy has an even shape—few of the students get below 2.0 but also few of the students get above 4.0. Rather, most of students have a GPA evenly distributed from 2.0 to 3.9. The average and the median of their GPA is around 2.8. On the other hand, the distribution of unweighted GPA of class of 2020 of Piedmont High School has a left-skewed shape—few students have low GPA and most students have high GPA. About half of the graduating class have a GPA ranged from 3.76 to 4.00 and only about 1% of the students have a GPA of 2.5 or lower. The comparison of the statistics really shocks me because these two school are close to each other, so I do not expect such an enormous gap in academic performance between the two schools. From what I have learnt from readings, I think that whites, historically, have better learning environments in which there are plenty resources and that their peers are also usually from wealthy or well-educated family. Therefore, although there is no segregation now, the opportunity gap between white students and black students is still large.

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I emailed my friend who is an elected official in public education

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I emailed my friend who is an elected official in public education

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I emailed someone I knew about these opportunity gaps.  She is a well respected member of the state board of education.  This was her take when I asked her about the differences in educational opportunities:

What recurring problems do you see most in your time as an advocate for public education?

The drive to privatize public education. Good private schools in major cities charge on average $14,000-$20,000 per year and "vouchers" or charters are being offered for half that. Good private schools won't take vouchers or the strings that are attached to state requirements like high-stakes, standardized tests.

Charters (for-profit public schools) are popping up with uncredentialed educators and high turnover, offering either a way for wealthy kids to avoid going to public schools that have "those kids" in them or a subpar educational experience for the poor with uninvolved parents. Charter schools are being managed by school boards that are appointed rather than elected by their communities. Many of these board members are paid or receive perks like private jet travel (see IDEA schools in Texas). Some states have been using charters and/or vouchers for years. Look at Michigan, Indiana, Florida, Arizona, California, etc. Each state oversees this public school privatization movement differently. Betsy DeVos, our current U.S. Secretary of Education is a big charter proponent and is attempting to cut federal funding to public schools. Charter schools fail all the time. In my opinion, this is capitalism at the expense of taxpayers and on the backs of our kids. When a charter shuts down, kids return to their public schools, often behind. You see, public schools can't turn away a student. When a charter school decides a kid isn't "cutting it," they kick them out to go back to their public school.

So why do families leave their public schools? Because of tests that force-rank children, educators, and schools. Forced ranking means someone is always at the bottom. Close down those schools and you can go to a charter or a private religious school that costs less and accepts vouchers. Charters aren't overcrowded, and most kids do better in less crowded schools until they don't. Besides being force-ranked from the bottom to the top, many public schools aren't funded well anymore. Texas is in the bottom quartile of all states for funding. Mass. is at the top.  IMO, we should invest in public schools and stop playing games with kids.

Finally, the privatization of public schools was never something started by parents wanting a choice. It was started by BIG money foundations and privatizers that saw the industry potential. The problem is that we aren't dealing with parts and widgets, we are dealing with individual children that learn at different rates and speeds. Children from different cultures, wealth, intellectual levels, and opportunities. Human beings. I could go on and on... A book, "Slaying Goliath" written by Diane Ravitch, former U.S. Under Secretary of Education for George H Bush, just came out. She outlines the history of public school privatization that started when she worked in DC. It is excellent.