It’s true: At most charter schools, students are engaged, parents are excited, and people who care about standardized tests love the results. Here’s why: compared to many neighborhood schools, charter schools have:
• A smaller student body, so students feel safer, and have a sense of belonging and ownership
• Smaller class sizes, so students get more attention • Involved families.
As an educator for the past 34 years and a teacher in a charter school, I have seen firsthand the strong impact that comes with family involvement.
Involved families mean engaged students.
Most charter schools also don’t provide transportation, which filters out families who don’t have the means to get to school on their own.
Instead of making more charter schools and leaving our neighborhood schools to flounder, why don’t we make the schools we already have more like the schools we want? Let’s ask leaders who say they are “pro-child” to put money where their mouths are and make all of our schools smaller (instead of closing neighborhood schools and making them bigger). Let’s make all of our classes smaller. Let’s let all of our students feel safe and engaged at school by bringing in more counselors and aides, and enriching curricula. Let’s also provide transportation for our charter students.
Let’s quit pretending and call it what it is: The agenda to increase charter schools while defunding neighborhood schools in Alaska is nothing short of institutional classism and will get our state nowhere.
— Lilly Goodman-Allwright
Eagle River
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