School Choice allows segregation to come full circle

“As a result, advantaged, mostly white parents are pushed to make choices that they think protect their privilege. These factors perpetuate the cycle of social reproduction and resegregation, wherein schools enrolling the most students from affluent white families are automatically considered “better”—and therefore attract more students from advantaged backgrounds.” — Allison Roda and Amy Stuart Wells

Washington Post just ran a piece entitled "White parents in North Carolina are using charter schools to secede from the education system," and it's exactly what we'd expect it to be.

Saw the link to the article on Dr. James Avington Miller Jr.'s Facebook page. Miller, of The War Report on Public Education radio show fame, had the following salient comment posted with the link: "BACK TO THE FUTURE------BACK WHERE IT STARTED"

I left the following commentary on Washington Post:

School Choice was coined by the segregationists, borrowed by the Broad/Gates/Walton Triumvirate, and now gleefully being reclaimed by the segregationists. Not just Southerners either, mind you. Check out Los Angeles "boutique charters" like Citizens of the World (CWC), Larchmont, and Metro. They cater to so-called liberal parents looking for "alternatives." What that really means is alternatives to having brown and poor children in their schools... well with the exception of those whose parents are self colonized and adept at respectability politics. Those are the parents of color that the Mike McGalliards of the charter project would boast are "so articulate" (read white-acting). The concept of school choice is racist and classist at its very core.

School Choice allows segregation to come full circle

Schools Matter: Corporate Education Reform: the "civil rights issue" up until it actually addresses civil rights issues like segregation

First published on Schools Matter on June 26, 2014

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"Children have a right and a need to have quality schools in their neighborhood." — Francis Howell School District

White school district sends black kids back to failed schools

The one upside to the article is that it clearly puts to lie the corporate reformers' assertion that equitable funding isn't the issue. The resegregation—and in many cases, the continuation of segregation—of schools was the first step in creating these inequities that the neoliberal corporate education reformers would later exploit through austerity and privatization programs. This is why monsters like Ben Austin can say he wants all schools to be like Warner Elementary School, knowing that his school is "safely" ensconced in Holmby Hills. Ask any corporate reformer if they are for desegregation and busing. Watch how all their rhetoric about the "civil rights issue of our time" changes immediately when they are faced with a solution that would actually begin to address issues of race and class.

At the end of the day these students are sent back to their segregated schools, ripe for take over by corporate entities like KIPP and Green Dot. We'll cover up the systemic racism and class exploitation by drill-and-kill Common Core test preparation, and throw in some "grit training" for good measure.

h/t Sandy Stenoff

Schools Matter: Corporate Education Reform: the "civil rights issue" up until it actually addresses civil rights issues like segregation

Must Read: Why the Racist History of the Charter School Movement Is Never Discussed

Anyone over the age of 30 should recall phrases including "school choice" were the clarion call of segregationists and southern dixiecrats. [Still are.] — Robert D. Skeels

Professor Christopher Bonastia's Why the Racist History of the Charter School Movement Is Never Discussed is perhaps the best work I've read on the modern segregation and eugenics movements that are cloaked in the rhetoric of school choice. Packed with historical precedents and an honest assessment of today's empirical data, the essay is a powerful antidote to the nonstop stream of privatization propaganda pumped out by the deep pocketed charter industry. The following excerpt provides an idea of why everyone must read the whole piece:

The driving assumption for the pro-charter side, of course, is that market competition in education will be like that for toothpaste -- providing an array of appealing options. But education, like healthcare, is not a typical consumer market. Providers in these fields have a disincentive to accept or retain "clients" who require intensive interventions to maintain desired outcomes--in the case of education, high standardized test scores that will allow charters to stay in business. The result? A segmented marketplace in which providers compete for the "good risks," while the undesirables get triage. By design, markets produce winners, losers and unintended or hidden consequences.

Read in on AlterNet and share it widely.

Must Read: Why the Racist History of the Charter School Movement Is Never Discussed