Nov 10 2008
Greenville County School District Expels Charter School Reps
The Greenville County school district recently prohibited charter high school officials from pitching their programs to middle school students at special on-campus events. The decision limits educational opportunities within the public school system. The district should reverse the policy.
The issue arose when several schools “uninvited” charter school officials from attending events in which district magnet schools discuss their programs to middle school students, according to Fred Crawford, principal of Greenville Tech Charter High. Charter schools are public schools that operate under an independent board and are exempt from many of the curriculum and staffing regulations that traditional public schools must observe.
But their status as publicly funded schools justifies their inclusion in programs designed to inform Greenville’s middle school students about their educational opportunities.
Traditional public schools and charter schools in South Carolina sometimes have been antagonistic. Some educators in traditional public schools see charter schools as competitive. Indeed, these schools do provide some healthy competition to traditional public schools. That’s one of their primary strengths: Not only do they offer alternatives for young people, but they arguably force traditional schools to improve their programs or face losing students to charter programs.
And that’s the problem. Charter schools are competitive and they do a better job of educating students than the bureaucratic public schools. The bureaucrats in the regular school district don’t want children going there because it diverts the funding for that child from the regular public school system to the charter school. It’s about the money, not the education.
Greenville County school board Chairman Keith Ray said the recruitment programs were designed specifically for magnet programs within the district and that justifies excluding charter schools. Ray said charter schools were banned from recruitment events also for the sake of consistency because some middle schools were allowing charter schools in and others weren’t.
So instead of banning their reps from all schools why not be consistent by having all middle schools bring them in to speak? The schools district’s over paid administrators as well as other districts aren’t concerned about your child. Your child’s education has never been their concern. It’s all about keeping the red tape bureaucrats in a cushy job and the teacher’s unions in power. It’s no different than politicians who rail against charter schools and vouchers in support of the status quo. Next time you hear a politician claim that vouchers and charter schools hurt the public education system take a few minutes to see which special interest groups they are receiving campaign money and support from.
