Charter schools are far more segregated than most other public schools. This was pretty much predictable. Charter schools with names like those I see repeatedly — “Black Success Academy,” “African-American Academy for Leadership and Enterprise” — are not likely to attract too many Irish or Italian kids. On the opposite side, trendy new white charter schools with upper-class, vaguely artsy innuendo in their names — I call them “the woodsy Walden schools” — are obviously targeted at children of a social/racial category that does not include the kids of immigrants from Mexico or Ethiopia.
The “niche” effect of charter schools guarantees a swift and vicious deepening of class and racial separation. President Obama — who was educated in very good and integrated schools and sends his children to an integrated and exclusive private school — is now acting on the belief that consciously and unashamedly segregated charter schools represent the answer to the race-gap in America.
Obama has definitely called for more charter schools. But, he’s also cautioned about too much reliance on standardized tests, and here he and Kozol agree. As Kozol points out, tests hit minority and poor kids the hardest, because the schools they attend turn into testing prep academies:
There’s no time for arts or music or even for authentic children’s books like the joyful works that rich kids still enjoy. No time for Pooh and Eeyore and The Hungry Caterpillar. “What help would lovely books like these be on their standardized exams?” Instead, the kids get pit-pat readers keyed to the next miserable tests that they’ll be taking.
Related to this, a long-standing and well-regarded alternative private school in Rochester is in big financial trouble because of competition from charters, and they’ve chosen not to become a charter because they don’t buy into the testing agenda. I wonder if the false market in charter schooling has hurt good alternative schools in other parts of the country.