Racism and the Charter School Movement: Unveiling the Myths

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Racism and the Charter School Movement: Unveiling the Myths

Sunday, 30 November 2014 00:00
By Antonia Darder, Truthout | Op-Ed


For almost three decades now, the charter school movement has sought to create the illusion that it is a better alternative to public education. Steeped in a narrow language of choice and student success, charter schools have also begun to quickly populate the terrain of educational justice, despite the conservative roots from which this movement sprang. Despite what was once a central commitment to public schooling in the United States, radical education advocates cannot afford to turn a blind eye to the struggles against racism that exist and persist within charter school environments, despite the rhetoric of equality and justice. This is particularly necessary because many of the most vulnerable students, with the greatest needs, have generally remained within now even more poorly funded and resourced public schools, while more and more public dollars, under private control, are redirected to serve the privileged few.

Common Myths

Given the growing number of teachers of color and children of color whose lives are directly affected by the consolidation of public-private resources, educators committed to a critical ethics of social justice in education must contend with the myths associated with the racialization process at work within charter schools today. One way to better understand this phenomenon is to consider the many myths at work in the charter school movement.

Myth of a Nation at Risk

In 1983, almost two decades before No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Race to the Top (RTTT), "A Nation at Risk" served as the reactionary clarion call for a conservative political, educational movement. The neoliberal ideology that informed this movement was anchored in policies and practices of privatization, free-market solutions, deregulation, high-stakes accountability and the rhetoric of choice. This reactionary response was championed by former Secretary of Education William Bennett and former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch, who was a mean-spirited critic of multiculturalism and a vociferous advocate for a national curriculum, school choice and standardized tests, while working under the Bush administration - prior to her much-touted political conversion and enlightenment. The push by these federal agents for the privatization of education was in direct opposition to the struggles underway at the time, being forged by politically progressive and constructivist educational advocates associated with the post-civil rights era. These community efforts sought to place greater emphasis on critical thought and cultural relevance, as well as to contend with important questions of history and identity, long absent within traditional assimilative approaches of US schooling.

As would be expected, the underlying conservative foundation of the charter school movement today has resulted in a variety of deep tensions linked to questions of racism and education, particularly with respect to the education of working-class students of color. As such, new reactionary discourses have emerged under the guise of welfare reforms, tough on crime legislation and the failure of both teachers and public schools. These discourses, once again, normalize racialized views of morality and normalcy, as if people's life choices and conditions were not directly tied to the conditions, opportunities and benefits of class location, physical abilities, skin color, ethnicity or gender. Moreover, the increasing talk of accountability and deregulation has reinscribed the old bootstrap mantra, associated with individual effort and motivation. The market logic that informs these views also effectively abdicates the privileged, wealthy and powerful of any social responsibility or commitment to the democratic rights and needs of the most vulnerable populations, despite the widening gap between the rich and the poor. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/27689-racism-and-the-charter-school-movement-unveiling-the-myths

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