Romney's Education Policy--Charters, Vouchers, Online Schools

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http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=8528

HENRY LOUIS TAYLOR JR., DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR URBAN STUDIES, UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO:

It's Santa Claus-ism, transforming myths into reality.

Let's get this thing straight. First of all, the idea and notion of school choice is nothing more than a tool that is designed to attack—a frontal attack on public school systems. And let me explain what I mean. It's not just parental choice. Let's get that straight right now, because all of the schools that they're talking about gaining access into will be criterion schools that are based upon your abilities to pass set tests and to meet other high standards inside of these schools. So all you're talking about through school choice is a new, elaborate filtering system that will begin to create deeper class division inside of the neighborhoods, just as we see in cities like Buffalo.

So it also means that they will be taking away resources and placing them into special programs, scholarships that allow you to go to certain private schools, resources that allow folks to access charter schools, and attach the federal dollars to the individual, not to the schools. This means that large numbers of kids that are trapped in these schools because they're not able to pass the qualifying examinations and the other standards are going to be left behind in even worse schools than they are today. And he's going to do that because it's cheaper. If you look at Romney's analysis of the D.C. scholarship program, he makes it clear it costs us less money to provide scholarships to the higher achievers inside of these communities than it does to give money to schools to make the entire schools better. So that's the first level.

The second level is that Romney has an anti-union philosophy. Now, Obama's policies may inadvertently impact unions, but he's not saying straight up, we want to get rid of unions. Romney's program says unions should go. If the unions go, all of the protection that the teachers had then disappears, and the abilities to stop the screening process that creates a large contingency of schools that house kids that cannot pass the exams to get into the criterion schools, which will be the majority of African-Americans' and Latino's schools, is what will happen. And so you will actually weaken the public school system, intensify the problems inside of these neighborhoods, and create a larger pipeline between schools and prisons.

NAISON: How come no one in the Romney campaign mentions Milwaukee, which has had school choice for 20 years and has a 44 percent black male unemployment rate?

[HiPointDem]

1. so far as education goes, the candidates' positions seem remarkably similar.