Portland Parents

Portland School District board denied four separate charter school proposals at their board meeting this week.

Citing these charter schools as a threat to the ‘common good,’ Madison teacher Tom Conry discouraged the School Board from approving these charters.

He convinced the School Board that charter schools are part of a shift to privatization of our public schools, turning schools into commodities.

Here’s what I think; it’s not the school that is the commodity, but the education provided to the student. As we look to the future, we need to remember our obligation to our children (I mean that in a broad sense) to educate them and give them the tools to make the best choices given the chances they get.

A charter school leads to privatization only in the sense that schools may be competing with each other for students; and the way they should compete is with quality of service and with the tools they can offer our children.

How can this be a bad thing, where teachers and administrators have to find ways to better their offerings in the face of competition for brain-time?

This, then, is where the threat to the common good lies- in selfishly using legislation to keep the choices we offer our students down, we aggrandize ourselves at the expense of their futures.

Thanks to: Rob Kremer