As college students, we’d love to say that we are freed from the chains of high school. That we don’t have to look back at high school and worry about those messy years. However, as the 2020 elections get closer to the present, an underground battle appears in the state government. The fight over public school privatization still runs heavy and we as students should care about advocating against school privatization.
Charter schools, when approved in 1996, were supposed to serve as the blooming innovators of education. Their success stories would then be replicated by public schools, in a mentoring fashion. That was the original charm of the charter school system, but studies show that said charm is just a fantasy. There’s no hard evidence that the charter and public school system collaborate on anything. In reality, charter schools are instead alienating themselves from the institutions they were meant to help.
The academic improvement heralded by charter schools is also that: pure myth. While North Carolina’s General Assembly continues to pour money into these schools, the charter schools are not performing any better. The studies mentioned previously show that while charter school funding has increased over the past ten years, they have continuously failed to meet the state’s required academic growth expectations of 75%. Public schools, in contrast, fluctuate closer. We are pouring more money into a system that is continually wilting and shows no signs of bettering anytime soon.
On October 5th, 2019, the six Democratic candidates for the North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction attended a public forum sponsored by the North Carolina Caucus of Black School Board Members. The forum spoke about slowing the privatization of public schools, and the conversation quickly dove into another uncomfortable truth about charter schools. They are not very inclusive.
In a study run by UCLA and UNC-Charlotte, it was found that charter schools in North Carolina are showing more and more signs of segregated student bodies. Since 2013, the requirement for equality in the student body has devolved into lax efforts. There is no explicit method for inclusivity, nor is there a punishment for the lack of it. Charter schools have slowly become more disproportionately white, and more disproportionately middle-upper class. At best, it showcases the implicit biases shown by charter school administrators. At worst, it’s open discrimination.
Quite honestly, one doesn’t have to look very far into charter schools to see open discrimination. Vouchers have also become problematic in public school discourse for this particular reason. Religious voucher programs advocate for school curriculums that openly stand against science and discriminate against LGBTQ+ students. There is no equality in a system that confines, distorts, and separates us from reality. State-run schools should not be discriminating against the education system nor the student body.
We, as a student body, need to care about these issues. Apathy only leads to more destruction, and allowing the charter school system devolve into a parasitic entity will affect our future alumni, coworkers, and society. With the 2020 elections coming up, we have a lot of topics to stand for. The results of this upcoming election will only showcase what we truly value as a society, and whether we allow the public school system to continue privatizing itself to its death will only serve to affect our future alumni at NC State.
