Thankfully, I'm Not A Parent...

...because if I was, I would have to consider firsthand the debate on schooling: public vs. charter vs. home. (And since I'm not a parent, and I don't have a dog in this hunt, I can just rant instead.)

The least emphasized aspect of K-12 education (and even beyond that) is the socialization element, where prolonged verbal & non-verbal exposure to different others produces skill sets based on negotiation and tolerance (notice I didn't say "acceptance," which is often too much to ask for). And in theory, these skill sets get carried into adulthood, creating a greater likelihood of successful navigation through different social environments like work and relationships.

So obviously, the home schooling element will always be deficient in the socialization department, no matter how many parent-guided social "enrichment" activities are planned. That puts only two horses in the educational race once socialization is held constant: public options and charter options. And as much as I like the basic experimental nature of charter schools, I've always had suspicions that such schools aren't the best options for the mainstream school "consumer," especially at middle to low socioeconomic status (SES) levels. High SES charter schools will have more financial resources with which to experiment, giving them the edge; however, that's not the majority of the charter school experience for most Americans, who aren't within shouting distance of high SES.

A recent Newsweek article discusses the charter vs. public debate, with two different ideological groups generating research that casts doubt on the efficacy of non-urban middle-to-low-SES charter schools (in other words, the majority of them) with respect to public institutions. While one should never throw your ideology behind one study, it's hard to look at the CREDO study results and believe in the power of charter schools to transform education for the good; if 37 percent of charter schools generate academic outcomes worse than public education (with 17 percent of charter schools performing better than public schools), is the race towards expanding charter school options really the best allocation of resources?

I've been teaching at community colleges for the past fourteen years, and I've seen two trends: the amount of exemplary students has decreased, and the amount of beginning and developing students has increased, with those beginning/developing students having the belief that their present skill sets and abilities are sufficient for success. When the environment proves otherwise, those students are not quite prepared for the temporary setback, and persistence towards developing better skill sets and abilities becomes more spotty for that population as a whole. Despite what others may think, I want as many of my students to succeed as possible, with either my definition of success or the individual student's definition. And while there are some individual success stories from home school and charter school environments, our full weight of resources -- financial, intellectual, psychological, sociocultural -- should be brought to bear on the systematic improvement of public education. For without those improvements, the belief in American exceptionalism will last far longer than actual evidence of American exceptionalism.