Fourth Post

Although most advocates of charter schools claim that charter schools force traditional public schools to improve because of competition, this has been proven not to be the case for D.C. The money lost to charter schools adds to the deterioration of the traditional public schools, not the incentive to improve. Traditional public schools have been forced to cut programming and lay off teachers; but it is not as easy as just laying off one teacher because no one grade may lose enough students to justify this. Facilities continue to fall apart and traditional schools have failed to show improvement. The real question is not whether or not competition has benefited traditional public schools but rather what are we trying to achieve by creating separate systems of education? Some children are left in run-down buildings with less programming and teachers, while others get to go to new facilities with smaller classes. Is this fair? I do not think so. With test scores failing to prove that charter schools are making any leaps and bounds educationally it seems more fit to renovate the traditional public school system. If improvements were made to the traditional public schools these two separate systems could come together to benefit all the students. It is difficult for me to make any comparisons to my school on this topic, as I am in a charter school, but I have been able to see how these separate systems greatly benefit some children and leave other in the dust.