America’s families will have noticed aspiring presidential candidates talking about
education
in their bid for election. As an educator for nearly half a century, I listen closely and carefully to their pronouncements, all too aware that our education system is broken and tragically failing the promise of our children and their capacity to contribute to their communities and country.
The latest Nation’s Report Card, a congressionally-mandated
U.S. Department of Education
analysis of what
students
know and can do in various subjects, reveals that, heartbreakingly, two out of three of our children can’t even read at grade level. The numbers are even more dire among minority communities. Overall, only one in five Latino and one in six black children can read proficiently.
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In urban America it is far worse. Only 4% of Detroit public school students perform at grade level. In Cleveland, 9% are proficient. In Baltimore, 12%. In America’s second-largest city, Los Angeles, the figure is 15%. And in the nation’s capital, just 17% of Washington, D.C., students are meeting basic academic expectations, the most recent U.S. Department of Education-sponsored comparative city study found.
Our nation’s failure to educate our children places us at a severe disadvantage internationally. The latest data from the Program for International Student Assessment, a widely respected educational survey of the world’s wealthy nations, ranks the U.S. 38th in math, behind China, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, and Russia.
But there is hope in the midst of this educational crisis. Since the first public charter campus opened in Minnesota in 1992, academic choice has brought high-quality education, formerly available only to those with the means to afford private school or housing in wealthy areas with good public schools, to families of various backgrounds and incomes. Currently, 45 states are home to public charter schools, with more than 200,000 teachers educating nearly 4 million students at more than 8,000 campuses.
Studies show that urban public charter schools have been particularly effective in shrinking entrenched student achievement gaps — the sorry legacies of historic injustices and discrimination — between overwhelmingly black, brown, and immigrant populations and white students.
Stanford University research found that charter students added roughly 40 days of additional learning in math and 28 extra days in English language arts in 41 urban school districts studied. Black charter students in poverty gained 59 days in math and 25 in ELA, and Latino students gained 48 days in math and 25 in ELA.
A Harvard University study similarly revealed that eighth graders attending public charter schools show learning gains that place them three months ahead of their district school counterparts. Black charter students were an additional six months ahead.
There are more than 50 million public school students, but only about one in 10 enrolled at charter schools, so the overwhelming majority of our families can’t understand what they haven’t lived and so lack knowledge that a better education is possible. It is these parents and children that the education reform movement needs to inspire and engage: those who lack access to high-quality public education.
As education reformers restructure and reboot their efforts, priority must focus on the marginalized communities across America whose surroundings are defined by an absence of good housing, good jobs, and good schools. Without these essentials, one can’t have a good community. And absent a good community, students are often prey for predatory forces that will rob them of life chances.
Empowering families by offering better educational options means recognizing that public funds should follow the student in their family’s decision. Education funding belongs to America’s families to make their choices, not to politicians, political special interests, or philanthropists to decide what is good for them and how much should be available.
Moreover, real education reform means not expecting families to be grateful for a few thousand dollars to exit the public school system, but rather to ensure that they can access quality tuition-free options.
When the number of families who can access such alternatives expands beyond the small minority now enrolled at charters, education reform will have meaning in places where currently it has none.
In advocating education reform, I’m informed by my nearly 50 years in education since my first job at Howard University and my work founding and chairing a charter network of 15 campuses in Washington, D.C., and five in Arkansas. Education reform offers a lifeline to college and careers for America’s struggling students and their families, helping make public education the great equalizer we want it to be.
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Donald Hense is the board chair of the Center for Education Reform and chairman of Friendship Public Charter School.
