Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders of Vermont has called for a moratorium on new charter schools and if he is elected president has pledged to stop charter schools from receiving public funds. Other candidates including Cory Booker of New Jersey believe that charter schools can play a role in delivering better education to youths in underserved areas.
A new study by Seth Gershenson, an associate professor in the department of public administration and policy at American University in Washington, D.C., and published by the conservative educational think tank the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, finds that Black students who attend charter schools are far more likely to have a Black teacher than Black students in traditional public schools.
Professor Gershenson found that in North Carolina, charter schools have 35 percent more Black teachers than traditional public schools. Black students in charter schools were about 50 percent more likely to have a Black teacher than their traditional public school counterparts. The author cites previous studies that show students of color perform better academically when they have a teacher of the same race or ethnic group.
The full study, Student-Teacher Race Match in Charter and Traditional Public Schools, may be downloaded by clicking here.
I support the development of the locally operated Charter schools. I served on the Board of Director of the Arts and Science Charter School in Tallahassee, Florida. It is a locally controlled Charter school that has been considered one of the top Charter school in the state and the top 8 in the country. It operates has a nonprofit organization unlike the cooperate run schools that focuses on making a profit for it parent cooperation.
The number of African Americans suspended or expelled is duly note. But the argument does not take in consideration the number of them use profanity, disrupt learning, disrespect teachers, and walked the halls. What is so wrong with having discipline and order in school? Perhaps, they do not belong in public school. These students should be removed from this environment. There are not there get an education. For some reason, the experts in the African American desire for public school to devolve into a place where there are no standards to be founded or discovered.