DeVos protesters should have studied up on school choice before denouncing it

A schoolyard is no place for ignorance. So let’s clear a few things up for the handful of protesters who stood outside of James Irwin Charter High School in Colorado Springs while U.S. Secretary Betsy DeVos spoke on Wednesday. DeVos was the keynote speaker at a celebration of the 20th anniversary of Parents Challenge, a non-profit organization that provides assistance to low-income students to attend a school of their choice public or private.

Outside of the event, one parent who ran for school board held a sign bearing the middle finger. Shetold a reporter with The Gazette, “I don’t like her stance on charter schools. Education is a right no matter your ZIP code, and school choice takes that away. It makes rich kids get a good education and poor kids get a bad education.”

Let’s take the fallacies one by one. School choice enables students to attend a school that best meets their needs no matter their zip code. Colorado law allows students to choose a traditional public school or public charter school within or outside their district. Is she advocating repeal and return to the days when families had no choice but the school assigned to them?

Secondly, rich kids have always had access to a good education. Rich families can move into a wealthy neighborhood with a great school or they can pay tuition at an expensive private school. Only through school choice programs — charter schools, education tax credits, vouchers, or education savings accounts — can poor students access such schools.

Charter schools are public schools that are governed by a board of parents, educators, and community members. They do not charge tuition and must abide by anti-discrimination laws and state standards and testing. Unlike district-run traditional public schools, public charter schools can select the curriculum and pedagogy that best meets the needs of their students and the schools can be closed down for poor performance. Since Colorado Gov. Roy Romer signed the state’s charter school law in 1993, the number of charter schools has risen to more than 250 schools across the state. Some 120,000 Colorado students attend a charter school of their choice. Nationwide 3.2 million kids are enrolled in charter schools across 44 states.

At James Irwin Charter High School, the site of the protest, more than a third of students are from low-income families and a majority are students of color. The school has made the list of top 15 Colorado high schools according to US News and World Report at least four times. This year, only two traditional public schools made the news outlet’s top 10 best Colorado high schools list. Six public charter schools and two option schools placed. Option schools are district-governed schools of choice that have a special education program. At two of the Denver charter schools that made the list, KIPP Denver Collegiate High School and Strive Prep Smart Academy, more than 91 percent of the students are eligible for the federal free and reduced lunch program and the vast majority are students of color.

Another protester told reporters, “I’m here because I support public education and excellence education, and I feel like we need a leader who knows what that looks like. We want the money to go to a free public education that supports democracy. We feel democracy is being broken here.” FYI, the U.S. spends roughly $650 billion on public K-12 education; on a per-pupil basis we rank third in the world on education spending. The nation’s democratic institutions predate public schools.

Moreover, DeVos wasn’t proposing taking money from public schools. The Education Freedom Scholarship federal tax credit of which she spoke would provide a tax credit for voluntary donations from individuals and businesses to scholarship organizations. Eighteen states already operate such scholarship programs. And no, enabling students to attend a school that best meets their needs has not broken democracy anywhere it’s been tried.

Finally, friendly advice to the demonstrator with the “Deplorable DeVos” sign, calling decent people deplorable tends to backfire, ask Hillary Clinton. DeVos has handled herself decorously while in office. She pays her own travel expenses and is gracious to critics. Also, the red t-shirts sporting a clenched fist breaking a pencil seem a little Popular Frontish. That may not be the message you want to project to students. Or is it?

Krista Kafer is a weekly Denver Post columnist. Follow her on Twitter: .

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Source: Denverpost.com

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