Lawrence Evans: Legal segregation

Regarding the Jan. 7 news story “Board delays ‘negative’ charter schools report”: An agency files its report on charter schools with the state board; those on the board who want more charter schools suppress it. Surprised? Hardly.

Why were charter schools invented? Forget the blah-blah about innovation and better ways to teach. If that was the point, there might be a handful of such schools. Those things can be done in existing schools and lack only support in money and time. They should be done by professionals experienced in teaching, not amateur advocates and people hoping to make a buck.

No, charter schools were invented for a simple reason: The “good” people wanted to insulate their kids against contact with the kids of the riff-raff. They wanted segregation by legal means.

The result was predictable. We have nearly all white and nearly all nonwhite charter schools.

Controlled for ethnicity and economic status, students in charter schools do no better than those in real public schools. No data show clear superiority for charter schools. Yet their number continues to expand, as part of the contract between the GOP politicians and those with white privilege who vote for them.

To remain legal, that contract must remain unspoken. The facts must be suppressed.

This story was originally published January 20, 2016 at 4:55 PM with the headline "Lawrence Evans: Legal segregation."