John Stossel is Stupid

John Stossel of ABC fame has a new segment on his "Stupid in America" series. On Good Morning America we had clips of a charter school in Harlem that is doing well compared to the public school in the same neighborhood. In the brief segment on GMA, he said how the reason for the failure of the public school was because the government has a monopoly on education and since there is no competition the schools do not need to compete and therefore fall behind. Charter schools by comparison know that they can be shut down by the state and therefore make sure that they are innovative and succeed. John Stossel thinks we are stupid.

The biggest problem with this whole line of thought is the assumption that Charter schools are under the same mandate as public schools. They are not. The fact that they are under different mandates means that comparing them is like comparing apples and oranges. Yes, they are both fruit, but they are not the same thing. Public schools by law are required to service every and any student that lives in it's district. They have to deal with the very bright and motivated to the slow and disabled. They have to deal with the well behaved as well as those with discipline problems. In short, public schools cannot pick and choose it's clientele. in contrast, charter schools can limit enrollment and are under no legal requirement to expand enrollment to teach a growing population of students. Therefore while a charter school can create classrooms of a particular size and maintain that size, a public school must cram students into available space or create space, as in trailers and the like, in order to fulfill their legal requirement to service the public's children.

In essence, charter schools can attract students with parents who are more concerned with their children's education. It can remove students who are a drag on the progress of other students. If a charter school does not want to deal with students with poor English language skills, it is free to do so. A public school must accommodate those students. Charter and private schools can, if they choose to, require entrance exams and other barriers to entry. Whereas most public schools, by mandate cannot. It can do things that public schools cannot simply because they can make choices that public schools are legally unable to. In short charter schools create a tiered schooling system by skimming off the most motivated and most able students from the public school system and leaves the rest to the starved for cash and resources general public schools.

It is insulting then, to then claim that the apparent success of charter schools is based simply on the meritocratic achievements of said system. Does this mean that public schools are perfect? No. There is clearly a need for change in the public school system. However, contrary to the rants of certain conservatives, these changes cannot be made by cutting funding for schools. Nor can they be done by creating legislation that creates mandates that go un or underfunded.

So in reality, tonight John Stossel will simply show that he is stupid.

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