We Hear You: In Defense of Charter Schools and Parents’ Rights
Letter to the Editor: Ken McIntyre – January 05, 2020
“Not one of my really, really underpaid teachers in underfunded schools ever told me America was never as great as it claims,” Peggy Wlliams writes.
Dear Daily Signal: Daniel Davis’s podcast interview with charter schools advocate Charles Mitchell (“In Pennsylvania, a War on Charter Schools”) also reflects, although to a lesser extent perhaps, a war for many Arizonans too. This is especially so for those in the big cities such as Phoenix, but even in some smaller towns in the state.
Parents in Arizona are not happy with:
—What their kids aren’t learning in public schools. Computers seem to do a lot of the teaching in some schools these days.
—What their kids are learning, like “America was never as great as it claims to have been” and ditto its Founding Fathers.
—Sensing that their kids are not safe in some schools, where bullying and threats from other students are major problems, especially if the kids are from homes of churchgoing families and/or the school is in a rough neighborhood. And now we have school shootings added to the mix.
As a result, many parents are putting their kids in church schools or charter schools, and even doing homeschooling (doing a good job of it, too, in many instances).
Public schools want the charter schools closed because they get funds from the state (based on the number of students served) that the public schools think they should be getting.
When I was a kid in the Great Depression, I went through four different kinds of schools: a Catholic school (I’m not Catholic, but it was just a block from our apartment) and a public school in a small New Mexico town; a two-teacher country school and a high school in a Mormon community in Arizona.
I learned a lot from each one of them and not a one of those really, really underpaid teachers in underfunded schools ever told me America was never as great as it claims to have been.
They taught us this country was a great place to be, and it would be up to us to keep it that way when we grew up. We haven’t exactly lived up to their expectations, have we?—Peggy Williams, Arizona
Editor’s note: One of The Daily Signal’s new year’s resolutions is to inspire you to write us about our coverage and what’s on your minds. So drop a line to letters@dailysignal.com.—Ken McIntyre
[This is an excerpt from a Daily Signal article]
