The conservative think tanks and big money behind corporate education policy decided years ago to brand charter schools and vouchers as a new civil rights movement, there for the benefit of underprivileged kids. The reality has always been different, with scandal after scandal finding charter schools not accepting as many
kids with disabilities,
English Language Learners, poor kids, and others who might be a challenge. But there's a particularly gross movement now toward charter schools that are really
designed for rich white kids:
At the 16 campuses that Great Hearts operates in the Phoenix area (where nearly 60 percent of public school students are Hispanic or black), 69 percent of the nearly 7,000 students are white. Only two of Great Hearts’ Arizona campuses participate in a federal program that offers free and reduced-price meals for low-income students. Of the almost 5,000 Basis students in Phoenix, Tucson and Scottsdale, roughly 12 percent are Hispanic and 2 percent are black. None of the eight campuses offer free and reduced-price meals, which is also the case at the San Antonio school.
This is
not an isolated phenomenon, but in San Antonio, Texas, these chains are backed by a "philanthropic" effort to expand charter schools that's also funding charter chains like KIPP that ostensibly seek to have students from underserved communities (though also may
push them out if it looks like their test scores won't measure up). But the rich-kid schools don't just have public education funding and philanthropy behind them:
Both Great Hearts and Basis are what Julian Vasquez Heilig, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s College of Education, refers to as “à la carte schools,” because while they are tuition-free, they charge fees for uniforms, field trips, extracurricular activities and athletics. In some instances, that can amount to more than $1,000 per student annually. On top of those fees, parents are also encouraged to assist the schools financially through personal donations. With neither school providing transportation to their campuses, parents with limited financial means could face an additional obstacle.
Making your "public" school cost $1,000 a year, require private transportation, and not offer free or reduced-price school lunches is slightly more subtle than naming it "No Poor Kids Academy." But only slightly.
Schools like these benefit the whole push for more more more charters: By recruiting upper-middle-class students and giving them an especially well-funded education, these schools are likely to boost the overall academic outcomes of charter schools in general, so that when charters and traditional public schools are compared, the deck is just a little more stacked against public schools. But the basic model is the same, forcing public schools that accept and try to educate all kids to compete with schools that get to pick and choose.