A new year is about to begin, along with a new attempt to create publicly funded, privately managed charter schools in Mississippi.
Despite the legislature’s failed attempt to pass a charter school bill in 2012, which was due in large part to stiff resistance from educators and parents from across the state, charter proponents will be at it again in 2013.
Indeed, unlike our neighbors in Alabama, whose elected officials actually listened to their constituents’ well-founded objections to the return of separate and unequal public education to the Yellowhammer State, Mississippi’s political class has taken the opposite approach by essentially saying “To hell with what the people think”.
The facts surrounding charter schools remain unchanged, and you can find plenty of them here, here, and here.
School choice has existed in Mississippi for over a decade now.
Teach for America really wants charter schools in our state.
Wal-Mart and Microsoft really want charter schools in every state.
Charter schools do not offer real, honest competition.
And, yes, two essential questions still linger unanswered:
1) What happens to the kids who don’t get in to the charter school?
2) Why not strengthen all of Mississippi’s public schools?
I urge you to ask our elected officials in Jackson these questions.
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PSW
The Public School Warrior 