Bob Bowden of Choice Media explains for Barron’s readers why a new book, Education and the Commercial Mindset, misses the mark in its attack on charter schools.
In this copiously researched tome, veteran teacher and administrator Samuel E. Abrams, of Columbia University, takes aim at the vast and growing array of programs that offer parents alternatives to conventional government-run schools. Based on the case studies cited in the book, the author clearly signals his support for government’s monopoly over the schools. He warns us of the profiteers and pitchmen of the “commercial mindset” who would dupe us with the seductive snake oil of privatization. …
… An informed reader would have to wonder why Abrams chose to present so little information about for-profit schools that don’t fail. National Heritage Academies, for example, literally tripled its footprint over the past 16 years, from running 28 schools in 2001 to 84 in nine states today. While Abrams does mention this venture in passing, he doesn’t deem its successes worthy of even an entire paragraph, compared with more than 160 pages chronicling the minutiae of Edison’s mistakes.
The chapters on charter schools primarily focus on the KIPP and Mastery charter management organizations. Abrams admits that KIPP—for “Knowledge Is Power Program,” which establishes schools under state charter laws—has exhibited “exponential growth” and has successfully trimmed the so-called achievement gap for low-income kids. But after he acknowledges that 33% of KIPP middle school graduates went on to earn college degrees, compared with 8% of students from the same income groups who didn’t attend KIPP, he adds, “It fell far short of what [KIPP founders] Levin and Feinberg had imagined.” Bummer, eh?
