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Judith Bruner of Denver writes:

As a veteran of public and private schools and having taught in both I’d like to add to the debate on charter schools. In l954 Brown vs. Topeka ruled separate but (un)equal schools were un-American. Charters take public funds to create selective schools. The “cream of the crop,” those who have involved parents, are separated in elite schools. No special needs students, no victims of poverty or neglect (uneducated parents working two minimum wage jobs and lacking time for involvement) are included.
Educators know parental involvement is key — even today, in The Denver Post, David Harsanyi writes of its importance and that it makes or breaks public education. Charter schools allow those parents to set up their own selective schools (instead of being involved in public schools) at public expense excluding the less fortunate.
Charters are inherently racist because they reject undesireables. We are reverting to separate but unequal as before l954. Remember that decision led Southerners to establish elite white schools. Charters descriminate against the handicapped — mentally, emotionally, physically and economically handicapped — leaving behind those hardest to educate with less funds, fewer role models among their peers and poorer averages on the CSAP.

This letter has not been edited.

READER COMMENTS

I'm in full agreement with the letter writer. And there's also another problem with charter schools: they create sought-after neighborhoods which further jacks up home prices. Great if you already live in that neighborhood, not so great if you're priced out of living there.

well judith if your union brother and sisters did a better job of teaching instead of preaching charter schools wouldnt be needed. glad you also played the race card as all good liberals will do that to get attention to their bs rants.

Harsanyi is a major jackass

This writer has quite a few facts missing. First most charter schools take limited special ed. kids because they don't receive the funding from the state and federal government to take more.

Second, they are NOT racist. They use an open enrollment system that is a completely random drawing and the forms do not include race.

Lastly, as a family at the number one rated school by 5280 magazine, Peak to Peak Charter School, I can attest to the many races and income levels represented at the school. Have some schools failed? Yes, but some public schools have as well. I don't see people like Judith calling for their closing. However, all charter schools should not be lumped together.

Lastly, the claim that because they require parental involvement is the way they exclude is the most absurd. EVERY school requires parental involvement for children to succeed. A child whose parents neglect them at charter school is just a doomed to be unsuccessful at public school. However, at a charter school, their neglect or lack of parental involvement would not go unnoticed and intervention would occur. How often do the public school administrations take such a vested interest in students?

How selfish for those parents to want better education for their children. In the name of the "public good" they should simply take the inferior public education that they are already paying to provide. No one should stop until every student is as uneducated as the lowest common denominator. Only then will students be truly equal.

B, sarcastically: "How selfish for those parents to want better education for their children."

This same argument was made time and time again prior to, during, and after the civil rights movement. People simply did not want to lower their own children to having to go to school with those black kids. It's the same argument that prevails in all impoverished nations. The upper class wants nothing to do with or about the lower class.

Yes, indeed, selfish. It's the "I've got mine" mentality. "Everything for my good and nothing for the good of the country". It's a mentality that can remake our nation into the kind of nation that nobody who cares about our nation wants.

Truth - Thank you for your typical socialist response.

Being frustrated with a bad education system and wanting your money to be put to better use is nothing like wanting to move your kids from a school because of race. Like your socialist buddies, you can't help but bring race into everything because it is all you have.

I am nowhere near "upper class." I actually want the "lower class" to have more options, not be stuck in miserable schools.

"It's a mentality that can remake our nation into the kind of nation that nobody who cares about our nation wants."

As a citizen of this nation, who cares about this nation, and wants the best for this nation, I would have to say that this nation would be a better nation if government would be in less control of things throughout the nation. I am not caring about just my good when I say that public education is broken. I want parents to have choices, you want to protect the government's monopoly. Even if it means passing students that can't even speak our language, much less read it.

B, sorry you couldn't think of anything intelligent to say. Maybe next time.

Truth - if you're the arbiter of intelligence, then I consider your worthless, snide comment a compliment. The second card socialists always use, after race, is the "bash their intelligence" card. Your tactics are old, boring, and transparent.

You write this shining example of a sentence - "It's a mentality that can remake our nation into the kind of nation that nobody who cares about our nation wants." - and then spout off about intelligence?

Darn, B, I really was hoping you'd like that sentence. After all, I wrote it just for you.

And stop calling me old, boring and transparent. Those words are for the exclusive use of my ex-wife.

If what Judith Bruner said in her letter is true. I will be looking for a Charter School for my children. Actually I just recieved in the mail a advertisement for a new Charter School opening in 2008. I looked into their teaching program and they teach The Core Knowledge Curriculum and Saxon Math and others. All proven and sucessful ways to teach children.Not the idiot programs that are failing our children now.

I can't wait.

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