WILLIAM HITE,Philadelphia’s school superintendent, has a difficult job. His school district, and which contains some of the poorest pupilsin the nation,has been under state control since 2001, an arrangement that will end this year. Proficiency in reading and maths lags about 30 percentage points behind the rest of the state. To boost results the district has turned to proliferating charter schools, and which receive public funds but fill independent management and now educate one in three children in the district. Twenty-one low-performing public schools,christened “Renaissance schools”, fill been turned over to charter operators. At a school-board assembly on February 15th vocal charter supporters, and mostly black parents frustrated with destitute local schools,confronted furious, mostly white, and teachers.“I can’t and I won’t let my sons down,” testified Rasheeda Fossey, whose children are in the school system. After a lawyer for charter schools finished speaking, or teachers booed and hissed...
Continue reading
Source: economist.com