Old School

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I was raised in a family of public education proponents. My parents sent me to public school for all of my schooling, and I even went to a public university.
 
Of course, the public schools I attended were in fairly well-off communities.  My school district had high test scores and graduation rates (98 percent went on to higher education), as well as dedicated parents and excellent teachers. I received the quality education one should from a public school.
 
Many are not so lucky. Not every kid has the advantages I had. Not every school district has the breadth of services mine did, nor does it produce those kind of outstanding outcomes.
 
But every child has a right to a free quality education--that is the promise of the public school system. So what happens when they can no longer deliver on that commitment?
 
 Enter charter schools. Forget for a moment that charter schools have unproven outcomes, use public money for private education, and create opportunity for discrimination in admittance practices as well as the content chosen for curriculum. Charter schools also mean that only those who get into these specially-designed schools will receive the quality education that all their neighbors should get, but don’t at the local public school.
 
But I am beginning to wonder whether public schools are, in fact, such a lost cause that we need charter schools as a sort of public school bailout. Should the public school system be abandoned all together in favor of what are essentially small private schools using public money? I’m starting to wonder if this is the only way we can go as a community.
 
In St. Louis, where I live, the number of charter schools have been growing at a steady rate. This year a language immersion school, a school for drop out teens, and a Montessori charter opened. But what other options do students have in the city? Like many urban districts, the St. Louis Public School District is unaccredited and overall produces failing outcomes. Certainly such failing schools do not fulfill the promise.
 
We are in a precarious situation. We can not afford for an entire generation to be educated in failing schools. But if we promulgate charter schools we abandon the public system. And if we abandon it, it will never get fixed. Is closing the doors to failing public school districts the answer? Do we end public education as we know it?
 
Surely there must be another way.