Despite the recent rash of school closures and legislation aimed at destabilizing the public school system, a new poll reveals that the majority of American parents support public education and oppose reform mandates that favor the proliferation of corporate-backed charter schools.
Of the 1,000 nationwide parents surveyed by Hart Research Associates, sixty-one percent of respondents said they are opposed to the closure of low-performing schools and more than three out of four said they are against cutting resources for the classroom while increasing spending on charter schools, the Washington Post reported ahead of the poll’s release.
School boards across the country—under mounting pressure from the Obama administration’s Department of Education—have been shuttering neighborhood institutions in favor of corporate-run charter schools.
In a move dubbed a ‘scorched-earth policy’ by Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis, the Chicago Board of Education voted in May to close 50 public schools to be replaced with 13 new charter schools and a “handful of alternative programs.”
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Earlier this spring saw the closure of 23 Philadelphia schools, a move many interpreted as a step towards the “elimination of public education.”
Such closures have disproportionately targeted schools in low-income neighborhoods specifically affecting minority students. “It’s about further privatizing the public schools, destroying the union, and destabilizing neighborhoods,” wrote Black Agenda Report’s Glen Ford following the Chicago School Board announcement.
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