How A Contemporary Charter School Solved

Freire talks about the “banking concept of education”, explaining that students in this system are receptacles that are to be filled with the “content of the teachers narration”.(Freire, 1) These receptacles are expected to regurgitate information given in class, on tests, quizzes, and anything that requires an answer that is “word for word” what the teacher says. In a banking classroom, the teacher is the authority and the students are oppressed. Freire writes, “The more students work at storing deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world.” (Freire, 2).

Almost all the family incomes are over $100,000...The incomes in this school represent less than 1 percent of the families in the United States,” (256) compared to working-class families who earn incomes “at or below $12,000” (256). Anyon presents these examples to compare the backgrounds of each school and uses this as logos to persuasively reason her claim that quality of education is offered to people who can afford it. Public schools that working-class and middle-class families can afford do not offer the same education private schools that upper-class and capitalist families can afford. Wealthy children who are privileged get an advantage early on in their education career because they are able to afford better quality teachers and lessons. This varied quality of education found in curriculums is what creates the unequal divide between educated individuals in different social classes. An audience of scholars and teachers would be persuaded by this claim because Anyon’s data transparently shows the uneven distribution of resources and opportunity found in the social class schools.

Urban Prep Charter Academies is a three campus charter public school in the city of Chicago. Urban Prep is located in the West, Bronzeville, and Englewood communities. The three campuses have grew the name of getting 100% acceptances into college, with the population of African American young males. “Urban Prep’s mission is to provide a high-quality and comprehensive college-preparatory educational experience to young men that results in our graduates succeeding in college” (About Urban Prep, 2012). Upon my discovery, Urban Prep counseling department consist of academic counselors, personal counselors, and college counselors. Each department work together towards fulfilling the school’s mission of providing and assisting in implementing a high-quality

As a new charter school located in a vibrant neighborhood in Wilmington, our school has worked directly with neighbors, community groups, local nonprofit organizations and local elected and government leaders to establish a good relationship and prepare the way for our students and families to benefit from our neighborhood and location. The Brandywine neighborhood where our school is located is in the center of downtown Wilmington, easily accessible to many local businesses and government agencies, and area neighborhoods, by foot and by public transportation. We have worked extensively with local community groups, agencies and organizations to ensure that the relationship between our school and the community is mutually beneficial. When

Charter schools are a type of public school that is open enrollment. It has been growing immensely as the years go on. 42 out of the 50 states have voted that charter schools are a part of their state’s education system. There are over five thousand charter schools in the United State with over two million students enrolled. The schools are run by teachers and certified teachers. They are considered to be an alternative public school that creates a high-quality public school choices that cater to the child’s specific needs. Charter schools do not believe in the idea that education is “one size fits all” and the choices that they give offer more opportunities to the children for success. Charter schools are very similar to traditional public schools. They are technically open to all who apply. They cannot discriminate in their admissions and must enroll all students that submit their applications on time. Also, they are tuition free and administer standardized tests throughout

She has been recognized as being the Principal of a “Gain Making School” and a “John Irwin School of Excellence,” by the Colorado Department of Education.” (Aurora Academy, 2013)

Chamblee, GA is a small city outside of the metro Atlanta area that is characteristically different racially and ethnically than everything around it. The Hispanic population stands at 58.5% of the total population as of 2010, but in Atlanta and Georgia more broadly, this population only makes up 5.2% and 8.8% respectively. Additionally, only 7% of Chamblee’s population is Black, whereas this group is 54% of Atlanta’s population and 30.5% of Georgia’s. However, my alma mater, Chamblee Charter High School, stood out from the city itself being an amalgamation of a magnet program and a charter public school, bringing in students from around the county with significant representation from the Chamblee area as well. Consequently, the school’s

James is an eleven year old child who is currently going into the seventh grade at the Harlem Success Charter School.

America’s education is failing, and serious reform is needed. The topic of education has been in the forefront over the last few decades. Many, including politicians have attempted to tackle what seemed to be a hopeless situation. With all the corruption and bureaucracy within the system, it is unlikely that this problem will be resolved anytime soon. However, there is hope amidst all this, and that is charter schools. Charter schools impact education by having passionate teachers who truly care for their students’ well-being, use up-to-date school methodology, are able to function with less bureaucracy, and have accountability that results in less corruption, and increased cost efficiency.

Fortunately and unfortunately, I am a product of charter schools. I attended Achieve Charter Academy from fifth grade to eighth grade. I joined the first year that it opened, leaving all my elementary friends right before graduation. Over the course of the four years I was in multiple advanced courses and performing well. By eighth grade I was in geometry that counted towards high school credit, and feeling good about my academic path. I am grateful of this, but it did not prepare me well for the future years to come. The way we learned was very basic. There was not as much rigor as there would be in a class of that extent. I was never really challenged during the course of the year. I entered high school with high hopes. Unfortunately the

To understand the state of charter schools today, it is important to know how a charter school was envisioned to be. Tell explains that charter schools, by nature, should be more accurately described as “contract” schools. These schools are contractually obligated to serve the interest of the general public by providing education opportunities using the funds provided from taxes. Traditionally, charter schools are defined as “tuition-free, publicly funded, performance-based, non-sectarian, public schools of choice open to all.”[1] These schools are considered autonomous because they are exempt from most, if not all, local and state rules and regulations regarding education. The reduction of applicable laws pertaining to these schools are supposed to liberate them from the supposedly strict regulations that bog down the education system that prevent teachers from what they were actually hired to do: to teach. Although novel in concept, this idea has been difficult to implement in reality.

Charter schools in the United States were created as a response to the perceived lack of educational achievement among American students. A community of critics consisting of educators, parents, politicians and entrepreneurs came together under the unified belief that current education policy was too restrictive and prohibited educational innovation. As a result, the education reform movement was born. According to the National Conference of State Legislators, “Charter schools are publicly funded, privately managed and semi-autonomous schools of choice. They do not charge tuition. They must hold to the same academic accountability measures as traditional schools. They receive public funding similarly to traditional schools. However, they have more freedom over their budgets, staffing, curricula and other operations.”

Shober, Manna, & Witte (2006), examines how state policy makers incorporated flexibility and accountability into state charter school laws supplementing a particular database with others measures to answer two specific questions. (1) What factors influence the degree of flexibility and accountability in state charter schools laws? And (2) how does the content of state charter schools laws, and the different values those laws embrace, affect the formation of charter schools in the United States? In state charter school laws, it is shown that state political and contextual factors help account for the degree of flexibility, but not accountability. Therefore, it was suggested that an increase in changes in charter laws show favor reducing accountability

In “The Banking Concept of Education”, written by Paulo Freire, the author analyzes the modern day education system by comparing students to “containers” or waste receptacles that are meant to be “filled” by the teacher, or the depositor. The idea that teachers are meant to teach and students are only to listen is the main problem is today’s society. The concept is that a teacher is deemed more reputable “the more she fills the receptacles” while students are better the more they “permit themselves to be filled” (Freire 1). In turn, the “banking” concept of education is born suggesting that education becomes only an act of depositing instead of communication between both students and teachers. When students are denied their creative freedom,

In “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education,” from the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Revised Edition, Paulo Freire discusses two different types of education: “banking” and problem-posing. The banking concept of education is when teachers “make deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat” (318), and ‘problem posing’ is when the teachers and students are equal. Instead of being treated as human beings that have their own thoughts and ideas, students are treated as containers that are simply filled by a powerful being, a teacher. In school, teachers are dominants that provide knowledge to the students, the subordinates; the knowledge that students learn are limited to what they’re taught by teachers. Similarly, in Kurt Wimmer’s ‘Equilibrium’, Librians are treated as reservoirs for knowledge.