"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Aspire Charter Schools: Busing to Maintain Segregation

When parents showed up last week to enroll their children at the Aspire (Coleman) charter school in Memphis, they were told there were no more seats, due to plans to expand next year to take in 6th grade.  Even if there were no expansion plans, you can't have too many children of parents who weren't there months ago to squeal with delight at the prospect of getting their children into a new segregated corporate reform school. Protect the brand.

The solution provided: Bus these 30 or so children an hour away to another Aspire store called Aspire Hanley, which last year had worse test scores than the public school it replaced in the same building.  Aspire is looking for some to pat them on the back for providing the bus cost of a bus--$50,000. 

Considering that 30 kids are worth $9,000 each to Aspire's bottom line, it doesn't take an accountant to see that Aspire could afford limos if they wanted to and still make money. 

Wasn't the ostensible purpose of turning Memphis schools over to corporations to provide better education?  What middle class school board would ever allow such corruption, mismanagment, and miseducative abuse for middle class children??

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