I need to tell you how I feel about charter & private school parents

I get asked all the time (even by friends! even by strangers!) if I hate them because they send their kids to private or charter schools. I also hear from parents who carry guilt for not being able to make it work in their public school system and sending their kids to a private or charter school, which happens for all kinds of reasons from resources to bullying to special needs to screen time —none of which is in a parent’s control, all of which are policy failures.

Let me be very clear: I have zero problem with charter and private school parents!! I don’t hate charter schools! I just want parents to have accurate information (because a lot of it isn’t) to make their decisions, and to understand that attending your local public school may not be the death sentence many are led to believe it is. I want parents to have resources to make the best decision for their families, not that have been advertised to them by a billionaire backed marketing machine.

And look, when parents turn on each other we’re right where they want us. Infighting instead of applying pressure on the policy makers who can actually make the changes. It makes me think of a quote I hear thrown around about not being able to keep our eyes on the shooter when we’re focused on the target.

Making decisions for our kids is incredibly vulnerable and the exploitation of this starts at pregnancy when we’re inundated with ads for the best, safest products and feeding methods and lifestyles and books and family policies. Every decision as a parent has been marketed to us as high stakes, and it’s not just the big companies weaponizing this, it’s political groups.

Which leads me to my list of the people I am mad at:

1. The billionaires who have pushed education privatization for their own financial gain

2. The policymakers who got us into this mess in the first place by systematically defunding public education, making some public schools untenable for students, which is actually a lot less common than people think which brings me to #3

3. The people behind the well-funded flawlessly executed anti-public education marketing campaign (propaganda).

For example, did you know the Heritage Foundation trains grassroots organizers to activate movements in their own communities, and one of their 9 pillars is “Expand Educational Freedom” which is code for school choice with heavy emphasis on private school vouchers which relies on the dismantling of our current public education system?

Which reminds me! I’m also pissed at the Democratic party who has stood by idly as more than half of local government offices and school board seats have run uncontested, stacked with candidates placed by the right’s extremely organized and intentional strategy in which they run their own candidates uncontested to push their agenda at the local level. I learned about this at a meeting with DNC Chair Ken Martin (eyeroll, I know) last year where he promised the Dems are going to start running in these races because the right’s strategy has been ongoing for years and is actually having a major impact (oops!).

My city has some amazing charter schools that are doing incredible things in the community, as are many of our traditional public schools, and we have one of the more transparent school lottery processes. But the whole point is, if anyone had paid proper attention to my city’s [majority Black] public schools and families over the years, we wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place. We wouldn’t be fighting each other over budget allocations, transparency accusations, and equity arguments. We would be fighting for more resources for all students, and there would be more equity across the board. But instead we’re all paying the price for racism.

TL;DR: all are welcome here. Let’s learn together. We’re stronger together.