By law, kids are required to start their educational experience with Kindergarten at around the age of five or six. This isn’t always how things play out, though, as many families decide to preempt this alien exposure with something a little bit cushier: preschool. We all understand what preschool is, and many of us were attendees ourselves, but many are expressing concern that this opportunity to get a head start is only available to those who are affluent enough to afford it. While relief efforts have been put in place by some states like California, there is no federally accepted public program for preschool in our country, and many worry that it’s hurting our lower class before they can even know better.

shaker.org

According to Edutopia, students who begin Kindergarten without any sort of warm-up are much less likely to perform well at math or have a well-developed vocabulary. With a whopping 36% of children not getting this measurable advantage, there’s inequality in the classroom before standard school can even begin, effectively putting extra strain on other systems that are suffering from today’s lack of support (especially in lower-class communities). At such a young age, students only have so much working memory to use to function, and this could mean the difference between focusing on class and trying to remember how to dress oneself after a bathroom break, which is basically the difference between whether or not a student will gain anything from going to school.

Montessori School – Britannica

Opposition doesn’t see promoting preschool as a way to combat this, despite these claims that it can be a developmental tool. Some argue that preschool does not actually implement the sorts of experiences that they advertise, forcing young children into an early life of institution with no hope of escape for the rest of their lives. Some suggest that preschools need to be reformed first, focusing more on play and interaction than counting to 100 and learning the alphabet. Schools like Montessori programs are prime examples of this pro-tangibility model, encouraging kids to explore their own interests with guidance. These sorts of schools are still considered somewhat left-field, though, which means public programs are less likely to adopt the model.

This problem of whether to endorse something as expansive as a universal preschool model is still evolving. Major parties like the Obama administration have provided huge endowments to assist communities in getting an equitable pre-K experience, but it’s nowhere near enough to get everyone on board just yet. Preschools can cost as much as college in certain states, and it’s hard to make a financial investment that big twice. It’s on us to provide the best opportunities we can for students-to-be, but we are still implored to find a solution to this gap, lest our improvements in public K-12 education end up being undershot merely because we started a year or two too late.

Looking at the rest of the semester, it’s clear to see things are going to be a dramatically far cry from the way Penn State (or any other university, for that matter) has managed to handle teaching students in class. Everyone’s inexperienced with the software and there have been some notably humorous examples of growth pains in the transition period. Ultimately, this is going to end up amounting to a whole half-semester’s worth of formal education, and it’s going to be hard for people to realize that until it comes and goes. Luckily, though, there are some upsides to moving classes into the online sector, and it might be something worth giving some investment for what it’s worth in the meantime.

First and foremost, several studies have concluded that students certainly do learn something while on Zoom or other apps. MIT had this figured out almost 6 years ago, but, like any large change, it’s hard to implement quickly and effectively. Online learning has been an available alternative for this time, but, for some reason, it’s viewed by many as unequal and inferior to an in-person, brick-and-mortar degree. I personally remember the struggles my own mother manifested in trying to get a Master’s while she was taking care of me in my early childhood, and I know it’s not something Google fixes. As long as it’s coming from a qualified university, it has the same potential resources as any other path.

On a more casual note, online schooling gives so much time back to us, the students. Doing the math, I’m realizing how many minutes of my day I’m gaining back by not having to bike to school or get out of my pajamas. It’s allowing me to feel more engaged as I’m not frantically locking my bike and stripping my helmet off my head as my sweaty vessel fast-walks into class every day, only to do it again in an hour, rinse, and repeat. I think I have almost 45-60 minutes inserted back into my free time, and it’s helping me feel like I have more space to breathe.

Modeling my homemade pickles I made in my spare time

In the end, I miss the social interaction I get with a standard classroom, but it’s hard to beat the feeling of logging onto Zoom five minutes after waking up in my giraffe onesie instead of showering or generally looking acceptable. Perhaps there’s some merit in developing that routine, but I’m just happy that I have some ability to relax. College has proven to be an odd mix of formality and casualness, and this sort of event really blurs those lines even further. I will admit, though, not everyone is as accustomed or as willing to undergo this change. I’m thankful to have my partner staying with me through this quarantine in my townie loophole apartment, but I know others might be stuck with families that can’t accommodate them or have other circumstances that incur a lot of stress. My heart goes out to those students, and I hope we can all make it through this crisis and make our way back to having options.

Betsy DeVos – Forbes

When we think of our two biggest political parties, we generally see Republicans fighting for more privatization and Democrats fighting for more publicly sanctioned programs. What happens, then, when we introduce charter schools? They’re technically private institutions because they aren’t run by the state, but they also receive government funding, making them public as well. At the present moment, it looks like both parties are in a state of vertigo whenever they have to present an opinion on the topic, and this has only become more present in this past week as President Trump and Secretary DeVos, who have described themselves as huge fans of school choice, recently introduced a 2021 budget that would effectively eradicate the federal Charter Schools Program (CSP) and bring charter funding to a complete halt. According to The Washington Post, around 40% of all charter expansion since the 90’s has occurred thanks to this program and its several-billion-dollar endowments, and all that will ultimately disappear over the course of one fiscal year.

Pete Buttigieg is a major supporter of continuing to fund charters while holding them accountable – The Nation

Alternatively, then, this would be something for Democrats to embrace, right? Sadly, it seems the other side of the room is currently hopping back and forth on whether to accept these programs. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are both major proponents of pausing funding for all charter schools as soon as they would hypothetically enter office, while moderates are fighting for the abolition of for-profit charters but still holding onto those that receive public funding exclusively. Interestingly, this means that charters are essentially confined to the very middle of the left-right spectrum, radicals on both sides cursing them for their respective half of the public/private dichotomy present in their educational model.

Ultimately, Democrats are struggling to find out how to strengthen normal public schools and provide an adequate education to everyone without flippant private interference, while Republicans in office are mostly trying to get charter funding to shift over to other priorities. They’re problems of an equally perceived size for each party, and it has the principle of American school choice cornered with those who are willing to go beyond their party to establish their own platform. It’s a bleak future for these schools, because everyone seems to be picking away at these controversial programs until they find the one element they don’t like or that might be misconstrued as a conflict of interest in their political stance. Communities are turning against them at an alarming rate as government subsidies for schools districts have started thinning out, and legislation is constantly turning away from trying to find a way to help competing programs to coexist. While a lot of political candidates value our education, they’re viewing it from completely different angles than one another, and it’s going to make it difficult for consensus to come around with the current state of partisan divides.

State College Area High School – SCASD

Look, I know it’s a dirty term – I’ve given public school a lot of heat in my adolescence, especially after my experiences with it. It has a connotation to a lot of people that implies blandness, shortage of access to creativity, and a general lack of accommodation for students with interests beyond what the Common Core can support. For many reasons, these connotations are rightly established, because these shortcomings cannot be ignored by the community when we establish better policy in the future, but public school wasn’t designed to be a punishment to all children for ‘having it better’ than those in a previous generation. We can easily find things to appreciate in a government-funded education, especially with its ability to establish a net for students falling off the economic ladder.

First, while it has its kinks, public school has established a huge standard for providing a decent education to a lot of people, and they’re able to give less financially fortunate families an opportunity to attend the same level of education as everyone else in a community. Private schools are pretty exclusive for kids more familiar with the upper class, while anyone can be given a public education that can be worth as much as one puts into it. It’s helping to carry us out of an era that saw poor Americans struggling to even learn how to read, a problem that’s quite thankfully almost nonexistent in most of our modern communities.

Greater Good Magazine

Another benefit of public schools is their strict adhesion to a standard of quality in teachers. While private schools are generally able hire whoever they want, teachers in a state-funded school are required to have the appropriate certification needed for teaching a particular subject and/or age range. It should be comforting to know that teachers in a public school setting will always have proven at one point or another that they know how to teach, while private schools – especially ones that develop their Boards of Directors internally – have almost entirely free reign to put anyone in a classroom and give them charge over 20 kids for the day.

Very importantly as well, public schools are also much more welcoming to students with special needs: in fact, they’re required to accommodate for them. Private schools are not required by the government to provide benefits for students in special education, and some schools actively choose not to accept students with extra needs in the classroom. Unlike semi-public charters, who can get in some pretty serious trouble for failing to provide the necessary benefits for these students (and who have gotten in trouble for it), non-public schools can close their doors to them indefinitely.

Ultimately, there are trade-offs with every path in education. I personally couldn’t stand making my way through the public school system, but I was fortunate to have options that allowed me to augment my learning in a better way. For many communities, though, this is the best option they have in a given situation, and it’s a whole lot better than nothing. It saddens me that they sometimes fall short of helping students grow into budding adults, and I wish our legislation gave them a bit more help, but we’re getting there. I’m willing to do what I can to invigorate a tired carcass of an education system and give it more of a modern kick, but I can also sleep at night knowing that we’re able, as a country, to provide as much as we can right now.

For many fans of public schools and strong, standardized curriculum, charter schools tend to create a rift in the idea of a unified educational practice. Many charters practice alternative methods for designing courses and pedagogical methods for teaching material, which leads many skeptics to fear the benefits (or lack thereof) of these establishments. After all, charters receive a cut from public school funding, so shouldn’t they be performing at the same level as kids from a community’s standard schools? This is the trial by fire that many charters end up experiencing, and it has caused many to close their doors after failing to convince the government of their ability to get kids learn’d. The Wonderland Charter School in State College recently had to surrender its funding and close its doors after the local school district noted multiple ethical violations taking place: most notably, a series of discriminatory efforts against special education students were implemented to cut school costs. I remember watching dozens of Wonderland parents coming into a Board of Directors meeting the week after they voted on that decision, fighting to keep the school alive, but the school ultimately couldn’t keep up with the funding we were able to give them.

On a more usual basis, schools are held accountable by individual contracts made with local school districts, also known as charters, which is where the name originated. These charters act as petitions to create a new school, and if the government approves of the mission set forth by a budding program, it’s given a grant. Charters have “authorizers” who routinely check in on a school’s functions, approval rating, academics, and general culture and climate about once every three to five years. Charters are only generally restricted by a few simple rules, mostly revolving around an open admissions policy that cannot discriminate based on race, gender, religion, or prior academic performance. These institutions are entirely open to the public, hence their ability to pocket money from taxpayers.

Ultimately, charter schools are seen as a blessing in some communities and an utter nuisance in others. In areas of high racial segregation and poverty, students can jump across district lines to have a shot at bridging socioeconomic divides that would otherwise perpetuate the inadequate education of already suffering minorities. On the other hand, though, many dislike the funding they take away from the public schools in their community. I’ve spoken to Jon Downs, the Director of Educational Alternatives at SCASD (also my principal at the Delta Program), and he told me that the district loses several tens of thousands of dollars with every student that jumps ship. Taxpayers find even more disdain in the lack of transparency with how these schools operate: they’re giving money to support these schools, but they cannot vote for who ends up on the school board, nor can they scrutinize how funds are managed. It’s a system that sucks money in and doesn’t show anyone how it’s being used. Charter schools are a controversy that is shaking up the very foundation of how we value education in America, and it’s certainly going to lead to an overhaul of some sort in the system for deciding how individual students are educated.

Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders – Scott Olson/Getty Images

For the longest time, the Democratic party has been a huge proponent of public charter schools because of their emphasis on breaking class divides and providing educational alternatives while still remaining in the public school community. This is starting to change, however, as the current Republican Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, has also come forward showing support for the platform and hopes to establish as many as possible during her time in office. Mostly, this isn’t the big topic that’s on the minds of most candidates right now, but the extreme shift in some of the more left-wing members of the pool will mean those who consider themselves most liberal will have to make the concession of less equitable academic choice down the line, but they can expect much stronger and stable public schools as money becomes more focused toward one institution per community. The Washington Post has neatly divvied the candidates out into groups representing different levels of support, and it seems to mirror the gradient transition from moderation to progressivism that’s present in the DNC.

Mike Bloomberg Addresses the NAACP – Education Next

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, the dynamic duo, have both come forward stating their disapproval of charter schools, branding them as for-profit money holes that will serve as a detriment to mainstream public schools. They want to ban for-profit charters immediately, and they want to pause funding to not-for-profit institutions as soon as possible. Joe Biden and Tom Steyer, in partial contrast, are also fans of removing for-profit institutions but draw the line there. They want to implement more systems that hold not-for-profit charters accountable and keep them performing at the same level at which we would expect our public schools to function. Mike Bloomberg, all by himself, is a proponent of all forms of charters, and he claims that charters provide the opportunity for students to perform at the highest level possible. In a speech he delivered to the NAACP in 2019, he argues that charter schools are currently under-funded and that we need to provide more opportunities for students to branch out with their education.

Ultimately, the decision is down to how much each candidate likes institutions that aren’t directly developed and supported by the government. Since charter schools technically get their endowments by taking a chunk out of what the government gives to local public schools, many of the more liberal democrats are struggling to see beyond the idea that this is simply throwing money away. Charter schools are a huge opportunity for students to remain enrolled in a school that doesn’t disadvantage them based on their neighborhood, and not-for-profit schools provide no net loss of money in the educational system. Education needs more funding, period. Where that money goes should be negligible in contrast to the dire need for schools to get a resuscitation, but it’s understandable that those who are concerned with making sure people aren’t pocketing government money are keeping us on a responsible track with our improvements.

Across the country, dozens of what are known as Democratic/Free Schools have been breaking ground: they’re a fresh breed of community and curriculum that allows students more choice, input, and ownership in their education. While many of these schools vary in their secondary functions and goals, the core belief of most of these places is to establish students, teachers, and other faculty/administration as equal parties who are working together toward a common goal. These schools seek the abolition of the traditional classroom dynamic that puts teachers in a superior role, instead establishing a bond between everyone that allows for a more fruitful learning environment. I can personally attest to the value in getting through adolescence in a space like this, and I have to say that no decision in my youth saved my life more crucially than to try a Democratic School out.

State College Area’s Delta Program – Centre Daily Times

One of my friends from high school used to jokingly describe our academic experience as a “special school for special kids.” We went to the Delta Program, an alternative school of choice based right here in State College, and we both knew that a statement like that was far from telling the whole story. Yes, Delta is a special school (at least to my friends and me), but nobody I knew in my time there was a particularly “special” person; I mean those words in that we didn’t need to have been born through immaculate conception and seen as the Messiah to attend our school, nor were any of us the scum of society. From my perspective, everyone at Delta was unique, but not in a way that made us into a traveling circus; instead, we simply had a few edges that weren’t meshing well with a more traditional schooling option, and we gave ourselves the audacity to demand change and seek it out. What resulted for many of us was a complete upturn in how we were approaching school, and we even started to feel like we were at home in the ramshackle asbestos hut that was our Fairmount Avenue campus. We called our teachers by their first names, and they became some of our dearest friends as they helped us transform our learning from traditional lectures to unique, hands-on experiences that have changed the way I understand how a person can learn.

Urban Institute

I’ve discussed this topic a lot since I started here at Penn State, and I think that it’s important for me to expand beyond reflecting on my own experiences and start making a move to establish my goals, which I thought would be a great use for the Civic Issues platform we’re taking on as a class this semester. I want to make educational alternatives into an important part of my thesis, and I think a good place to start with taking the temperature of alternative schooling is to take a look at how these schools impact our community and others like it. For example, charter schools are under hot debate in the Democratic political community right now, and I think that will be where I start. This is the first time the American public has started to have mixed views about different institutions getting public funding, which has the opportunity to totally overhaul the path of deviant curricula.