{"id":192,"date":"2018-05-01T19:44:17","date_gmt":"2018-05-01T23:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2018-cspiro\/?page_id=192"},"modified":"2018-05-16T11:45:25","modified_gmt":"2018-05-16T15:45:25","slug":"professional-article-synthesis","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2018-cspiro\/professional-article-synthesis\/","title":{"rendered":"Professional Articles Synthesis"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a recent article from Education Next, Robin Lake, Ashley Jochim, and Michael DeArmond, all researchers from the Center on Reinventing Public Education, take an in-depth look at Detroit\u2019s failing school system and the challenges facing school choice. In a blog post from Education Week, staff writer and reporter Arianna Prothero investigates one such challenge, exploring how the propagation of charters does not guarantee equal access to such schools. <\/em><\/p>\n

Context:<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The language used in any debate is important and helps identify biases within sources. Proponents of charter schools use the language \u201cschool choice,\u201d while critics avoid the positive connotation of \u201cchoice\u201d and instead refer to the movement as \u201cprivatization,\u201d highlighting perceived negative effects of capitalism within public school systems. Lake, Jochim, and DeArmond, remaining relatively neutral, contextualize this nationwide debate in the city of Detroit, lamenting that the plethora of school options for parents and students does not necessitate good available options for everyone (2015, p. 22). Prothero\u2019s article appears more biased, using the language of choice and highlighting ways to improve the system, not overhaul it (2017). Unarguably, Detroit schools are struggling, with just 16 percent of public schools (charter and district) receiving scores of C+ or better from the Excellent Schools Detroit coalition in 2014, far behind similar cities (Lake, Jochim, & DeArmond, 2015, p. 23). Although close to half of the charters outperform traditional schools, given the \u201cvery low bar\u201d set by the district, this is not very impressive (Lake, Jochim, & DeArmond, 2015, p. 23).<\/p>\n

Problems and Challenges for Parents:<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In a competitive market-based approach to education, the responsibility for insuring the quality of a child\u2019s education falls upon the parent \u2013\u00a0\u201cthey\u2019re on their own\u201d (Lake, Jochim, & DeArmond, 2015, p. 22). Parents in Detroit struggle to navigate the complexities of the system, and thus are<\/p>\n

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Lots of school options are difficult and stressful for parents<\/p><\/div>\n

barred from accessing full potential benefits. This disproportionately affects low-income, low-education parents. Parents with the least education are \u201cmuch less likely than parents with college degrees to say their child is in a school that was their first or second choice\u201d (Lake, Jochim, & DeArmond, 2015, p. 24). Some problems these parents face:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \u201cFinding good information and easy ways to compare options,\u201d (Prothero, 2017) which includes knowing if their child is eligible for different schools (Lake, Jochim, & DeArmond, 2015, p. 23). This is especially difficult for parents with limited literacy skills who are themselves the result of a failing education system.<\/li>\n
  2. Disadvantaged families cannot pay for special services that help wealthier families get the most out of the choice system (Prothero, 2017). Resultantly, charters do not act as societal equalizers and instead perpetuate inequality.<\/li>\n
  3. Many \u201coptions\u201d for schools are not accessible because of issues with transportation, safety concerns, and lack of special education resources (Prothero, 2017; Lake, Jochim, & DeArmond, 2015, p. 23).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Solutions:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
      \n
    1. Prothero argues for the importance of building \u201csupport organizations [and] getting neighborhood input\u201d before building new charters or making drastic changes to existing schools (2017), which Lake, Jochim, & DeArmond sum up simply as \u201cgrassroots change\u201d (2015, p. 26).<\/li>\n
    2. Lake, Jochim, & DeArmond argue that the problem is a \u201clack of incentives for improvement,\u201d so Detroit must invest in building a \u201cstrong core of quality charters,\u201d recruiting talented school leaders and teachers, and getting city leaders on board (2015, p. 26).<\/li>\n
    3. Prothero describes resources like guidebooks and online registration systems that exist in other American cities to help with the information gap. She sees the \u201cpotential value of pairing choice policies with easily accessible data on school quality,\u201d as a way to incentivize parents to become more informed (2017).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      References:<\/strong><\/h3>\n

      Lake, R. J., Jochim, A., & DeArmond, M. (2015). “Fixing Detroit’s Broken School\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0System.”\u00a0Education Next,\u00a015<\/em>(1). Retrieved from http:\/\/educationnext.org\/<\/p>\n

      Prothero, A. (2017). “School Choice Creates Challenges for Parents: What Are Cities Doing to\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Help?” Retrieved from http:\/\/blogs.edweek.org<\/p>\n

      Image:\u00a0http:\/\/blogs.edweek.org\/edweek\/charterschoice\/2017\/11\/school_choice_creates_challenges_for_parents_what_are_cities_doing_to_help.html<\/a><\/p>\n

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      \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      In a recent article from Education Next, Robin Lake, Ashley Jochim, and Michael DeArmond, all researchers from the Center on Reinventing Public Education, take an in-depth look at Detroit\u2019s failing school system and the challenges facing school choice. In a blog post from Education Week, staff writer and reporter Arianna Prothero investigates one such challenge, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":665,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-192","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2018-cspiro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2018-cspiro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2018-cspiro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2018-cspiro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/665"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2018-cspiro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2018-cspiro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/192\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2018-cspiro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}