So what?
If "level the playing field" means my kid gets a sub standard education because you have to constantly lower the bar, I don't want to play your game.
This stuff isn't new. Everyone understands the importance of education, and everyone understands the importance of being involved in your child's education.
It isn't about poor and minority. It's about being a good parent.
Some people don't have that ability, and my kid shouldn't be punished for it, regardless of the money in my wallet.
There are plenty of examples of single parent and low income households where they value education and push their kids to doing better.
At some point, it has to be about personal responsibility and not blaming everyone else for your failure to be a good parent.
The real differentiating factor isn't wealth but simply giving a shit about your children. Parents have to take some minimal effort to enroll their children in a charter school and many simply don't bother.
There are the parents doing heroics that I can hardly imagine, and they should be celebrated. But we need to design a system that provides a sufficient level of support for those families that only have an average level of capacity.
Yes, you can only “imagine” what it’s like for people who are less comfortable than you. But that cuts both ways. It could be that you’re also “imagining” the barriers you think exist to people accessing charter schools. In particular, I suspect you’re incorrectly assuming that people work as much as you do, just for less money.
1. give a shit
2. enroll
3. ???
4. PROFIT!
Working 14 hours a day so you can clothe and feed your kid doesn’t leave much time for that.
That doesn’t mean you don’t give a shit.
This is slave morality and the logic of ressentiment and envy. It is also profoundly immoral.
Never mind that this approach condemns everyone to a state of perpetual mediocrity, and the poor will always be with us. Mind you, how much you value education is to a large degree a product of the family environment and how supportive it is.
How about we allow excellence to flourish as it does, support it any way we can, and also look for ways to lift those who are worse off out of their condition? The focus should be on making things better, not bizarre idealistic notions like "equality" or "equity", whatever they even mean in real, concrete terms. If we dispense with envy, we focus on objective improvement instead of status-obsessed insecurities.
Of course, I think the most pressing problem in education today is that most "educators" have no damn clue what it even means to be educated anymore. They think they know, but they absolutely do not. It isn't "getting a job", as important as jobs are, or some odd aim of the ideology du jour. Public education in an ideologically-charged society of our stripe is practically condemned to superficiality and poor quality, because all good education begins with an accurate anthropology. We can't even agree on that, so naturally, this produces a lowest common denominator effect. In such a situation especially, permitting a diversity of educational styles and programs is necessary.
And btw, if someone is wealthy enough, they'll move to another school district and make school choice a reality anyway within your regime. People do it all the time. Or would you like a return to latifundia to enforce your vision?