Op-Ed

Free Market Not the Answer for Education's Woes

In opinion piece, Bethlehem Area superintendent and Lehigh professor write that the profit motive of charter schools "erode the public good" of public education.

  By Joseph Roy and George White America's public schools have played a role in reducing inequality and increasing the bonds between people of diverse backgrounds. Yet, as we struggle through a particularly partisan era, a period in which the middle class is shrinking and income inequality is increasing, there is a growing movement to privatize public schools. Earlier this month, the Philadelphia School District announced that even more of the city's public schools will be given to charter organizations this fall, even though only 29 percent of the 80 charter schools met benchmarks. Today, one-third of the nation's charter schools are being operated by private education management organizations, and this proportion grows each year. In …

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Ivy Leaguer Says Don't Trash Allentown Schools

Allen High's 2010 valedictorian says district prepared her well for a Princeton education.

When Tess Bernhard worked as a cashier at Wegmans in Allentown, customers would sometimes ask her where she went to school.  “I would have people take steps away from me when I admitted I went to Allen [High], ” she told me.  Yet, remarkably, she was never in a fistfight and has no visible gang tattoos. In fact, she says she never felt in danger at the school and had some very dedicated teachers, including those who challenged her in the 11 Advanced Placement courses she took.   “They really encouraged anybody to challenge themselves,” said Bernhard, who was Allen’s Class of 2010 valedictorian and is now a sophomore at Princeton University.  That doesn’t sound anything like the Allentown schools you read about regularly on the blogosphere …

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