Andrew Broy, president of Illinois Network of Charter Schools, complains that charter school and Chicago Public School progress are being unfairly compared because selective enrollment schools that screen for performance prior to admission are included in the Chicago scores (“Report finds charters struggling like other CPS schools” News, Nov. 30).
I submit that charter schools “screen” for performance before admission by eliminating students without strong parental support (they never make it through the application process) and then again after admission by “counseling” out behavior problems and others who are just not making it. Even one single disruptive student can take precious time away from the teaching/learning process, causing all students to suffer.
If charter schools really want a chance to prove that they are more productive than Chicago schools, then I have a challenge for them. Set up your charter school, but instead of taking the most highly motivated students with the most supportive parents from the neighborhood schools, take the bottom 50 percent instead. Choose your principal, your teachers, your textbooks and your methods, but keep class size the same and keep all academically struggling and disruptive students in the classroom. Meet you at sunrise in the schoolyard.
— Sue Ellen Levins, Chicago
