Don Ayers – 3/14/10

This page was last updated on March 14, 2010.

Will charter school reflect community?; Don Ayers; Beaver County Times; March 14, 2010.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“Three points of contention regarding the proposed Baden Academy Charter School:”

[RWC] Mr. Ayers wrote at least one other letter on this topic. (I did not critique that letter.) A school representative responded here.

According to the Ambridge Area School District website, Donald Ayers is an AASD junior high science teacher. Assuming Don and Donald are the same person (or even family members), it’s funny how Mr. Ayers and the Times failed to note this relationship in either of his letters, isn’t it?

“Point 1: Tax dollars that are siphoned away from the Ambridge Area School District to another charter school will further harm my son’s education by taking away from his curriculum. Why is it anybody’s right to do this to my son?”

[RWC] The charter school “will further harm [Mr. Ayers’] son’s education?” What’s been done to date to harm the “son’s education?”

“Why is it anybody’s right to do this to my son?” Here are better questions. When parents want to send their kids to a different school, why should they have to pay tuition twice, once in school taxes and again to the school their children attend? When parents decide to home school their kids, doesn’t paying public school tuition (school taxes) take away from their child’s curriculum?

“Point 2: Is Baden Academy going to have the same proportional percentages of populations, such as racial diversity, special education students and students on free and reduced lunch? If not, then Baden Academy is not equally diverse and therefore discriminatory.”

[RWC] What a load of BS! Mr. Ayers wants us to believe he cares about discrimination, yet for Baden Academy to satisfy him on this point would require discrimination by BA. All anyone can and should expect is the school not to discriminate during admissions.

“Point 3: I have met and know many wonderful and successful people who graduated from the Ambridge Area. Amazingly enough, they have done very well despite their Ambridge Area education.”

[RWC] So? Choosing one school over another doesn’t make one school bad. When my parents sent my brothers and me to St. Titus (grades 1-8), it wasn’t because they didn’t like Center’s grade school. It was because they wanted us to get a Catholic education. In the case of Baden Academy, it’s likely because the parents want an “arts-infused elementary and middle school program (K-8) based on a classical education model” (whatever that is) for their kids. That doesn’t make Ambridge schools bad; it only means the parents want something different for their children.