My School Had a CEO

By Tania Norzagaray

My education story is a little different because of the fact that I attended a charter school all throughout middle and high school. Charter schools are a fairly new thing and were supposed to serve as alternatives to the underfunded public school system. Usually free of cost, charter schools rely on private donations from wealthy entrepreneurs as well as public funding that was supposed to go to public schools but has instead been diverted to charters. They operate on a lottery system and work to further privatize education and have been linked to the degradation of public schools. I recognize that I received immense privileges from attending a charter school which include a partnership with a college success program where students receive a scholarship to pursue higher education, as well as being partnered up with a counselor, a financial aid advisor, and extra funding for books and technology. 

My school, despite having adequate funding and proper resources, lacked the ability to retain teachers and had a horrible school climate. Aside from the fact that I took three classes online, almost all of our instructors were sourced from Teach For America. These teachers were all young, white, wealthy college graduates who’ve had no teaching experience or cultural competency whatsoever. My charter school consisted of low-income Black and Hispanic students and these instructors lacked social & critical consciousness to understand our situations. They saw themselves as doing charity work and according to TFA they’re contracts only last for two years unless they decide to renew them. However most of these teachers would leave after their contract ended and would seek better paying jobs at private schools. We were like guinea pigs, a testing ground for these teachers until they decided that they couldn’t handle working with us anymore.

In terms of school climate, I vividly remember that my school has a CEO and I always wondered why schools would even have CEO’s, they’re schools, not corporations. Charter schools however are notorious for being cash cows and for operating in a top-down management style. We need more funding and more resources to support traditional public schools, and ensure that ALL students have access to teachers who look like them and a curriculum that helps them succeed.