What's Noble in the Noble Network?

In a recent April post "A Former Charter Teacher Defends the Noble Network in Chicago," Diane Ravitch quotes a teacher's letter raising serious concerns about the Chicago public-school system.  The teacher says she could teach her children at the Noble charter school.  Apparently, she cannot do the same as a CPS teacher.  She defends the disciplinary practices that earn Noble $400,000 in student fines.  She critiques public-school teachers and students.

I'm not surprised she had a better time teaching her students at Noble. If she'd been unable to teach them, the students would have been discharged from Noble and sent back to the Chicago public-school system.  When she states that she cannot teach her students at CPS, I wonder sadly if she has given up on these kids who deserve, and could probably benefit most from, a free public education.

If the institution was really "noble," it would take all its additional private funding and use it to teach many of the kids with the greatest needs or the ones that are the hardest to teach in a non-segregated environment.  "Noble" would provide students with a very low student-teacher ratio.  They would ensure wraparound services for all plus a great deal of positive personal interaction with students, parents and guardians.  They would not give up on students and push them out the door.  They would put people over profit.  

In my opinion, there is little "noble" in what noble does.   They keep the best students and discard the ones with the biggest needs.  They return these students to a now more highly segregated public-school system.  They destroy the public school system by sapping it of its much needed resources at the same time as they feed it the neediest children and co-locate.  Then, charters gloat about higher test scores--which sometimes aren't even higher.  They pave the way for more privatization. 

The other day I found myself at the Bronx Zoo.  I spied a group of Success Academy children in the butterfly garden.  I actually watched them with as much, if not more, interest than the butterflies.  Their uniforms were almost as pretty! 

I saw a teacher and several parent chaperones; I saw happy smiles and youthful faces aglow.  Of course, all the people in the zoo appeared this way to me.  I'm pretty sure I was smiling, too.  It was a perfect day despite the threat of rain.

I find great irony in the name Success Academy.  Moskowitz is certainly successful with her near-half-a-million-dollar salary. Indeed, her schools form an exclusive club for only the successful.  It is not truly a public school.  If you do not measure up, you are booted back to the New York public-school system.  There is success for those who would have succeeded anyway.  

In my mind, real success would be helping the neediest achieve greater heights.  If charters really want to be noble or successful, they would take their superior wealth and focus it on helping those with the greatest needs.  They would use their millions to move ahead those whom charters now leave behind. They would make radically smaller class sizes, offer phenomenal wraparound services and maintain constant contact with the parents and guardians of these children. Wouldn't that be real success?  Wouldn't that be truly noble?