Here’s The Real Story Behind The School Choice Debate In ‘Abbott Elementary’

After meandering for so many episodes in its second season, the teacher-based sitcom “Abbott Elementary” has finally latched onto a compelling theme/storyline: the urban public school’s competition with the nearby charter school. In its seventh episode, “Attack Ad,” the teachers of Abbott Elementary are the victims of a commercial that casts them in a negative light. The ad portrays Abbott Elementary as an incompetent and corrupt school, contrasting with Legendary Charter Schools that can save its students.

Although the show clearly takes a side, it actually does a good job of encapsulating the argument between public educators and advocates of charter schools. On one side are public school teachers who face many challenges, especially in the inner cities, but nonetheless think they prevail and offer hope to poor children trying to make it into adulthood. They imagine themselves like Jaime Escalante in “Stand and Deliver,” who took innumerate thugs from the barrio of East L.A. and turned them into math whizzes who could pass the AP Calculus exam. 

On the other side are the charter school proponents who, perhaps inspired by the popular documentary “Waiting for Superman,” cast public schools as squalid hellholes staffed with terrible teachers and corrupt administrators while they highlight the orderly, rigorous environments of the KIPP schools and Founders Classical Academies as what’s possible with charter schools. 

For the most part, this dichotomy is largely misleading and not quite true, so there’s little point in determining which side is right. Rather, there’s more to be gained in seeing where these ideals go wrong so that true reform and clear thinking can happen. 

In my experience as a public school teacher, I see more flaws in those who attempt to defend all public teachers from all criticism and call for unconditional trust from parents and ever more funding. They fail to recognize the major issues afflicting public education, namely the corrupt bureaucracy, disincentivized educators, and constant excuses. 

It’s true that many campuses are in disrepair and that the teachers aren’t earning enough money, but this isn’t because districts are underfunded. Rather, they are bloated and mismanaged, devoting far too much money to programs, positions, and products that do nothing for students or their teachers. This means the real villain in “Abbott Elementary” shouldn’t be the charter school but the leadership of the School District of Philadelphia that leaves its schools in such conditions despite having the money (spending $25,089 per student last year). 

The problems of bad leadership and mismanaged spending too often result in the hiring of lackluster teachers. Far from being energetic young teachers like Greg and Janine or experienced veterans like Melissa and Barbara, most teachers understandably take the worst of both types, being cynical and resigned before they do anything with their students. Apart from a few outliers, most teachers in urban public schools will do just enough to make it through the year without incidents. If they try too much, they will quickly experience burnout and likely run into conflicts with students