Scrutiny of Pride Prep unfair

Chris Cargill’s op-ed piece (June 11) claiming unfair scrutiny of Pride Prep is itself unfair with flawed comparisons. And it sidesteps the root problem — poverty.

He contends that Pride Prep’s academic performance numbers are superior to other Spokane public schools with “similar students” at Garry and Shaw middle schools. They aren’t “similar students.” Garry’s and Shaw’s students are more severely hobbled by poverty.

A strong measure of poverty is the percentage of students on free and reduced lunch. At Pride Prep it’s 59%. At Garry and Shaw it’s 88%, which translates to a 49% heavier poverty burden than Pride Prep.

The poverty burden is huge. Children of poverty live fragile and unstable lives outside of school, often distressed by homelessness, food insecurity, domestic violence, neglected healthcare, crime, drug abuse, disengaged parents — all crippling disadvantages that hamper educational success. Simultaneously, they have fewer physical and emotional advantages: limited school supplies, little help with homework, no home computer, no Wi-Fi, no role models, and little encouragement or family support — the vital underpinnings of educational success. You can’t thrive in school if the rest of your life is barely hanging together.

At bottom educational performance correlates directly to poverty. Anywhere you look in the nation, the worse the poverty, the worse the test scores. Pride Prep has its laudable successes. But Pride Prep and charter schools generally are not a cure-all. And they have a key advantage: they can weed out poverty-challenged students who fail academically or behaviorally — and return them to Shaw and Garry.

Steve McNutt

Spokane