which would be insanity yes?
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I was going to say, shouldn’t the market take care of this? Third parties will evaluate schools and publish rankings the way they do for colleges. When a charter school underperforms its public competitor, nobody will send their kids there. Then this happens:
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This actually happens a lot … which brings up the question of why the hell are charter schools still considered a viable alternative by anyone? Even the free market is making it clear that this idea does not work.
I never understood why anyone would think profit based primary and secondary education would work. A for profit charter school has one “cost” public schools and not for profit private schools will never have. Profit. Traditional for profit private schools work because they aren’t required to be accessible to everyone. Only those who can afford the tuition can get in. A for profit charter school is going to have largely the same expenses as a public school, plus the added expense of profit. Even if you believe they can do many things more efficiently than a public school, which is debatable, their costs are going to be the same order of magnitude. Once you add in profit, there’s no way a charter school is going to be able to provide the same quality of education as a public school for the same price. The math just doesn’t work.
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They make a lot of money for the greedheads pushing them. And they suck for just about everyone else.
If you’re that kind of greedhead, point to “failing” public schools, claim “choice” (that is, charters) is a viable alternative, then smile and shiver as the fiscal splooge of money flows into your pockets.
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You should win an award for that turn of phrase.
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But they don’t seem to make money for the people operating them. There’s one here in the Kansas City area that’s floundering and about to go belly up. You’d think at some point, even the greedy bastards pushing the idea would move on to something else.
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Right. It’s mostly the initial pushers who line their pockets. Whatever happens later doesn’t matter to them because they’re long gone.
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I’m going to throw out a contrarian viewpoint which is solely anecdotal knowing that there are a lot of bad charter schools out there.
Both of my kids attend, and my wife teaches at a charter school which focuses on the arts and global education. Pretty much every accusation towards the “bad” charter schools is not the case with us. The school receives no more funding than any other school, parental involvement is a requirement (typically each class has 2 or more parent volunteers every day), getting into the school is a blind lottery (the only exception is that siblings of existing students get priority), the school regularly outperforms other schools in the district, the teachers are allowed to use progressive teaching techniques, the teachers win more school district grants than any other school (these are judged blindly by the district), there is less emphasis on standardized testing, the district performs all oversight, students learn in hands-on centers as opposed to primarily lecture-based learning, non-violent communication, it’s a huge wonderful community, etc. etc. etc.
Our school is a great alternative. We’ve had a lot of students that did poorly at “traditional” school, were bullied, didn’t fit in, you name it. Our hippie dippie school has worked wonders for some kids, including my own, by focusing on the “whole child” instead of one subject at a time.
I think my point is that charters can work but you need the right people with the right attitudes running them.
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Do you know if the school is run by a non-profit organization? I think that might help, especially if the organization that runs it is local constituted.
It’s good to have a good school for your kids, though! We need everyone to have good schools.
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Yes, it is run by a non-profit.
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I do think the charters that most people are being critical of tend to be the ones set up by for-profit corporations that aren’t locally constituted. I do think that public schools can take a lesson from well-run, non-profit locally run private and charter schools to better benefit everyone.
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