Speaking of charter schools

When it comes to charter schools and private school vouchers, I have quite a bit to say, and then some evidence to support at least one of my points.

First of all, conceptually, alternative schools aren't a bad idea. They can explore ways to enrich and improve education without some of the constraints placed on public schools or the religion imposed by religious institutions. Great idea, horrible in practice.

Often the money to run these charter/alternative schools is taken from a local school system, thus reducing the resources available to the community and the school district, though there might well not be a corresponding reduction in student population when some of the children in the charter come from other districts. If the funding actually came from a source other than school district funds and state aid to education, I'd be far more impressed with the commitment to improve education.

Far too often the charters/alternatives use their existence as an excuse to mistreat teaching staff. Union benefits such as tenure, reasonable pay, limits on class size, length of school day/year, etc. are all tossed out, yet the administrations of these schools all claim that their staff is far more dedicated. As if teachers need to be mistreated in order to be dedicated. I would guess that good teachers want to be well compensated and have reasonable working conditions and will turn to schools who provide that before they look at teaching under substandard conditions.

As an aside while we're talking about teachers, let me point out that numerous studies have shown that 70% of our nation's teachers come from the bottom 30% of college graduates. Why do you suppose that the teaching profession in America does not attract a higher quality of personnel? Low pay (compared with other professions); little community support (voters have to approve their budgets); poor working conditions (run down schools and a lack of supplies); and constant attacks from the right wing political leaders impugning their dignity (publication of their evaluations). Keep it up, America, and NOBODY will teach in your damn schools.

Back to charter/alternative schools. Often these institutions are turned over to private businesses to run and a large percentage of these companies are running the schools for a profit. They want to profit off of the government funding they can get. They are given a per-pupil allotment of state and local tax money to run the school - usually the same per-pupil allotment that is being spent in the local public school. Then the company takes somewhere between 7% and 15% off the top for profits. They are now spending considerably less on the students than the local public school which needs no profit. Do you think money makes a difference in the quality of the education the children will get? Better teachers? Better supplies? Better school environment? Me too.

My last point of this editorial is that study after study has shown that charter/private schools, on average (there are  very few exceptions), perform no better than the public schools and usually they perform worse. Now, I will grant you that the assessments being used to judge both charter/alternate schools suck the big wazoo, but the evidence so far seems to show that we are wasting our money on charters. If we want better schools, we could do our experimenting in our public schools - show them more love and support - create better assessments - treat our teachers better - make education a priority - and get the job done without making it a system to reward the friends of our politicians who want to profit off of your tax money.

Now to the point of proof of my arguments that I wanted to offer up.

From The Daily Page

Last spring, in the statewide math and reading tests known as the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination (WKCE), students at Milwaukee's voucher schools did worse than their public-school peers.

"The scores released by the state Department of Public Instruction cast a shadow on the overall quality of the 21-year-old Milwaukee Parental Choice Program," the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. "The scores also raise concerns about Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to roll back the mandate that voucher schools participate in the current state test."

And from The Toledo Blade

When charter schools burst onto Ohio's education scene about 15 years ago, proponents claimed they could educate at-risk children better and more cheaply than traditional public schools. Today, the reality is quite different - and alarming.

Charter schools cost the state more than twice as much per student as traditional schools do. And with a handful of exceptions, their academic performance is worse.

Ohio's system of deducting charter-school funding from the amount of state aid to school districts gives charters more money than they spend.

And from Common Dreams

A new analysis of charter schools in the U. S. is out from CREDO, the Stanford-based outfit that found in 2009, when there were 4,700 charters across 40 states, that 17 percent of the nation's charter schools were scoring better on standardized tests than the public schools they were created to replace:

    While the report recognized a robust national demand for more charter schools from parents and local communities, it found that 17 percent of charter schools reported academic gains that were significantly better than traditional public schools, while 37 percent of charter schools showed gains that were worse than their traditional public school counterparts, with 46 percent of charter schools demonstrating no significant difference.


You can do an Internet search and find lots more reports like these.  Charter schools are little more than a false hope and a waste of tax-payers money.