RAVITCH: How charter schools exclude kids they don't want & shake down parents of those they do

[yurbud]

Charter schools are public schools run by private, mostly for-profit contractors with taxpayer money.

To try to goose their test scores, they exclude kids who are difficult to educate and skim the cream of the crop. In a Reuters investigative report, one of the ways they do this is requiring a fifteen page research paper to get in. If a kid could do that, they should be done with K-12 and applying to colleges.

If this is how they filter applicants, it makes the charters performance even less impressive: only 17% do better than regular public schools, and 37% do worse.

How Charter Schools Exclude the Kids They Don’t Want
by dianerav

Stephanie B. Simon, investigative reporter for Reuters, has written a stunning exposé of the many ways that charter exclude kids who might drag down their test scores.

Getting in to a charter school, she writes, can be a "grueling experience."

Examples: "Students may be asked to submit a 15-page typed research paper, an original short story, or a handwritten essay on the historical figure they would most like to meet. There are interviews. Exams. And pages of questions for parents to answer, including: How do you intend to help this school if we admit your son or daughter?"

And this:

"Thousands of charter schools don't provide subsidized lunches, putting them out of reach for families in poverty. Hundreds mandate that parents spend hours doing "volunteer" work for the school or risk losing their child's seat. In one extreme example the Cambridge Lakes Charter School in Pingree Grove, Illinois, mandates that each student's family invest in the company that built the school - a practice the state said it would investigate after inquiries from Reuters."

And there is much more. Read it. Then ask, are these public schools or private schools subsidized with public money?

URL: http://wp.me/p2odLa-3YA

[NYC_SKP]

1. No. Not all Charter Schools are public schools run by private, mostly for-profit contractors.

Some are truly public charter schools, not for profit, run by, among other entities, county offices of education.

When your OP begins with misinformation it kind of brings the whole thing down.

Nonetheless, the article points out a lot of the bad things about SOME charter schools.

OTOH, other charter schools are working well for their constituents, and use union teachers.

I don't know why people want to bring them all down.

[Ash_F]

2. Then maybe all charter schools should be held to the standard of the ones you champion.

Right?

[NYC_SKP]

3. Yes. indeed there should be standards. (nt)

[Ash_F]

5. Standards we don't have, currently.

Which is what I believe the article is driving at. And the issue of primary concern to critics of the charter school program.

[yurbud]

7. SOME are non-profit, SOME use union teachers, MORE do worse than regular public schools than better

That last one is especially ironic since they can often pick their students and STILL don't do better than regular schools.

[msongs]

6. the purpose of charter schools is to make a profit. all else serves that goal nt