General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: How Charter Schools Fleece Taxpayers: "the rule, not the exception" [View all]TheBlackAdder
(28,188 posts)1) They are not held to the same testing standards. This is done to prevent direct Apples to Apples comparisons that the general public could understand. Instead, it's a convoluted process that cannot be fully realized until 4-5 years pass by - by that time, a whole cluster of students would be affected.
2) They are allowed to take the voucher money from public school systems, including the $12-14K plus the $800 or so transportation money from the school. Meanwhile, if a charter takes 3-4 kids out of each school's grade level, that could result in the loss of over $200K to that school with NO WAY of consolidating classes or cutting costs.
The net result is the towns have to pay more in property taxes to fund the school district's shortfall.
3) Most charter schools are also exempt from the local elected school board's oversight. This means that the charter school can practically hire who they choose to hire. In my town, we just narrowly missed a charter, where the guy starting it was a minister who also ran a daycare program from his churches and also had a group that took state/federal money to get convicts back on their feet... along with their Social Security money. Part of that service was that the parolees had to perform community service on his properties - which included the charter school. Parolees would be doing facility work at the school filled with over 250 elementary children. Plus, the volunteer teachers at his daycare would be low-paid 'teachers' using some education program that is sold to charter schools.
The minister would get about $15,000 per kid from the neighboring town's while his costs were just over $10K, and he would get to pocket the savings!