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In reply to the discussion: One in Five Charter Schools Is Bad Enough to Close [View all]Squinch
(50,774 posts)By the vast majority of studies done so far, the charters average lower achievement than the public schools.
But charters are allowed to cherry pick their students. Where I live and in most other places charters don't accept, or quickly get rid of, any students who have learning issues, behavioral issues, or physical issues. With those children out of the averages, they ought to be blowing the doors off the public schools. But they are not. They are underperforming in the aggregate.
The problem, too, is that charters are sold very hard to the parents and neighborhoods. It is only after the corporation takes over the neighborhood school that the parents learn that their learning disabled kids are now not going to be accepted by the charter, and are going to have to be bussed to another neighborhood. Or, if their child is accepted, the charter school does not have to comply with the same standards as the public school, and they have no recourse if they don't like how their children are treated or taught.
Education should not be a corporate enterprise. We've seen what that has done in higher education. Why would we think it should be different at younger levels?
This is a bill of goods.
You seem to think it is a possibly nice alternative to public school. Please look VERY VERY carefully before you submit your child to a charter school.