One in Five Charter Schools Is Bad Enough to Close

[wildeyed]

30. Hahaha! Too late.

Both my children go to charter schools already. As a result, I know quite a bit about them.

Rules vary from state to state, but charter schools in my state are NOT allowed to cherry pick. Some probably do find ways around the rules, but plenty of high scoring regular publics do the same. I know this for a fact because my oldest kid went to one that would hold back any 2nd grader child who was in danger of doing poorly on EOGs the next year. Didn't matter if retention wasn't in the child's best interest or if the family did not want it. That is what happened in order to protect the school's high standardized test scores. This was the local PUBLIC elementary school, not some dastardly charter school bent on robbing the public coffers and destroying public education one young mind at a time.

Nobody sold me on charter schools. The local elementary was a bad fit for my oldest, so I went looking for options. We homeschooled for a bit, but the charters have worked out better for us. I sent my youngest to a different charter specifically because he is learning disabled and I saw what the regular public did to those kids. The charter he attends is much smaller and the curriculum is geared toward visual/spatial learners. I told them straight up that he had issues when we enrolled and they said "Great! We specialize in quirky kids!" He has blossomed.

Neither charter school my children attend are for profit. I don't know where this idea on DU that ALL charter schools are money grubbing corporate entities comes from. There are a few I guess, but most in my city are small, not for profit and started by parents and educators.