Reply #135: Thank you.

[tunacan]

Diversity is one of the many reasons I decided to send my child to a charter school half an hour away rather than the home school that's in my neighborhood. Our home school is one of the best in the county, highly qualified teachers, with very involved parents, so it wasn't the specs that was the problem. My son went to a very progressive preschool where the teachers act only as mediators, and I wanted him to continue on with an educational philosophy similar to that as long as possible. I would much rather have him learn to respect differences and to think critically and creatively, rather than learning how to do well on tests and follow authority. So in our case being able to get in the charter school was a life saver-- otherwise I'd be agonizing over how we can't afford to send our only child to a private school in the area that is closest to what we're looking for. But then I'd still have the diversity issue...

True, it is possible to have the kind of education I'm looking for in a non-charter public school, but it depends too much on which teacher my child would have. At our home school's open house I was a little sad to see the stark difference in the K classroom atmosphere depending on who was the teacher. It's not like I'll have a guarantee my child will have the right teacher for him and definitely the school as a whole won't be like that.

Btw, the law in our state is that all charter students are selected by lottery. Siblings do have priority, but only when one of them has already been in the school at least one full year. And yes, they are PUBLIC schools, just like magnet schools in some school districts. The only difference that I know of is that charter schools have more freedom from rules and regulations that other public schools have to abide by. (Unfortunately magnet schools weren't an option for us-- none in our district.)

I'm rather surprised to see that charter school are such a hot topic here when some of them could provide kids with the kind of education that will lead them to be more altruistic. Maybe it's because all states have different charter school laws and that should be fixed first.