Charter School Epic Fail

[Scuba]

Coverage thanks to Blogging Blue.

St. Louis is scrambling to find space for 3,500 students when 6 charter schools were forced to close due to poor student performance.

Missouri education officials cited problems with the schools, including scores on the state’s standardized tests that were well below those of St. Louis Public Schools. Other issues included rent and administrative costs that took dollars from the classroom to the for-profit management company that runs them.

Of course the taxpayers of St. Louis will end up footing the bill for yet another privatization failure. Can we stop pretending that the private sector is the answer to public education instead of a giant tax money vacuum setup by private companies desperate to find new sources of captive revenue?

In the end, the charter school movement stems from the same pathological privatization fervor that is gripping the US prison system. It is designed to extract tax money from the public sector and nothing more.

[droidamus2]

1. The problem

'the for-profit company that runs them' is the problem. For profit companies are in business just for that making a profit not educating the students. if they can cut back on what they spend on the students and thus make bigger profits which let the executives and managers take home bigger paychecks and bonuses so much the better. The is why public education that takes the profit motive out of it will always better serve the students and the public as a whole. To allow those that see educating our young people as just another way to make a profit convince us that we should cut school fund raising taxes, downplay the importance of teachers and paying those same teachers a good wage for what they do resulting in poorer performing and maintained schools is dangerous and shortsighted. Support and fund the public schools at a level that will give the students a comfortable up to date and safe facility to learn in and attract the best and brightest to teach them (along with doing everything you can to get all parents deeply involved in their children's education) and you will see test scores and more importantly overall results rise.

Are our public schools perfect? Of course not. Can they be reexamined and restructured to better serve those they strive to educate while still maintaining them as public institutions? Absolutely.
Educating the next generation should be the purpose of our schools not making a profit and putting more money in corporate pockets.

[Scuba]

2. Agreed. When our public institutions are failing, we should fix them....

... not turn them over to corrupt capitalists.

[zentrum]

3. If Romney is elected....

.....Social Security will be backed into privatization as well. He will whittle it away until it appears to "make sense" to do what the Republicans have lusted after since FDR.

[LWolf]

11. This is an odd post

in a thread about the problems with Charter schools; it's not about campaigning for November. Both Republicans and the Ds in power are big fans of charter schools; neither are going to back off from their destructive support.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. This is the largest charter school closure so far

They've had numerous money problems at Imagine.

[annabanana]

5. Charter schools are a scam.

And not a very clever one either. The fact that they've gotten as far as they have is a shame on us.

[sulphurdunn]

6. If you want to know why

the charter school movement has been so popular with politicians and vulture philanthropists, just follow the money. Look into the coffers of you state or national political party of choice and see the dollars of the billionaire Gates, Broad, Walton, Koch, and DeVos foundations starring back at you.

[mwooldri]

7. There are ways to improve public schools...

... but for-profit organizations running state (public) schools is not the answer.

I believe though that individual schools within a school system should have more power and autonomy as to how their school is run, and that the larger school systems have a more oversight and maintenance role.

I know it would be controversial in this country but I personally see no problem with religious bodies getting involved in state funded education. As long as admission is free for all in the catchment area, and those opposing to the religious parts of the curriculum can opt out, then it is fine by me. It works well with the Church of England providing the funding for many schools - either wholly or in part. But of course this is with a State Church, and there is no separation of Church and State legally... but the reality is the Church does keep itself to itself, and the C of E is so moderate for the most part that for a large part of the population, it is irrelevant.

[BlueIris]

8. "Of course the taxpayers of St. Louis will end up footing the bill....another privatization fail."

[bvar22]

9. I have no problem with Charter (Private) Schools,

...as long as the Private (Charter) Schools do NOT receive a single red cent form the public treasury.
If someone wants to start a Private (Charter) School,
then they must fund it from Private sources.

The USA already funds a Public School System.
We do NOT need a private system siphoning Tax Money from our Public School System.
If our Public School System is broken,'
then it is our job to FIX IT,
not de-fund it.

Period!
Full Stop!

"Other issues included rent and administrative costs that took dollars from the classroom to the for-profit management company that runs them."

Like Health Insurance Reform, this is Just another SCAM to transfer Public Dollars to the Private Pockets of the "Ownership Society" (1%).

"All Hail the Giant Invisible Hand!"



You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.
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[mzteris]

10. Actually the were ORIGINALLY DESIGNED

to be community-oriented, created, managed, -driven schools filling a niche that couldn't be filled by the public school for whatever reason. Or as a "model lab" type school to explore different foci or different ways of learning.

UNFORTUNATELY, the gd republicans got their hands on it and SOME people began using it as a money-making proposition.

Charters are only as good as the state laws require them to be. If you let the "big boxes" in, or if you don't have tight controls over who can start one, who can manage one, what it can and cannot do, then you are going to have colossal failures and abuses.

I've been a huge proponent - as most well know - of charters. But I've always tried to make clear that that support is ONLY for the small, locally-operated charters. Like the two my son attended. They are both successful, and the children in those schools score better than their counterparts in the public school. Is it because it's a "charter" or because it's a Spanish immersion. Probably the latter. But the point here is, the School Board wouldn't START a Spanish immersion program because they didn't see the value in it and didn't think the public would want it. It's now 8 years later, and the school board has started Spanish immersion programs in every zone in the district due to the overwhelming success of the Charter school. Without that first Charter program, that probably would not have happened.

The teachers were union. The demographics matched closely with the public school children who occupied the other half of the building. Same neighborhoods, same environments. We did, however, have more Hispanics, as the program was designed to always have at least half of the children in the program to be native Spanish speakers, the other half - white and African American, plus some others. BTW - the AA children in our school had the highest math scores in the district as compared to other AA children.

So don't say they were DESIGNED to extract tax money from the public sector and nothing more. Nothing could be further from the truth. The early history of Charters will prove that statement false. The reality of what is happening NOW, unfortunately, is unfortunately becoming more true. But please, don't lump all charters as the same. There are some good ones out there. And if we could get the damn money grubbers (aka republicans) out of the business they could go back to serving the community in a positive way as they should, can, and do.