Around here, charter schools are all the craze. They are supposed to randomly select kids but I have heard from a bunch of people that "they know someone there" or "Such and such goes to our church" (puke)... so it seems like the system is to basically create a publicly funded school where people who don't know someone there are excluded. Even if you have an honest lottery, the kids parents have to bother to register them for it, so bad parents who usually have at risk kids don't register anyways. Sadly, charter schools here seem to have much better test scores than public schools.

But like you say: the parents are registering them, so that creates major selection bias.

There are different types, but in most cases they are an improvement over the public system.

No real attempts are being made to solve the disciplinary problems in the worst districts in the nation, so as many smart parents who can get their kids into higher performing choice/charter schools the better.

You're blaming the medicine for the disease here.

Edit: Before the links start pouring in for how charter schools are ****, the statistics don't always tell the full story. Some of these schools are helping tens of thousands of students who would've otherwise been swallowed by the rot in their public neighborhood schools.

I like the preemptive "don't bring your facts into this debate, I won't listen to any of them." Do you ever wonder why people laugh at you?

As with most things, the truth is far more complex than "in most cases they are an improvement over the public system." How are you defining "improvement?" Improvement over what, exactly?

Full disclosure for those that don't know me from SE: I am a public school teacher. I teach band. I believe in public education, but know that in some cases it is far from perfect. In some cases, charter schools can certainly help, I'm sure.

I would encourage anyone actually interested in this discussion to listen to the most recent Majority 54. That's Jason Kander's podcast. Link here.

When looking at test score data, it's important to look at the cohorts that the data is representing. It is a massive disservice to everyone to just look at some test scores and say "hmm, this Charter is way better than this public."

The Charter may very well be better, but go deeper in to why it is better.

If all the smart parents kids are in one school and the rest are in others; they'll be higher performing on the tests even if the education is exactly the same. I guess the argument is, is that a good thing to separate classes like that or not?

so you believe in charter schools then?

also, the “improvements” may not be the students...imagine if every teacher in your district had a one-year contract and renewal were at least in some part based on performance...the pearl-clutching coming from the double-dipping, non-teaching, 65-year old, using 40 sick days a year, untouchable union ****s would be glorious to see.

Full disclosure: I’ve taught in private, public and charter schools. all have their benefits, all have their shortcomings.

are charter schools in your state not public?

p.s. union dues weren’t, aren’t and will never be my thing.

If you let me design a system that selects for kids from families interested in education and with slightly above average economic level, I'll give you better results than in the system that houses the rest of the kids, unless I'm completely incompetent and stupid.

I went to a charter school for high school, and it was and still (I think) is one of the top schools in the country. You had to test to get in, and they took people in three different levels - Phase 3, 4 and 5. You could also be in different phases in different subjects. Phase 3 was considered average, and they didn't take anyone lower than that. They also offered more AP courses than most schools, I think.

Obviously the test scores were influenced by being able to select students, but they also got to set their own standards for hiring the "best" teachers. In some cases this worked really well, in others it backfired - I had a terrible chemistry teacher who had no teaching experience, because they didn't require that (LOL).

I think we got more visits/outreach from colleges, but I'd have no way of comparing.

I'm not sure where I come down on it now, but I know as a student it was the best opportunity for me, and it was publicly funded so it was win-win. As a society, it does benefit us to make sure that the best students do get to maximize their potential, but we obviously need to do way better with our education system overall.

I'd probably say I have no issue with charter schools, but we should be spending more money and in a wiser fashion to improve our education system overall with the goal of making charter schools unnecessary/redundant.

Cuse, that isn't like any of the charter schools around here, and in most places I imagine. Here, charter schools "have to" take a kid if they apply, using a lottery if there are too many applicants. I assumed the charter schools around us would have better test scores just due to the fact that the parents have to make some effort to get them in and get them there every day. The scores are no better than the public schools in the surrounding area though. In spite if that, charter schools are exploding and the state is considering allowing public funds to be used for building charter schools where that has not been allowed previously.

My son is an in elementary program similar to what you describe. It is miles ahead of any other elementary classes in the county. It would be awesome if all classes were that way. But it requires the kids to be able to manage themselves a lot.

I understand the wide diversity of both charter schools and people who defend them, but there's no almost no question to me that their basic original conceit and continued popularity is both because they promote segregation, continued privatization of formerly publically provided services and busting up teachers unions. And so they in effect serve to undermine public institutions and organized labor and promote segregation.

Jonathan Chait faux leftist / centrist type pundits or whatever we're call them will forever call them a solution to the social ills they in fact perpetuate. Which I think is analogous to the NRA style arguments that everyone should arm themselves as a cure for endemic gun violence, we can't wait for gun control, grandma better arm herself now if she wants to survive. I don't buy it but I am convinced we can never rid ourselves of the argument largely because of the priors. If you buy the whole "failing public schools!" and "teachers unions are full of lazy people who simply don't care" priors, then these zany privatization schemes which have been dismantling public institutions for 50 or so years now make sense I guess. The details are almost pedantic because in any large data set, there will be outliers or clever implementations of a bad idea that look pretty good. And I suppose if we start with a commitment to destroying teachers unions and public schooling, sure, charter schools are some sort of acceptable middle ground. But only in that context.

Charter schools are basically the front-lines for the right-wing assault on liberal institutions and ideas. "Leftists" who fence jump to defend them either naively don't understand the bigger picture and/or are basically part of the right-wing consensus that segregation is OK, unions are bad, and public services are inherently inferior to privately provided ones, and just want a solution that buffers the predictable bad outcomes. I guess in a world full of utter deplorables, the people who embrace the worldview and schemes that create garbage countries that produce metric ****tons of deplorables but then want to make them slightly better...sure, I guess that's more admirable then being a wholly miserable idiot. So Jonathan Chait is better than Ted Cruz and Betsy Devos. Low bar to pass, though. It's sort of a tell and not surprising Jonathan Chait types have to spend almost all of their days defending charter schools with "OK, OK, I'm carrying Betsy Devos's water here, BUT" arguments. Once you wise up and realize charter schools are core to the right-wing project to dismantle basic public services, institutions, and organized labor, they've already won and arguing about specific details and implementations is entirely on the right-wing home field. You'd think we'd all learned the lessons in things like tax cut debates where once we acknowledge tax cuts are always awesome and the bestest and deficits are necessarily evil and bad, the right-wing will perpetually drive the debate to lower bounds no matter how much you insist we try to buffer the bad outcomes of their schemes.

I’m sure Charters can work and be effective. But at what cost? If they are funded and the local public is gutted of funding, what have we accomplished? What of the students who aren’t admitted to the Charter?

I am STRONGLY against teachers unions. At least with regards to the protecting of the person you described above. No union here in Missouri, thank goodness.

Says some pleasant gentleman on the Internet who has literally never so much as taken a single step into a public school since graduation, let alone come within miles of "the worst districts in the nation".

Encouraging segregation and the destruction of public education so that the rich gets a premium education while the poor can barely count to 10 is the endgame of charter school advocates who are in the know. Keep commoners dumb and easily controlled while a chosen few get the tools to rule them.

Public schools can be done properly. The problem is that decisions about education are made based on political favor as opposed to education experts who know what they're doing.

Where I live, public school teachers make about 30k more than prep school teachers. But I'm sure they'd rather trade salaries if it meant not paying union dues

GOP shills say that about construction unions too, "omg union dues such tyranny!". Meanwhile, union workers make 2-3x as much as non-union workers, plus have benefits and safe working conditions. The union dues are a pittance compared to the alternative.

Charter schools, like air travel and now Patreon, are trying to widen the split between haves and have-nots all in the name of profit.

Children's education can't have a profit motive if we actually want it to work. And apparently less and less of us do.

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2016/...ls-a-bad-thing

Most charter schools are non-profit, including the most well-known, such as Success Academies and KIPP. This website says that only 15% are for-profit.

LOL my man is PROUD of sucking up to his bosses and getting ****ed over on wages. Mummy and Papa raised a Good Citizen here.

I'll agree that charter schools can undermine teacher's unions. How do they promote segregation?

There is a significant disanalogy. The NRA's arguments about owning guns making you safer is false. That isn't a conflict between personal security and collective insecurity. However, many charter schools are better than standard public schools. Thus, you'll continue to have political support for charters in places that have low-performing public schools, because they can benefit individually from access to more schools.

This is overly ideological. It is entirely possible to support charter schools because you think they do a better, or even an adequate, job at teaching children without accepting the entire right-wing agenda. There is no implication from, I think publicly-funded charter schools are doing a good job in NYC (which I do) to, segregation is good, unions are bad, and we should privatize public services.

https://www.apnews.com/e9c25534dfd44851a5e56bd57454b4f5

here, charter schools operate just like any other public school, they have to take any student who applies.

the “what happens to the gutted public schools” question is what gets me...feels like free market **** to me. *shrug*


as I type this, I’m in youngstown ohio. the city schools have been taken over by a board run by the state. test scores are among the bottom 2-3 districts in ohio. I think like 40% of black males graduate.

the charter schools aren’t *that* much better, but staying and going to east or chaney isn’t an option for anyone with even a halfway supportive parent.

I guess the thing that does bug me is any student that lives in the district can get a voucher to go to one of the two catholic schools in the city. so obviously that’s what many do, and a lot of them last the first quarter before the schools decide they’re more trouble than the $10k or whatever they get for them is worth and kick them out.

personally, having several million dollars go to funding a school that has required religion classes every semester rubs me the wrong way, but you can’t have it both ways I guess.


ironically, the biggest salary I ever made was at a non-union charter school. I had quite a few responsibilities and was there more than literally anyone else (had a key and an alarm code for saturday schools/activities), so I suppose the salary was relative, but when I left there I took a small hit (but with a pay scale that will add quite a bit more in the next 2-3 years).

edit to add: and the lowest was at a catholic school the year after I graduated from school. took the first job I was offered and had one foot out the door after a month. not my thing.

pretty sure it’s still that way wrt salary now, charter schools != private schools at least around here.

huh?

if you’re talking about unions, it’s probably the opposite. the first experience I had with a union was signing a contract that was going to take $700/year for union dues. when I asked what happened if I didn’t pay it, they said that I’d have to pay $680 upfront. when I asked why, they said that my contract was collectively bargained by the union, and that even though I wasn’t going to be in it, they still did the work. oh, and everyone will hate me.

*eyeroll*

the second experience was two days later in the district union meeting. **** was gross. we had just hired a new superintendent and I guess she had asked to talk to everyone for 10 minutes. being new and knowing the entire district wouldn’t be in one place again, she figured it’d be a good way to introduce herself...

the union rep with the microphone relayed that story, and the entire room booed (the ****?? I mean, I’d bet 75% of the room couldn’t pick her out of a lineup, and you’re booing bc...why?). then he went out to say, “...and I told her HELL NO! THIS IS OUR TIME!!”

I chuckled, and before I was done chuckling, the entire room was standing and cheering...like, cmon. I wanted to hear what the chick had to say.

having worked in private/charter schools, I understand the value of unions. I also know that it’s ~impossible to get rid of teachers who suck. and those teachers know it too.

so I assume you’re a union member or at least support them. that’s fine. I am too. my Mummy and my Papa were too. but I’ll be damned if I can’t have my own opinion of the ridiculousness that I’ve seen and dealt with.

That article claimed that many charter schools are not racially diverse, as are many regular public schools, but I didn't see an argument for how they are promoting segregation.

They are promoting segregation by setting up schools that lack racial diversity.

No, the overall stats are positive for choice/charter schools. But as with anything around here, it's 100% possible to type "why charter schools suck" into Google and for trolls to find cherry-picked reports or studies from specific districts that shows those schools aren't helping.

One thing people ITT need to understand about choice/charter schools is that they are paid only about half of what the traditional public system receives with which to educate the kids. The thought behind that is the district needs half for administration, and the school gets the other half to pay staff and keep the lights on. It's ridiculous. But if you have charter schools showing up with better test scores and higher achievement rates and student/parent satisfaction with HALF the budget of the public system, that doesn't sit well with the main office. Puts a damper on the whole "no wonder everything is ****ed, we need more money!" thing.


I don't know where you teach band, so I'm not going to jump down your throat about any of this, but my wife spent 15 years as a middle-school teacher in urban Milwaukee. Her first 5 years were with a 6-12 charter school in the most violent ZIP code in Milwaukee, specifically designed to prepare these kids for college. It had a heavy focus on "project-based" learning, which I am not qualified to go into a lot of detail on. The system was such that the teacher moved along with the same group of kids from 6-8 and then 9-12 to foster a more healthy environment. They had partnerships with area businesses to fund large projects and educational trips. Kids who were only interested in causing problems were subject to a clear progression of disciplinary action leading to expulsion. "Zero tolerance" was effective, and the parents who saw the school as a real opportunity for their kids were a great asset to help maintain discipline. That school's charter was non-renewed by the district for reasons that nobody is quite clear on. Everyone involved was upset, including the students/parents. Their test scores were better than those in the greater MPS population, and they did it with HALF the public funding. She still hears from some of those people, now adults, from time to time on Facebook.

Then she spent 6 years in a "Christian" K-12 choice school that would probably be described as one of the more shady examples of a choice/charter school. The guy at the top had good intentions, but the kids here were mostly seen as a source of funding. He gave his family jobs in the administration of the school and they were sucking exorbitant salaries given their credentials. Discipline was lacking. That school didn't improve test scores over the general MPS population so the only added benefit, if you consider it one, was the religious aspect. Chapel once a week. Treat others as you wish to be treated, etc. Not looking to get into a fight about religion-based schools right now.

An opportunity came up to get my wife out of the 8th grade where every single kid was bigger than she was and into an actual MPS school at 4th grade and start suckling at the teat of public employee unions, and we took it. She spent her last 4 years at three different elementary schools. Every year was worse than the last. Every year involved a new principal (as in, all three schools had a different principal in each of the past 5 years or so), and even in 4th and 5th grade, the violence and disrespect was frankly unbelievable. I'm not saying ALL schools in MPS are like this, because that's not true. As a teacher on the bottom of the totem pole in the union, you get the **** assignments in schools where teachers don't last very long and thus have a lot of openings year to year. The teacher turnover was incredible. In October, she came home in tears for the last time. Yet another fight in her classroom that she tried to break up and took a wild fist to the side of her head. She filed for medical leave, and hasn't been back. She's actively looking for a new job outside of education. It's not worth the mental stress.

There is an active campaign to improve the statistics regarding suspensions and other negative disciplinary actions. In the 2017-2018 school year for MPS the overarching theme for the school year was, "Mindfulness." (Watch the video here.) Be mindful of your teachers and fellow students. Take deep breaths when you're upset. Treat them as you wish to be treated. Take a few minutes each morning to sit in a circle and talk about your feelings or whatever. It went over like a lead balloon. Kids aren't being suspended because it reflects negatively on the school's year-end DPI report card. Even the in-school discipline isn't being administered because there aren't enough bodies to handle it all. Safety shows up, maybe takes a kid out of the class for 5 minutes, and then they're right back in there causing chaos. You have a classroom with 40 kids and one teacher. If there are 9 kids running around causing mayhem and soaking most of the teacher's attention, you have 31 other kids who aren't being given the opportunity to learn. Rinse and repeat, day in, day out.

I could go on for hous and share hundreds of stories but you all neither care nor would read them. I get that, but this isn't just a LOL Inso0 thing. Districts like Milwaukee and Chicago are FUBAR, and very little is being done to address it.

Take a minute to talk to some of the teachers that are in some of these failing schools and you'll see why choice/charter schools can be a fantastic asset in some of these neighborhoods. When you guys talk about getting in "because you know someone" or whatever, it could just be that the teaching community as a whole knows which schools are good and bad, and teachers who care will recommend parents to take their otherwise high-achieving kids out of a cancerous classroom and bring them elsewhere. Maybe that exacerbates the problem, who knows. I'd rather educate 30 kids in a meaningful way and preemptively ship the other 10 off to a juvenile facility than ruin the educational experience for all 40 of them under the guise of "no child left behind" or some such bull****. Let's see if we can fix the 30 who actually want to participate in education before worrying about whether or not we were too harsh with the 10 kids who showed zero respect. I know that's a controversial opinion.


tl;dr - Public districts want charters to fail, and as a public school teacher, you know this.

What this article doesn't mention is that Milwaukee as a whole is THE most segregated major metropolis in the nation. You can draw neat little boxes around the racial boundaries in the city, and when it comes to neighborhood-based education, it's not a surprise that you'll have all latino/black/white charter schools.

The whole story doesn't make sense in the context in which it is written. Of course you'll have racially divided schools in the most racially divided city in the country.