Race to the Bottom

Race to the Bottom is right (4.00 / 1)

Just not for the reason you've laid out.  Lifting the cap on charter schools is a stupid idea.

Charter schools have failed to accomplish their prime function -- to serve as experimental laboratories so that new ideas can be incorporated into the public school systems.

Charter schools often take up space in public school buildings, more space per student than the rest of the school gets.  The result is that the overwhelming majority of students who don't get into the charter school are left behind, with less space and fewer resources than they had before the creation of the charter school.  In other words, one or two percent of students get all the goodies, and the other 98% get the shaft.

What's more, more than twice as many charter schools show lower results than public schools than show higher results.  In other words, charter schools are twice as likely to fail as they are to succeed, based on the baseline set by public schools in the same system.

Arne Duncan is just Joel Klein lite.  He's a miserable excuse for an Education Secretary, almost as bad as Bush's first pick, the congenital liar Rod Paige.

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by: Dan Jacoby @ Wed Jan 20, 2010 at 20:30:56 PM UTC

Have to agree with Dan (0.00 / 0)

I serve on a school board.  Public schools would be shackled with more regulations and there would be more cost far into the future to get a one-time shot in the arm.

Charter schools, like other private schools, can pick and choose their students and get rid of them if they prove to be "bothersome." They don't have to accept special ed students who are far more expensive to educate.

There is much more to this issue than meets the eye.  It is not just "special interest groups" who will be negatively affected, all of our public school will be.

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by: Linda Underwood @ Wed Jan 20, 2010 at 20:47:48 PM UTC

What are these terrible regulations? (0.00 / 0)

That districts be allowed to shut down schools who have a record of generations of failure?

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by: Roatti @ Wed Jan 20, 2010 at 21:14:17 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

School buildings don't create failure (0.00 / 0)

warehousing kids with special needs, learning disabilities and who are underprivileged are the biggest part of the problem. Tying success to high-stakes testing is a big part of the problem.

Charter schools will never "shut down" schools that are not function well.  They will just drain the best and leave the rest.

Charter schools also do not have to prove success via the same testing instruments. They don't have to comply with many of the same regulations as public schools.  They have smaller teacher/student ratios.

How about rather than cherry-picking the best to be sent to charter schools, we get rid of some of the onerous mandates on public schools?

As for the "terrible regulations" - public schools must shift their funds to these charter schools, many times paying far more per student that they will have left to education the kids who are left.  

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by: Linda Underwood @ Thu Jan 21, 2010 at 15:11:25 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Most of the money coming in would have gone to traditional public schools (4.00 / 1)

94% of the eligible districts wanted it.  Charter schools can be debated and i certainly agree that they should be regulated so they don't selectively cherry-pick the best students.

But throwing away all this money from the public school system is a downright shame.  And I think Duncan has been a great education sec'y.

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by: Roatti @ Wed Jan 20, 2010 at 21:12:09 PM UTC