The Failure of Charter Schools

National publications, including the Washington Post, were also quick to point out several Ohio charter school controversies in reporting on the grant awards. (The remaining charter-school students are about evenly split between rural areas and the suburbs.) Relatedly, almost two-thirds of the charter-school population is nonwhite, compared to about half of its regular public-school counterpart. CMD’s state-by-state list of closed charters shows that, since 2000, these schools have failed at a much higher rate than traditional public schools.

Ohio Department of Education School Choice Director, David Hansen, was forced to resign in July due to his mishandling of evaluations of charter-school sponsors.

Proponents of charter schools argue public schools are unable to be held accountable by taxpayers or flexible to student needs, in contrast to charter schools with a greater tendency for parental involvement and higher test scores.

Board member Scott Schmerelson recently characterized the planned charter expansion as “an insult” to teachers and “an attack on democratic, transparent and inclusive public school governance…” Parents should not be the only ones worrying if their children are getting the education they deserve – our state government has the responsibility to ensure that Ohio students are not being underserved by their schools. It wrongly conflates accountability with elections, and ignores the ways that charter schools are already accountable to their students’ parents.

But for the charter operators, the appeal process is a last chance this year to make a case as to why they should be allowed to create schools in the district after being turned down by the Metro school board – this time, in a different venue and in front of a different review committee.

Pennsylvania charter schools are being “strangled” by the state budget impasse that’s dragged on for three months and has cut off funding to school districts, says one charter school advocate. Rural or suburban Republicans, who tend to support school choice on ideological grounds, may vote in favor of vouchers or charter schools in urban areas, but not in their own communities.

Citing the state budget impasse, Eller said many districts are either reducing or suspending tuition payments to brick-and-mortar charter schools. So while it is true that charter schools are not managed by an elected body, it’s misleading to suggest that there are no consequences for underperforming charter schools. The school occupies space at Columbia Middle School in Sunnyvale. “Moms always say they like the uniforms”, he said. “They have an affection for smaller, more orderly places”. The Santa Clara County Board of Education approved Spark’s charter past year.

“It will make it easier for the high quality schools to have the startup funds they need to open more schools”, he said.

Spark Charter School is independently operated and governed by a nonprofit board of directors. “Where they have been allowed, they exist. This is affecting thousands of students who attend charter schools across the state”.

“It’s very hard to have confidence in ODE’s ability to serve as a fair and impartial evaluator of charter school operations in light of what happened in the effort to mask the poor performance of online schools”, said Becky Higgins, president of the Ohio Education Association.

Still to be determined, however, is the question of family income.

Starting a new charter school, he said, costs a lot of money – beyond the daily cost of operating. Parents whose children are happily enrolled in orderly, well-run neighborhood schools, or exciting magnet schools, have little reason to switch. And there will be caseload limits for other specialists at city schools, including psychologists and occupational therapists.