Stephanie B. Simon, investigative reporter for Reuters, has written a stunning exposé of the many ways that charter exclude kids who might drag down their test scores.
Getting admitted to a charter school, she writes, can be a “grueling experience.”
Examples: “Students may be asked to submit a 15-page typed research paper, an original short story, or a handwritten essay on the historical figure they would most like to meet. There are interviews. Exams. And pages of questions for parents to answer, including: How do you intend to help this school if we admit your son or daughter?”
And this:
“Thousands of charter schools don’t provide subsidized lunches, putting them out of reach for families in poverty. Hundreds mandate that parents spend hours doing “volunteer” work for the school or risk losing their child’s seat. In one extreme example the Cambridge Lakes Charter School in Pingree Grove, Illinois, mandates that each student’s family invest in the company that built the school – a practice the state said it would investigate after inquiries from Reuters.”
And there is much more. Read it. Then ask, are these public schools or private schools subsidized with public money?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is so true! One year I pretended to be the mother of a gifted child with 4’s 8n both the ELA and Math. The person I spoke with offered to meet me and my “child” on a Sunday when we couldn’t agree on a convenient meeting time. A few weeks later I called the same school and now was the mother of a struggling student. I was told someone “would get back to me”. I’m still waiting. I can tell you horror stories of students and their parents who were put out of charters. I can’t understand why no governing body has proposed putting charters under some sort of accountability. Oh. Right. The rule and powerful rue!
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I am sick to my stomach over this hideous change in our beloved country. It seems to be rolling over us with no brakes and no
conscious by those who would foist it on us, both government and corporate. Shame!!!!
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Further evidence that those who champion charters as a “civil rights” issue are blowing smoke…
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And when does this report get into the everyday newspaper so all people can read it?
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This investigative piece might be news to Reuters, to the leading newspaper in New Castle County, DE, and to the general public. However, it is the reality we live with 180 days a year.
Every child in the local charters has, at the least, a motivated, involved parent. It takes that much just to make application.
If the “regular” public schools had the same, there would be little difference in outcome.
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This is a must-read investigation into what appear to be discriminatory admissions practices at charter schools around the nation. The myth of “choice” once again fails to hold up under scrutiny.
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I guess the caped crusader of “Waiting for Superman” is nothing else as the disguised Lex Luther, the superintendent of charter schools, where “choice” means the parent is ignored or rejected.
The fraud process is exposed and charter schools “choose” the type of students they want in their statistically protected schools. Yet, parents will still pick charter schools over public schools knowing the truth and that’s what the “scamformers” want.
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While the charter school scams blacken the eyes of regular public schools, administrators continue to blame their teachers for “failing” schools.
And what parents wouldn’t want their children where success is expected, the norm, and classroom disruptions eliminated?
Regular public schools will eventually become educational ghettoes if this isn’t turned around.
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Your brought a very salient point: “Regular public schools will eventually become educational ghettoes”.
This will be the reason for our destruction of the public school system.
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And somehow then all teachers will be great, all students will achieve, there will be plenty of great jobs, our economy will soar and our country will bounce back. All we had to do was get rid of the lazy teachers and their horrible schools. Easy peasy. Who knew?
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None of that will happen, but it will still be the fault of teachers and their unions – untill Bill Gates has every kid in America in front of a computer screen six hours a day.
Who will take the blame then?
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Yes, agreed…no matter what cockamamie system they throw at us or shove down out throats the front line worker will always be blamed.
It will always be top down with the politicians and wealthy in charge and that is why nothing they propose will ever work.
They don’t know OUR kids and they don’t control our minds. Close the door!
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zulma, 4equity2, and Linda: good commentary.
But you left out the edubully icing on the cake that sends shivers of delight down the spines of their public relations and marketing staffs. Remember that the charterites/privatizers still have a lot of the general public snookered into thinking that charters are public schools too. Hence, their “What Me Worry?” attitude as charters keep failing academically, are shuttered as failed businesses, are shamed and penalized for engaging in financial malfeasance and nepotism that make Tammany Hall look amateurish. The greater the failures, the greater the inspiration to launch into full edupreneurial mode proclaiming out of the left side of their mouths “Public schools are failing! Look at that wreck of a school! Look!” while out of their right they will declaim in dulcet tones “Charters are the success stories! They aren’t part of the drop-out factory crowd! We’re difffffferent!”
And those won’t be smiles on their faces as the bottom line expands. Smirks will abound as they affix the quote attributed to P. T. Barnum on the bottom of all their eduproducts, in fine print that rivals that of the cigarette and tobacco industries in days of old: “There’s a sucker born every minute.”
The rest of us, sad to say, will not be smirking along with them.
😦
But I don’t think they really know what to do about the blowback…
🙂
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Love KTA….you always make me day 🙂
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Typo….my day…
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FL charters had no such requirements when our son was in school (graduated 2011). You just had to live in the zip code & put your kid’s name in the lottery
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Did you have to have a certain amount of volunteer hours per year? The requirement here is usually 30 hours per family per year, which is tricky if both parents work full time.
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Other media outlets need to read this article. NY Times? LA Times? USA Today? Oprah? Hello? Duncan? Kopp? Hello?!?!?!
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A close read of the Reuters article reveals it to be merely fodder for the anti-charter crowd. Its conclusions are based on anecdotal evidence, citing only 9 specific schools, and lists an “array of barriers” whose editorial placement suggests that they are the norm, rather than the exception. Included is the old chestnut that charters drain funds from local districts; at least in Massachusetts, the Commonwealth pays 225% of a child’s tuition to the referring district over 6 six years. Another claim cites “thousands” of schools don’t offer subsidized lunches; if there are 6,000 charter schools, does this mean 2,000, 3,000, 4,000? Show me the numbers.
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As compared to the fodder for the anti-union, anti-public school, anti-teacher crowd?
As if Rhee, et al., are big on truthiness and statistics. Puhlease!
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So both sides of the argument are putting forth their case based on slim evidence that supports their own interests?
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Fair point in my opinion.
Glenn, I’d encourage you to look up publicly available data on charter schools and traditional public schools. Look at the numbers of students they serve. You’ll see that many charter schools have declining enrollment from year to year. See Gary Rubinstein’s blog (just google it). He’s a TFA person who is now questioning a lot of things, including charters. He has found that many famous charters, like KIPP, have around 40% of their students eventually leave their charter (presumably to return to their “failing” regular traditional public school).
As far as the subsidized lunches I’m with you and would like to see where that came from.
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I can tell you that one of them enrolls 1000 students, has no cafeteria, no subsidized lunch, and is within 5 miles of my home. So not so diffucult for me to believe it isn’t that uncommon.
They have a beautiful new facility- are adding a high school- but no plans for a cafeteria. Now why would that be?
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Yet another reason charter schools are private schools created to scam taxpayers.
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Had a discussion with a relative about the state of education and he quoted that wonderful lady from Washington who had the answers. When I suggested he look at more than her, he just dismissed me as a disgruntled, union teacher who is just out to get the reformers and don’t want change. We can’t change the public’s mind with blogs and responses. We need the media.
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Why am I learning more from a UK based news organization than from my NY Times or Washington Post about charters?
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Come see my charter. Started and now managed by local residents, subsidized lunches(cooked fresh every day in our own kitchen), 23% more Special Ed students than the state average, 3 sessions of professional development each week, regular dissemination of best practices, 82% parent involvement(reading in class, running an after-class program, volunteer in the kitchen or at school events, my classroom is SRO on Parents’ Night, etc.), 5-year audit cycle by the state DOE, and so on. I just want my journalists to support their argument with real social science data, not a few personal stories. These anomalous anecdotes become the sound bites that are used to block or shut down real reform. We’ve been educating for fifteen years and we have a waiting list(siblings, town residents, lottery, in that order) equal to our enrollment. We’re not a big town; if we were not providing value, people would know and vote with their feet. Come see my charter.
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A charter school, Oxford Prep Academy, is lying to parents in Carlsbad, CA to try to get enough signatures for their petition. They knocked on doors and asked white parents if they wanted to go to a school without Mexicans. Then they asked the Hispanic parents leaving my school to sign their form if they wanted computers fro their school. They gathered 683 signatures but when the district called all of the parents, only 38 really meant to sign an intent to apply to their charter. Our district denied their request and they are filing an appeal with the county. What is with the deceit?
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