A study of charter schools by the League of Women Voters in Florida found that they spend more on administration than public schools and they don’t get better academic results.
“In Hillsborough, three charter schools that have opened since 2011 are owned by Charter Schools USA, a for-profit corporation, and these three alone enroll more than 20 percent of all charter students. In 2011, Woodmont Charter School, one of these three, expended 44 percent of its total revenue on instruction and 42 percent on management fees and leases.
“By contrast, traditional Hillsborough County schools spend at least 86 percent of revenue on instruction. Woodmont had FCAT scores of D for 2012 and F for 2013, and this is not unusual, since charter schools composed 50 percent of all F-rated Florida schools in 2011. Meanwhile, the six traditional public elementary schools and one middle school within 1 mile of Woodmont all have higher FCAT scores.
“Sadly, the traditional public schools are losing students, and thus public dollars, to the “choice” school that advertises a superior alternative. Neither the charter nor traditional public school students are benefiting, creating a lose/lose scenario.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“In 2012, $36 million of state PECO funds were allocated to charter schools; in 2013 it was $91 million of a $97 million total allocation. These funds are spent by the charter schools, often by for-profit management and real estate development companies that are hired to build and staff the charter schools. Should the charters close, these costly assets remain with the for-profit company and are lost to the public.”
Read that last sentence – I had to read it a couple times to get my head around it. How can that be legal? How can any rational human being support that?
You may want to reference today’s Chicago Sun Times which has two pages of research documenting charters lag in performance to Chcagos Public Schools
‘Who dares to teach must never cease to learn.’ Janice Preston, Owner and Consultant Janice Preston Educational Services Phone: 708.250.0603 Email | Blog | LinkedIn Common Core and NWEA Aligned Lesson Sets are now available on my website. Like my blog? Sign up to receive email notifications of new posts. Sent from my iPhone
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Janice Preston, do you have links?
Here is the article: http://politics.suntimes.com/article/chicago/push-charter-schools-little-difference-test-scores/mon-04072014-422am
no,but I’m open
Far Right lawmakers in Kansas pass “reform” bill that (weirdly!) exactly mirrors national ed reform platform:
“The reforms would:
• Foster school choice by allowing corporations to make tax-deductible contributions to scholarship funds so children with special needs or who come from low-income households could attend private school.
• Make it easier to fire teachers by eliminating their due-process rights.
• Relax teacher licensing when hiring instructors with professional experience in areas including math, science, finance and technical education.
As the final bill was negotiated, lawmakers jettisoned an idea to block funding for Common Core academic standards.
They also shed a plan that would have provided property tax relief for parents who home-school their children or send them to private schools. Lawmakers questioned whether the property tax break was constitutional and whether they knew its real cost.
Urged on by conservative special interests such as Americans for Prosperity, Republican leaders pressed hard to eliminate due process rights for teachers.
They say the proposal is intended to ensure that school administrators are free from regulations that would keep them from firing substandard teachers.”
Why are newspapers in Kansas calling this “conservative”? It’s identical to what ed reformers are doing all over the country.
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2014/04/06/4941974/kansas-lawmakers-pass-school-finance.html#storylink=cpy
Ed reformers bravely battle to make sure the private schools they prefer don’t play by the same set of rules they insist public schools play by:
“The letter made the case that where parents are able to choose their children’s schools, uniform, government-imposed standards and tests are both unnecessary (because the schools are directly accountable to parents who have the option to leave) and counter-productive (because a uniform standard stifles diversity and innovation).”
How did I know they’d make an exception for their own publicly-funded private schools?
No one could have predicted that!
They want an advantage for publicly-funded private schools, so they’ll mandate a boatload of ridiculous gimmicks and unfunded mandates on YOUR school, but exempt the private schools they prefer.
That’s a level playing field, right?
http://educationnext.org/education-reformers-can-learn-kosher-certification/