The press in Michigan is waking up to the fact that charter schools do not get better results than public schools (and many get worse results), and lack of supervision and regulation clears the way for fraud and corruption.
The Lansing State Journal reportson the failed promise of charter schools, which soak up $1 billion a year from taxpayers.
“Two decades into Michigan’s charter school experience, it’s clear that some schools excel academically, others don’t — and charters have not found the key to educating children in poverty.
“In other words, their results are similar in many ways to the traditional public schools they hoped to outperform.
“Of the charter schools ranked by the state during the 2012-13 school year, 38% fell below the 25th percentile, meaning at least 75% of all state public schools performed better, according to a Free Press review of data published by the state. This includes charters operated by for-profit and nonprofit companies, as well as self-managed schools. That compares with 23% of traditional schools below the 25th percentile.
“And, reflecting Michigan’s loose oversight of charter schools, a majority of the lowest-performing charters have been around for 10 years or more — despite research that shows the success of a charter school can be determined in the first three years of existence.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
They created two systems in Michigan and Ohio and it’s left both school systems weaker. They set up a competition and both groups of kids lost.
Why Michigan would have followed Ohio’s lead considering the results right next door in Ohio is really beyond my understanding. They had a “good, bad example” right down the road and inexplicably they chose to adopt it rather than learn from it.
Also, it is nice that local newspapers are finally looking at this, two decades into it, but maybe they shouldn’t have all led the charge without understanding all the repercussions?
It’s fabulous that they’re all such brave risk-takers but this was really reckless and we’re left with all this ill-considered, lobbyist-written law and no one is coming to the rescue.
All I hear from lawmakers and others is denial of the obvious. There hasn’t been any increased regulation in Ohio. In fact, they’re deregulating further. It gets worse every single legislative session. Now they’re going after Ohio’s public vocational schools, fragmenting and privatizing them, too. The response to any critical look at this is to double down. It’s nuts.
And how many children have gone through these schools and not gotten the opportunity to get a good education? How many children are leaving these schools unprepared for the world?
Here is the Detroit Free Press copy, which doesn’t have the limit on number or article reads:
http://www.freep.com/article/20140626/NEWS06/306260052/charter-schools-michigan-performance-academics
So, will some charter schools be defunded, with that money being placed BACK into public schools? Or am I Alice looking through the looking glass? No answers required…
So – what else is new? Charters have had that same kind of “success” from the beginning. However, money talks, and talks loudly.
At the end of this school year I interviewed one of our new teachers about his experience at an EAA school last year. It sounds like a horrible place to work and a horrible place to be a student. The way the charters talk you would think they have everything figured out and they know how to do it right. Listen to this teacher and you will be amazed that anyone thinks these schools are better.
http://bridgeporteducationassociation.blogspot.com/2014/06/education-achievement-authority-first.html