Readers of this blog will not be surprised to hear that charter schools create an enormous drain on public schools and cause damage to the great majority of children, who lose resources and teachers, so that a small number may attend an alternate school that is privately managed.

Jeff Bryant here points out that the proliferation of charter schools is more than a nuisance. It is an “existential threat” to public education.

New studies from California and North Carolina find charter schools extract millions from the public systems.

Both studies note that additional costs imposed by charters are most apt to result in local schools cutting funding they need to maintain reasonable class sizes, well-rounded curriculums, and support staff including nurses, counselors, librarians, and special education…

As Lafer writes, “In every case [where charter schools have expanded], the revenue that school districts have lost is far greater than the expenses saved by students transferring to charter schools.”

The costs school districts incur due to charter expansions are “unavoidable,” Lafer writes. “Because districts cannot turn students away, they must maintain a large enough school system to accommodate both long-term population growth and sudden influxes of unexpected students—as has happened when charter schools suddenly close down. The district’s responsibility for serving all students creates costs.”

Despite their protests, charter schools do not collaborate with public schools. They act more like parasites. In courts, they play both sides of the public-private issue. They are public when they demand more funding, but when sued, they are suddenly private, not “state actors.”

The attitude of the charter lobby is simple: “me-me-me.” The policy makers should not act as tools of the charter lobby. They should see the whole picture and ask whether it is wise to create a parallel school system, free to write its own rules and to drain resources from the public schools that open their doors to all students.

Despite what may have been the original intention of the charter school movement, these schools, as they are currently conceived and operate, now pose a severe financial risk to public education. Rather than operating as partners to public schools, they more so resemble parasites.

Ladd and Singleton in their North Carolina study recommend states provide transitional aid to smooth or mitigate revenue losses charter school expansions impose on school districts. They point to examples of these policies in New York and Massachusetts, although they admit, “In neither case does the magnitude of the aid offset the full negative fiscal impacts of charters.”