Tim Slekar got ticked off when he read that the Wisconsin State Journal referred to charters as “public schools.” They like to call themselves that to justify getting public money. But they have private boards. They are neither accountable nor transparent. They do not follow state labor laws or state laws governing student discipline. They are not public schools. Calling them that does not make it so.
Tim wrote:
https://bustedpencils.com/2018/07/are-all-charter-schools-public-schools/
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I have a suspicion that it could really help to get the attention of people who no longer have kids in the public schools. Their tax dollars still go to support a public school system for all children. How pleased would they be to realize that some people feel entitled to pull money from that system to fund private education for a select group? There is absolutely nothing public about charter schools. Are people with no children in the system really willing to cede their right to a voice in how their tax dollars are spent? How do we get their attention? It seems ridiculously hard to get the attention of people who do have children in the schools without being placated like a slightly overly exuberant puppy, amusing in limited doses but not worth too much attention
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the question of the last fifteen years or so: HOW DO WE GET THEIR ATTENTION?
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I made this comment to the Ed Post guy that jumped on to say they are public schools with the increasingly popular notion in #edreform circles that the end all be all of accountability lies with the student and parents. I think we’re seeing a marked shift away from neoliberal technocracy to full blown libertarianism (which if the alt right maga chuds have any thing to tell us, it’s that libertarianism is the gateway ideology to fascism). Liberal, neoliberal rather, democrats really just provided useful shade of bipartisanism for a right-wing or libertarian line of thinking. And this line of thinking is dangerous to the civic and even economic notions of public good. There are two notions gaining traction in #edreform that are transparent in creating a slipper slope. 1) students and their families are the only legitimate form of accountability and 2) the money follows the students. Take this to it’s logical end: if I don’t have children in schools or public schools, why are my tax dollars supporting that? That’s where this line of thinking takes us, whether intentional or not.
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State Supreme Courts in New York and Washington have ruled that charter schools are really private schools because they aren’t accountable to the public because they are run by private boards that aren’t elected by voters and don’t even have to file detailed reports to the public about what they’re doing with the public’s tax money. Of course, if they have to file the same financial reports that real public schools file, the public and the media will see what the charter school scam is all about, and charter schools will fade away.
Forget every other strategy to stop charter schools: If you can sell taxpayers on the idea that charter schools must file the SAME detailed, public domain, annual financial reports under penalty of perjury that public schools file — and why not? — the public school industry will dry up and move on to other privatization scams in other areas to divert public money into private pockets.
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A “calculated misdirect” is part of the strategy of privatization. While you were sleeping, your public school disappears, and type of school corporations want our young people to have replaces it. It’s all a grandiose, calculated cash grab with lots of assistance by the federal and many state governments. People need to wake up and be prepared to defend their public schools, or the privatizers will move in for the bait and switch.
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