Only days into the new school year, the Detroit Delta Preparatory Academy for Social Justice announced that it was closing, stunning students and parents. Enrollment was lower than expected, and the school was not financially viable, according to its authorizer, Ferris State University.
The decision left many of the high school’s students in tears.
“Everybody was breaking down,” said Ajah Jenkins, 17, a senior at the school, which had just begun its fifth year of operation.
Ajah called her mother, Kelye King, “crying, hysterical, screaming, saying, ‘My school’s closing. How am I going to graduate,’ ” King recounted.
Saturday is supposed to be the school’s homecoming. It’s unclear whether it’ll still happen, said King, who is upset because she believes the school should have given parents a heads-up that this might happen.
“I’m just disappointed. I entrusted her education to a group of people — they’re making me feel like I failed her, like I didn’t do enough research.”
The other day, we learned that a charter school in Delaware was closing with no prior notice.
That’s the market for you. Stores open and close without warning.
Schools are not supposed to be like that. They are supposed to be a public service that is always there for the students.
Maybe the market for schools is saturated. After all, you can’t expect to open a shoe store on every corner and expect them all to thrive or survive.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is what for-profit “social justice” looks like.
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If I never saw that term again, it would be too soon, since it’s been largely hijacked by those who use it to mask their greed, or by Identitarians who don’t seem to care about oligarchy, rampant inequality, mass incarceration/police repression or empire, just as long as the diversity/identity boxes of their perpetrators are checked off.
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Bravo.
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I have to admit I’ve always been confused by the term. How does “social justice” differ from simply “justice”? Isn’t the latter what we should be striving for?
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The definition of “social justice” isn’t the same for the extreme-mean non-Christian right as it is for liberals and/or progressives. Just because these mean conservatives call themselves Christians doesn’t mean they are.
We now have two K-12 education systems with different standards, we also have two very different definitions of “social justice”.
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“That’s the market for you. Stores open and close without warning.”
An example of school choice. . .
The owners choose when to open and when to close a school.
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Charter schools have turned into a source of revenue for public colleges and universities in Michigan.
Some of them are hundreds of miles from Detroit. They’re no more “regulating” these schools than I am.
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Sadly, those authorizing agency fees add another layer of profit takers in grabbing public monies that should be used for the students.
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“and the school was not financially viable, according to its authorizer, Ferris State University.”
If ed reformers were serious they would fine the authorizer. Why did they authorize a school that wasn’t financially viable? Because they get a cut of K-12 education funding?
Imagine if a school board had done this. Opened a new school with no idea whether it was financially viable or there was demand or need for it then said “oops! Sorry! Find a new school- this one isn’t profitable”
They take these risks in ed reform because there’s no risk TO THEM. The community takes the entire downside of their experiments. Ferris State will open another school that isn’t financially viable because there’s absolutely no accountability for it. They lose nothing.
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When I have more time, I want to search Google and see if there is a site that lists all the publicly funded, private sector, based on greed-is-great and children are widgets, charter school closings.
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That was abrupt! I looked up the website to find out exactly where it was—sadly in an area of town that needs stability—and it’s still accepting applications. Nothing on the site about closing down.
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There is a site for charter school closures in California….https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cs/lr/chclosures1718.asp
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Biggest irony: the Charter Management Org (CMO) that started the school is EQUITY in Education. Their caps, not mine.
What I want to know is how many hundreds or thousands of charters will need to fold for economic reasons (because that’s what it all boils down to, in the end) before this grand and FAILED experiment will be reined in.
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Like I commented earlier today: I feel sorry for students who attend charter schools. They are missing out on so much.
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In all of the no-nonsense Charter schools, those children are being bullied and abused. Many if not all will learn to hate to read and will never become lifelong learners.
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