Stephen Dyer is a former legislator in Ohio who keeps close watch on charters and vouchers in Ohio. He writes here about an article by Michael Petrilli of the Fordham Institute claiming that charter schools in Ohio are better than public schools.
Dyer disagreed with Petrilli. He has the facts. He wrote this post in response.
Here is good news. The politicians in Mississippi tried to divert public funds to benefit private schools. This is taking from the poor and middle-class to benefit the children of the affluent. The judge said no. in most red states, state judges have repeatedly ruled that state constitutions are invalid when it comes to funding private and religious schools. All state constitutions require that public funds are for public schools. Mississippi is lucky to have a judge who ruled that the state constitution means what it says.
(JACKSON, MS October 13, 2022) On Thursday, Hinds County Chancery Court Judge Crystal Wise Martin ruled that a recent law which would allocate $10 million of federal pandemic relief money to infrastructure grants for private schools is unconstitutional. This ruling by Judge Martin is a major victory for Parents for Public Schools, a national organization based in Mississippi with chapters in several states.
Parents for Public Schools (PPS), represented by The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)-Mississippi, Democracy Forward, and the Mississippi Center for Justice, filed a complaint in June petitioning the court to prevent the State from implementing this grant program. The attorneys representing PPS argued that Section 208 of the Mississippi Constitution prohibits the use of any public funds in support of private schools, and thus, the money allocated through this law is indeed unconstitutional.
The grant program, created as the result of one law and funded by an additional law, would allow only private/independent schools in Mississippi which are members of the Midsouth Association of Independent Schools to receive up to $100,000 each for infrastructure improvements, yet public schools are not eligible to apply for these grants. By contrast, the Mississippi Legislature created a loan program for public schools to improve infrastructure; however, those loans, although interest free, must be repaid to the State within 10 years. The grants to private schools do not have to be paid back.
PPS Executive Director, Joann Mickens, testified during the hearing in August that any public funding spent on private schools has a detrimental impact on public school students due to the Mississippi Legislature’s historic underfunding of public schools. “For 23 of the past 25 years, the Legislature has chosen to underfund the Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP), which is the State portion and main source of funding for Mississippi’s public schools. One of the results of this is that we now have schools all over the state that are struggling in multiple ways, including – and especially in – infrastructure needs. For over 30 years, PPS has worked with parents, public schools, and other organizations to improve equity and student outcomes in public schools,” said Mickens.
“Parents for Public Schools advocates on behalf of public schools because each child, each family, each community, and our collective democracy depend on education. We chose to enter this arena in Mississippi knowing that victory would not mean monetary gain for us or even for Mississippi’s public schools. We entered this argument because one of our core values is to educate all children well and equitably. In this case, we’re standing up for almost half a million children, their families, and their communities. In doing that, we stand up for a stronger, better Mississippi and against perpetuating inequity. We’re grateful to PPS parents and families who spoke up, for our legal representatives, and for the Court’s wise decision to honor the plain and clear language of our constitution,” said Becky Glover, Policy Analyst at Parents for Public Schools, Inc.
Vangela M. Wade, president and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Justice: “Today’s ruling is a resounding victory for the hundreds of thousands of public school students in Mississippi. At a time when public schools are already strapped for resources, the legislature’s attempt to funnel $10 million to private schools was egregious. We thank the court for its ruling but also recognize that much more must be done to foster high-quality public education for all Mississippi school children.”
“We are elated with the Court’s ruling, which affirms our argument that the Mississippi Constitution explicitly forbids appropriating public funds to private schools. Public funds must have a system of accountability. Senate Bill 2780 and Senate Bill 3064 funneled taxpayer dollars to private schools, which have no responsibility to taxpayers. This outcome returns $10 million to Mississippi taxpayers,” Joshua Tom, legal director at ACLU of Mississippi.
“Today’s ruling is a victory for the Mississippi Constitution and every person who cares about public education in the state,” said Will Bardwell, Senior Counsel at Democracy Forward. “When the state legislature violated the Constitution by directing public money to private schools, it did more than merely continue Mississippi’s shameful history of undermining its children’s public schools. It broke the law, period. Today’s ruling makes clear: no one, not even the Mississippi legislature is above the law.”
Parents for Public Schools, Inc. is a nonpartisan nonprofit that began in Mississippi more than 30 years ago by parents who organized to support their public schools while educating and mobilizing themselves and others to demand higher standards and better resources for each student. Following interest from other cities around the nation, the National Office for Parents for Public Schools, Inc. (PPS) was founded in 1991. Since then, PPS has become a diverse, national organization of community-based chapters whose mission is to advance the role of parents and communities in securing a high-quality public education for every child by providing professional leadership training that prepares parents and others to become equal partners with and responsible stewards of their public schools.
Democracy Forward Foundation(“Democracy Forward”) is a nonprofit legal organization founded in 2017 that litigates cases involving government action on behalf of organizations, individuals, and municipalities. The organization has taken 650 legal actions and achieved victories supporting democracy and improving the lives and well-being of people and communities. Democracy Forward Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
ACLU of Mississippi is a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization that defends and expands the constitutional rights and civil liberties of all Mississippians guaranteed under the United States and Mississippi Constitutions, through its litigation, legislative and public education programs. It is an affiliate of the national ACLU.
The Mississippi Center for Justice is a nonprofit, public interest law firm dedicated to dismantling the state’s culture of inequity and injustice. Supported and staffed by attorneys and other professionals, the Center pursues strategies to combat discrimination and poverty statewide.
Maurice Cunningham is the nation’s leading expert on “Dark Money” in education. This is money given to organizations and candidates by anonymous donors. When the donors are occasionally revealed, they are typically billionaires who want to destroy public schools and teachers’ unions.
He recently wrote this post, which I excerpt here, about the “management chaos” at the so-called National Parents Union. As he points out, the two leaders of NPU are a married couple.
He writes:
That must have been some “convening” National Parents Union held in September because by October two of NPU’s five board members had disappeared, as had four of the nine individuals on their September 17 “Our Leadership” page and all—ALL—of NPU’s “delegates.” NPU disappears more people than the entire run of The Sopranos. NPU,—not national, not about parents, not a union—is routinely mismanaged, but it seems to be in more chaos than usual.
Board of Directors
Let’s start with the board of directors, a spin-the-bottle operation if there ever was one. Here are the board members identified on the NPU website on September 17 and October 12, 2022:Sept 17, 2022 Board of DirectorsOct 12, 2022 boardPeter CunninghamPeter CunninghamArthur SorianoVincent SlaughterVincent SlaughterMaria Del Carmen Parro CanoDr. Paul BloombergDr. Paul BloombergAnashay Wright
It’s worse than it looks. Ms. Wright was added as a board member on July 28, 2022 along with Shirley Irizarry, On October 3, after two months on the board, Ms. Irizarry was apparently dropped from the board and hired for a staff position as National Organizing Director West Region (according to a Twitter post; she is not on the October 12 website). Mr. Soriano, Mr. Slaughter, Ms. Del Carmen Parro Cano, Dr. Paul Bloomberg, and Vivett Dukes were all added to the board on July 28, 2021. Now Mr. Soriano, Ms. Del Carmen Parro Cano, and Vivett Dukes are all gone. That’s peculiar since Mr. Soriano is supposed to act as president until 2026.
There were three original board members. Mr. Cunningham, Bibb Hubbard (connected to the Gates Foundation), Gerard Robinson (a possible proxy for Charles Koch), and Dan Weisberg. Except for Mr. Cunningham they’re all gone, most within a year of NPU’s launch.
Then there’s the fact that NPU has two boards of directors, the one on the website for public consumption and the one on file with the Massachusetts Secretary of State’s Corporations Division, where NPU is incorporated. Currently NPU lists a board with the Secretary that consists of Mr. Cunningham, Mr. Soriano, Mr. Slaughter, Ms. Del Carmen Parro Cano, Dr. Paul Bloomberg—and Keri Rodrigues and Tim Langan, also identified with the Secretary as president and treasurer, respectively. So far as is known neither Ms. Rodrigues nor Mr. Langan have ever appeared on the website as directors. On the original corporate filings the board was listed as Ms. Rodrigues, Mr. Langan, and Alma Marquez. Ms. Marquez was also on the website as a co-founder and elected treasurer but NPU listed Jennifer Rego as treasurer with the commonwealth of Massachusetts. Ms. Rego disappeared. Ms. Marquez disappeared and Mr. Langan is treasurer. Mr. Langan and Ms. Rodrigues are married. Their compensation from NPU when combined with another Walton family operation named Massachusetts Parents United was $626,777 in 2020 which appears to be wildly out of line with industry standards. But when you’ve replaced the treasurer with . . .
For nearly 20 years, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow was a darling of Ohio politicians. It’s founder, William Lager, made campaign contributions, mostly to Republicans, and Lager’s multiple companies collected nearly $1 billion for its online services. GOP luminaries we’re graduation speakers—names like Jeb Bush, John Kasich and other state officials.
Then the New York Times published a front-page article saying that ECOT had the lowest graduation rate of any school in the nation, and it described the many related companies that profited from the state’s funding.
The story began:
The Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, an online charter school based here, graduated 2,371 students last spring. At the commencement ceremony, a student speaker triumphantly told her classmates that the group was “the single-largest graduating high school class in the nation.”
What she did not say was this: Despite the huge number of graduates — this year, the school is on track to graduate 2,300 — more students drop out of the Electronic Classroom or fail to finish high school within four years than at any other school in the country, according to federal data. For every 100 students who graduate on time, 80 do not.
The state auditor decided to audit ECOT (even though he was a recipient of Lager campaign funding.) The audit determined that large numbers of students didn’t exist and sought repayment of $67 million. Lager decided to declare bankruptcy rather than repay the state. ECOT had an online auction of stuff it had purchased with state funds.
Bill Phillis writes that the state is still trying to recover money from Lager:
Attorney General Yost Seeks a Court Order to Prevent the ECOT Man (William Lager) From Disposing of or Transferring Assets or Property. FREEZE LAGER’S ASSETS!
William Lager, via his operation of ECOT, Altair Learning Management, IQ Innovations, and Third Wave Communications illegally collected hundreds of millions from the state (school districts). The state has been attempting to recover at least part of the stolen revenue via the judiciary. Lager has put portions of his assets beyond the reach of his creditors.
The Ohio Attorney General, on September 27 filed a motion in Franklin County Common Pleas Court to freeze Lager’s assets.
Previously, the Court had identified that Lager had personally benefitted in the amount of $46,614,198.83. The Court had also specified that ECOT illegally paid Lager’s companies $161,602,806.30
It is amazing that Lager was empowered by campaign contributions to steal hundreds of millions of tax dollars over a couple decades before getting caught. A lot of state agencies—Ohio Department of Education, State Board of Education, Governor’s office, Attorney General offices, Auditor offices—were asleep at the switch, while enjoying favors from Lager. AMAZING!
Despite the multiple scandals, Ohio continues to divert more and more money to failing charters and vouchers.
Ed Johnson is a systems analyst in Georgia who is a strong supporter of public schools. He has consistently criticized efforts to multiply privatized charters and charter chains in Atlanta. Much to his chagrin, the Democratic nominee for State of Education is a veteran leader of charter schools and a graduate of the Broad Academy, which is hostile to public schools. Consequently, the Georgia Association of Educators has endorsed the Republican incumbent, State Superintendent Richard Woods. Johnson says: “The BIG lie is ‘charter schools are public schools.’”
Johnson wrote a post for his regular mailing list, explaining that charter schools are not public schools. He was responding to an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that profiled the two candidates—the Democrat, Alisha Searcy, and the Republican, Richard Woods.
Johnson’s critique was titled, “No, AJC, charter schools are not public schools, even if Alisha Searcy pretends they are.” Searcy is a proponent and veteran leader of charter schools.
Johnson wrote:
In profiling the candidates, AJC reports that the Georgia Association of Educators (GAE) is endorsing Richard Woods and suggests why GAE is doing so:
The Georgia Association of Educators is endorsing Woods, saying [school choice] policies like those [Searcy stands for] leave less money for traditional public schools. (Charter schools are publicly funded public schools governed by independent boards with government oversight.) Her [Searcy’s] “school choice” advocacy has also rankled members of her own party.
Now, see that parenthetical statement AJC makes right after reporting that GAE is endorsing Woods?
Why would AJC do that? Why would AJC perpetuate the “Charter schools are public schools” lie?
Charter schools are not public schools, plain and simple.
Rather, charter schools are private business enterprises operating within the so-called public education industry. And that does not make them public schools.
Heck, the private business enterprises themselves have told us they are not public schools.
Take, for example, Ivy Preparatory Academy, where Alisha Searcy was, at first, Executive Director then Superintendent, so-called:
After leaving the state House, Searcy became executive director of Ivy Preparatory Academy, a network of charter schools in DeKalb and Gwinnett counties. […] Searcy said her title at Ivy Prep was changed to superintendent a year or so after her hire. She wields that in her campaign against Woods, asserting she has more leadership experience than he does.
Ivy Preparatory Academy applied for and received a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan of more than one-half million dollars, all the while suckling public money from DeKalb County and Gwinnett County public school districts:
IVY PREPARATORY ACADEMY (NAICS 611110)
1807 MEMORIAL DR
ATLANTA GA 30317
PPP Loan Amount: $643,603.00
Date Approved: 2020/04/14
Number of Jobs Protected: 53
PPP Loan Amount per Job: $12,143.45
Ivy Prep applied for and received a PPP loan because it was eligible to do so, as the private business enterprise it is in reality:
In order to be eligible for the Paycheck Protection Program, an applicant must be a small business, sole proprietor, independent contractor, self-employed person, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, 501(c)(19) veterans organization, or a tribal business.
Public schools were ineligible for the Paycheck Protection Program.
But charter schools were eligible.
In Atlanta, a breakdown of charter schools that applied for and received PPP loans goes like this:
That comes to more than $18 million dollars ($18,063,154.60) in PPP loans that went to these charter schools.
So, here are these charter schools telling us they are private business enterprises and not public schools.
Yet, also, here is AJC saying, “Charter schools are public schools.”
One would be wise to believe the fox when it tells one it is a fox although some may choose to believe the fox is a hen.
One would be wise to not believe the “Charter schools are public schools” lie.
And one would be wise to not want to have Alisha Searcy (aka, Alisha Thomas Searcy; aka, Alisha Morgan; aka, Alisha Thomas Morgan; aka, Alisha Thomas) be Superintendent, State of Georgia.
On her campaign website, Searcy boldly and shamelessly calls attention to her charter schools track record and associations with school choice enterprises, such as EdChoice (à la Milton Friedman), Broad Superintendent Academy (à laEli Broad), and such others. See more here.
The school choice enterprises with which Searcy associates are known to be about undermining and ultimately destroying public schools, so as to then privatize and commodify them, especially when it comes to education for children labeled “Black” and other minoritized (not “minority”) children.
Thus, out of her own mouth, Alisha Searcy tells us she has not the wisdom to perceive, understand, and appreciate public schools and public education being fundamental common goods essential to the sustainment and continual advancement of democratic practice ever closer to realizing democratic ideals.
She tells us that aspects of her school choice advocacy necessarily and unavoidably begs selfishness, immediate gratification, and wanton consumerism—all attributes that, in excess, make circumstances fit for giving rise to oligarchy and such other societal dysfunctions hence the demise of democracy and civil society.
So, let’s believe Alisha Searcy when she tells us she is a far-right Republican dressed as a Democrat.
But, for Pete’s sake, do not believe, or stop believing, the “Charter schools are public schools” lie.
Moreover, let’s understand there are no such things as “traditional public schools” because that implies other types of public school exist—charter schools, specifically—and they don’t. It’s just “public schools,” so let’s just drop the qualifier “traditional,” already.
Please.
Ed Johnson
Advocate for Quality in Public Education
Atlanta GA | (404) 505-8176 | edwjohnson@aol.com
A comment by Diane:
Bravo for Ed Johnson for calling out the blatant hypocrisy of privately managed charter schools applying for and receiving Payroll Protection Program money that was available to private businesse , but not to public schools.
How can a “public school” receive federal money for which public schools are ineligible? They did, but doing so was hypocritical, and the Trump administration didn’t care.
If you open the last link in Johnson’s post (“see more here”), you will learn that Searcy champions high-stakes standardized testing and co-authored a teacher evaluation bill based on test scores, although she was never a teacher.
If Georgia wants to maintain public schools with elected school boards, voters should re-elect State Superintendent Richard Woods.
Don’t be fooled by “Moms for Liberty,” writes political scientist Maurice Cunningham. They may appear to be a garden-variety group of rightwing extremists, but they are more than that. Keep your eye on the Dark Money that funds them.
He writes:
The group, which claims to be about “parent rights,” has ties to the January 6 insurrection and is expected to provide “foot soldiers” for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Moms for Liberty (M4L) claims the organization was started by moms.
[Insert uproarious laughter.]
But it is hard to believe that three mothers in Florida could start up a grassroots group on January 1, 2021, and then, within a matter of weeks and months, wind up on Rush Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson’s show, Glenn Beck, and Fox News. However, there is a shadowy network of money and influence in right-wing political circles that could arrange that easily.
Among M4L’s financial supporters and profile boosters are some of the most influential organizations, media operations, and wealthy donors in the vast theater of the right-wing propaganda machine.
And it would be a mistake to believe M4L’s agenda is exclusively about maternal concerns over what children learn in schools. Instead, most of the organization’s purported success seems to be in helping to advance a much broader right-wing political agenda through electoral politics. In its short history, M4L has already been credited with helping to engineer a “massive victory,” according to Salon, and ensuring a string of wins for a number of Republican candidates in school board elections across Florida.
Looking ahead at the upcoming elections, M4L is expected to provide the “foot soldiers” for the reelection bid of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and many also expect to see the M4L soldiering for DeSantis in the 2024 presidential race.
The Rise of Moms for Liberty…
M4L was born into a full-scale right-wing media rollout. As Olivia Little of Media Matters reported in July 2022, M4L debuted on The Rush Limbaugh Show in January 2021—right out of the cradle. M4L representatives have since appeared “on Fox News at least 16 times and Steve Bannon’s War Room at least 14 times,” according to Little. As her reporting and my own investigation in April 2021indicated, M4L initially had practically no members or state infrastructure. But appearances on Fox and fawning treatment in right-wing outlets like Breitbart News and Glenn Beck propelled its growth.
By June 11, 2021, M4L threw a fundraisercalled “Fearless: An Evening with Megyn Kelly,” the former Fox News celebrity. The highest-priced ticket of $20,000 for the “presenting sponsor” included 20 tickets to a meet-and-greet along with a photo with Megyn Kelly and came with many other benefits. There were other offers that included lesser benefits for donors making contributions of $15,000 or $10,000 and the general admission was $50….
M4L’s grandest event thus far has been its national summit, which took place between July 14 and 17, 2022 in Tampa, Florida. The national summit featured speeches by DeSantis, Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis, Carson, former Florida Governor and current U.S. Senator Rick Scott, and Trump’s former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who advocated for the abolition of the department she had led, according to Florida Phoenix….
When asked, the leaders of M4L say they raise a lot of money from T-shirt sales. [Cue loud laughter.]
But Cunningham knows that’s not the main source of their funding.
Open the link to learn who turned this “parent-led” group into a Dark Money political powerhouse.
GOP-controlled West Virginia enacted a voucher program that allots $4,300 to attend private schools. A Circuit judge enjoined the program, and it is now being argued before the State Supreme Court.
Critics point out that $4,300 is insufficient to pay for any private school, and the money will be used to underwrite the tuition of affluent students. The poor and students with disabilities will be left behind in underfunded public schools.
The vouchers, cynically called HOPE scholarships, violate the state constitution’s promise of a free public education for every child.
Note: if you open the link, which I hope you will, read the article in one sitting. After one look, it goes behind a pay wall.
A few days ago, I posted a column by Peter Greene about a dreadful plan in North Carolina to align teacher pay and evaluation with test scores, an approach that has always failed and that always demoralizes teachers.
Peter was relying on the thorough research of Justin Parmenter, a North Carolina teacher who is a National Board Certified Teacher.
Another North Carolina teacher wrote the following comment:
As a North Carolina teacher, I can personally attest to everything that Justin Parmenter has written about this god-awful plan. It has absolutely no support either from teachers or from school districts, where the administrators know full well that it will only increase their already desperate staffing problems. Yet there seems to be almost nothing that we can do to stop it short of the NC State Board of Education. At least there, a majority of the members were appointed by our Democratic Governor Cooper and may balk at a plan so universally opposed by those it will directly affect. We have no real union (NCAE is an “advocacy organization”) since we’re prevented by law from forming unions or collective bargaining. We’re also barred from striking. We have no recourse except to appeal to those few sympathetic political figures (like the Governor) who might be able to stand in the way of this. The DPI and the Legislature, who created PEPSC, are just looking for another way to undercut public education (without just coming out and doing it openly) so that they can move on to the privatizing that they really want to do but that the public at large still opposes. Driving away experienced teachers by undercutting their pay and heaping new burdens on us is just their latest scheme.
For the first time, the state of Alabama audited a charter school. The audit discovered that $311,000 was missing. But no one will be held accountable because the bbookkeeping was so sloppy.
Birmingham’s Legacy Prep Charter School misspent or did not accurately track $311,517 in spending, over the course of two years, a state audit recently found. Some of that money was from public funds.
The audit, performed at special request of the Alabama State Department of Education, marked the first time the Alabama Department of Examiners of Public Accounts was asked to conduct an audit of a charter school.
“Compliance monitoring led us to know there were issues,” State Superintendent Eric Mackey said, referring to the regular monitoring cycle of schools and districts. “It was serious enough that it got elevated,” he added, and resulted in the department asking for the special audit.
Many of the audit’s findings were related to the school’s lack of proper record-keeping; others were related to the school’s governance and compliance with the school’s charter contract, according to documents reviewed by AL.com.
The school’s CEO and founder, Jonta Morris, who resigned in 2021, was initially asked to repay $311,000, some of which was initially spent on TopGolf, airfare, gift cards and Life Touch Massage.
Chief Examiner Rachel Riddle said Morris eventually provided documentation and did not have to repay any amount. Ultimately, no one will repay any amount, she said.
“Our audit could not find one person that was culpable or should owe back the $311,000,” Riddle said, because of “the lack of organization and adequate documentation.”
Steven Singer is a teacher in Pennsylvania and a blogger. In this post, he contends with the argument that some charter schools are really very good and not at all like those charters mired in scandal, unaccountable, inequitable, greedy, and a drain on public school resources.
Singer writes:
Not MY charter school!
That’s the usual reaction from charter school fansto any criticism of the industry.
I say many of these institutions lack accountabilityabout how tax dollars are spent…
Not MY charter school!
I say they waste millions of taxpayer dollars to duplicate services already in existence….
Not MY charter school!
I talk about frequent scandals where unscrupulous charter school operators use copious loopholes in state law to enrich themselves without providing services to parents, students and the community…
Not MY charter school!
I mention charter school lotteries, cherry-picking students, not providing adequate special education services, zero tolerance discipline policies, teaching to standardized tests, targeting black and brown kids for profit and feeding the school to prison pipeline….
Not MY charter school! Not MY charter school! Not MY…
Really!?
If the industry is subject to this much malfeasance and corruption, doesn’t that reflect badly on the entire educational model – even the examples that avoid the worst of it?
One model has daily scandals. The other – authentic public schools – is far from perfect but relatively tame by comparison. You can’t blame people for generalizing.
Not My….
Okay. We get it!
But sadly this defensiveness against any criticism hides an enormous ignorance of exactly what charter schools are and how they operate at the most basic level.
Yes, there is a difference between how the best and worst charter schools act.
Yes, there are some charter schools that are run much better, more humanely and responsibly than others.
But that doesn’t mean the very concept of a charter school isn’t rotten to the core.
It’s like colonialism.
Yes, there were colonies where the invaders treated the conquered with more respect and dignity than others.
But not a single colony was a good thing. Not a single colonial enterprise avoided subjugating people who should have been free to determine their own destinies.
The same goes with charter schools.
When I discuss the industry, it’s surprising how many people – especially supporters of the enterprise – don’t understand what charter schools really are.
Let’s start with a simple definition.
A charter school is a school with a charter.
Get it?
And a charter is a contract – a special agreement with the state or some other governmental entity that this school can exist.
Why is that necessary?
Because there are rules laid out by each state in their school codes detailing what schools must do in order to qualify for taxpayer funding.
For example, under normal circumstances they must have an elected school board made up of members from the community where the school is located.
All authentic public schools must follow these rules. But not Charter schools.
Instead, they get to follow whatever rules are set down in their charter.
So without even examining exactly which special rules are stipulated in that charter, these schools are founded on the very concept of privilege.
They get to abide by their own rules tailor-made just for them.
Why does that matter? Because they get public funding.
And, yes, ALL charter schools are publicly funded – they get at least part of their money from taxpayers, usually all or the majority of their funding.
That opens a huge divide in accountability between types of schools….
OPEN THE LINK AND READ ON.
