10 Things Charter Schools Don't Want You To Know (About How lousy they really Are)

10 Things Charter Schools Don't Want You To Know (About How lousy they really Are)
Here is an amazing reposting from Chaz' School Daze, of an article originally published yesterday, in the Wall Street Journal, by Sarah Morgan.

The Things That Charter Schools And Their Supporters Don't Want The General Public To Know.


Now that the unqualified Cathie Black is expected to become Chancellor on January 3rd we can expect her to follow in the footsteps of Joel Klein and be a strong supporter of the ever increasing Charter Schools as an alternative to the local public schools. This means more neighborhood schools will have reduced funding as Tweed allocates more of their scarce resources to the Charter Schools at the Public school's expense. What is very interesting are that Charter Schools have very serious problems that they hide from the general public. Some quite serious and are ignored by the pro-Charter School education reformers. Let's look at some of these issues closeup. A must read is what Smart Money published, an Article called "10 Things Charter Schools Won't Tell You". Many of the statistics come from the article.

1.Many Teachers Are Inexperienced And Not Certified:

Believe it or not, many teachers who are offered teaching positions in Charter Schools are not certified. Furthermore, once they achieve certification they leave for the local school district teaching positions.
According to data from the National Center for Education Statistics, charter school teachers are, on average, younger and less likely to hold state certification than teachers in traditional public schools. In a 2000 survey, 92% of public school teachers held state certification, compared to 79% of charter school teachers. A 2008 survey found that 32% of charter school teachers were under the age of 30, compared to 17% of traditional public school teachers. Charter schools often recruit from organizations like Teach for America that provide non-traditional paths into the profession and are known as the "two year wonders" because they do their two year obligation and leave., More-experienced teachers who already have jobs in traditional public schools may have little incentive to give up the protection of tenure, pension, and health benefits to work in a Charter School.

Relying on relatively untrained, inexperienced staff may have a real impact in the classroom. “A lot of them don’t have classroom management skills,”

For More, please see http://modeducation.blogspot.com/2010/12/10-things-charter-schools-dont-want-you.html

1. Many Teachers Are Inexperienced And Not Certified

2. Charter: "We're no better than public schools."

3. Large And Constant Teacher Turnover. Teachers keep quitting. :)

4. Charter Schools Are Always Trying To Skim The Best Students And Will Advertise For These Students

5. Charter Schools Discourage Students With Disabilities & English Language Learners from applying.

6. Separation of church and state? We found a loophole.

7. The Charter Schools counsel out students who struggle Academically:

8. The Charter Schools counsel out students who struggle Academically:

9. Where Does The Money Come & Go? (This one really gripes my ass!) "
We don’t need to tell you where your tax dollars are going.

10. We’ll do anything to recruit more kids. (creepy)

11. Success can be bought.

12. Even great teachers can only do so much.



K & R