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The problem with the charter school movement is that its effectiveness is questionable. Often the charter schools attract the self-motivated or only accept cert

The problem with the charter school movement is that its effectiveness is questionable. Often the charter schools attract the self-motivated or only accept certain candidates while turning others away. So the student population of these schools is generally predisposed towards educational performance. Some of the supposedly "successful" charter schools are run at a loss, subsidized by some outside institution or special interest. Without that subsidy, their students would likely perform more poorly. I think if you compared excellent charter schools to excellent public schools, you wouldn't see much difference between the two.

brwnll 10y ago
The specifics of charter school success isn't really the main concept of the article. I believe the grandparent is pointing out the writer attacks the "billionaire philanthropists" donations as an assault on democracy, without acknowledging that the main donors on the other side were all vested interest groups (Teachers Unions, etc)
- r00fus 10y ago
  In this case, I think I trust vested interests (teachers unions) more than unaccountable external parties with billions of dollars. I also question whether it's "philanthropy" or just plain business - meaning these foundations see a way to make a profitable "omelet" by breaking the public education "eggs"?
  - barney54 10y ago
    But the vested interests(teacher's unions) aren't vested to protect educational outcomes, but the teachers. I don't see why we should trust them more than large donors to charter school campaigns.
- bobwaycott 10y ago
  The article more than acknowledged the vested interests on the opposing side. The author even breaks down their actual campaign contributions and budgets. I'm not sure what you think it means to acknowledge both sides, but even despite the article's obvious biases, there was very clear delineation of both sides, their budgets, and their impacts.
darawk 10y ago
You can't make the leap between "has subsidy" and "would likely perform more poorly without subsidy". In nearly all cases charter schools outperform public schools. It may be that this is partially or entirely explained by the factors that you mentioned, but to my knowledge, there is no actual evidence of that.
- ZeroGravitas 10y ago
  Here's some evidence: https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/unspinning-data-on-new-jersey-charter-schools/ https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/unspinning... There's various other entries on that blog that cover the same topic with graphs and numbers. Basically, once you correct for disabled students, english as a second language, and poverty, the charter schools don't do any better than standard public schools. An interesting question is whether people realise this, and are actually quite happy to throw other kids under the bus to give their own children an advantage.
- pessimizer 10y ago
  > In nearly all cases charter schools outperform public schools. This is fiction.
- bobwaycott 10y ago
  The article cites information that refutes this. Roughly speaking, 50% are equivalent to public schools, a quarter are better, and a quarter are worse. 75% are not better, which is way beyond "nearly all cases", unless 25% is "nearly all" to your reckoning.

brwnll 10y ago

The specifics of charter school success isn't really the main concept of the article. I believe the grandparent is pointing out the writer attacks the "billionaire philanthropists" donations as an assault on democracy, without acknowledging that the main donors on the other side were all vested interest groups (Teachers Unions, etc)

r00fus 10y ago
In this case, I think I trust vested interests (teachers unions) more than unaccountable external parties with billions of dollars. I also question whether it's "philanthropy" or just plain business - meaning these foundations see a way to make a profitable "omelet" by breaking the public education "eggs"?
- barney54 10y ago
  But the vested interests(teacher's unions) aren't vested to protect educational outcomes, but the teachers. I don't see why we should trust them more than large donors to charter school campaigns.
bobwaycott 10y ago
The article more than acknowledged the vested interests on the opposing side. The author even breaks down their actual campaign contributions and budgets. I'm not sure what you think it means to acknowledge both sides, but even despite the article's obvious biases, there was very clear delineation of both sides, their budgets, and their impacts.

darawk 10y ago

You can't make the leap between "has subsidy" and "would likely perform more poorly without subsidy". In nearly all cases charter schools outperform public schools. It may be that this is partially or entirely explained by the factors that you mentioned, but to my knowledge, there is no actual evidence of that.

ZeroGravitas 10y ago
Here's some evidence: https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/unspinning-data-on-new-jersey-charter-schools/ https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/unspinning... There's various other entries on that blog that cover the same topic with graphs and numbers. Basically, once you correct for disabled students, english as a second language, and poverty, the charter schools don't do any better than standard public schools. An interesting question is whether people realise this, and are actually quite happy to throw other kids under the bus to give their own children an advantage.
pessimizer 10y ago
> In nearly all cases charter schools outperform public schools. This is fiction.
bobwaycott 10y ago
The article cites information that refutes this. Roughly speaking, 50% are equivalent to public schools, a quarter are better, and a quarter are worse. 75% are not better, which is way beyond "nearly all cases", unless 25% is "nearly all" to your reckoning.