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Charter Schools seem to often have trouble maintaining financially viable operations, let alone outcompeting other schools despite being able to pick and choose

Charter Schools seem to often have trouble maintaining financially viable operations, let alone outcompeting other schools despite being able to pick and choose what students they accept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_htSPGAY7I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_htSPGAY7I It's been messy to watch this play out in Portland, the quality of education delivered is not consistent and each charter school (or chain) is on its own to reinvent the wheel (and waste resources doing so) on common infrastructure many districts would otherwise share.

Scubabear68 3y ago
The myth of common infrastructure is a common theme in schools. Our own district “regionalized” across three towns to get those infrastructure savings. They were non-existent. The reality, in NJ at least, is that a school’s budget will balloon to the maximum size legally allowed, and expand from there forever. On occasions when stupid BOE’s back themselves into a corner, they rook the residents into a referendum to get a zillion dollar bond. The common theme in public schools is: mandatory funding via taxation, and no accountability at all.
- simfree 3y ago
  That is not true when your looking at IT infrastructure, connecting to the state K-12 network, qualifying for connectivity grants, etc. The cost to do this for an individual school is much greater than spreading these primarily fixed over many schools.
  - Scubabear68 3y ago
    I am not sure what a “state k-12 network” is. I don’t think such a thing exists in NJ. I have looked at our budgets, IT is almost a rounding error out of the $25 million/year. Most of the “synergy” of combining schools is supposed to come out of reduced administrative personnel. Except that never happen. Quite the opposite - administration swells and the combined regional district ends up costing more.
nradov 3y ago
Public charter schools in Oregon (and most other states) are not able to pick and choose what students they accept. As long as they have space they have to take any student in the district who applies, and if they are short of space then slots are allocated by lottery.

Scubabear68 3y ago

The myth of common infrastructure is a common theme in schools. Our own district “regionalized” across three towns to get those infrastructure savings. They were non-existent. The reality, in NJ at least, is that a school’s budget will balloon to the maximum size legally allowed, and expand from there forever. On occasions when stupid BOE’s back themselves into a corner, they rook the residents into a referendum to get a zillion dollar bond. The common theme in public schools is: mandatory funding via taxation, and no accountability at all.

simfree 3y ago
That is not true when your looking at IT infrastructure, connecting to the state K-12 network, qualifying for connectivity grants, etc. The cost to do this for an individual school is much greater than spreading these primarily fixed over many schools.
- Scubabear68 3y ago
  I am not sure what a “state k-12 network” is. I don’t think such a thing exists in NJ. I have looked at our budgets, IT is almost a rounding error out of the $25 million/year. Most of the “synergy” of combining schools is supposed to come out of reduced administrative personnel. Except that never happen. Quite the opposite - administration swells and the combined regional district ends up costing more.

nradov 3y ago

Public charter schools in Oregon (and most other states) are not able to pick and choose what students they accept. As long as they have space they have to take any student in the district who applies, and if they are short of space then slots are allocated by lottery.