Charters

charter schools.

are public schools.
  (public schools are paid by the government '$x' per student.  your student leaves your school to go to a charter school, and the government payment moves with the child to the new school.  private schools, including catholic and other religious schools, do not get this government per student allowance.  most of a school district's costs are FIXED as opposed to variable.  take away their $$ by reducing their student population, and ..... well, if you have economic literacy, you can surely see where this is going...."

are a generational (20 year) project.  (there gonna be some plugs pulled at then end.... you watch and see.)

what percentage of students in charter schools have college educated parents?

what percentage of charter school parents have the time or ability to constantly monitor the curriculum?

how many charter school parents equate the shiny new school building with the quality of education?

why do charter schools have the right to not accept special needs children?

who profits from the charter school construction boom?

why must conventional public schools give up their art and music rooms to accommodate classrooms for a separate charter school within their building?

are the stories about conventional public school teachers having sex with their students a psy-op --- to manipulate public opinion about teachers as people whose judgment cannot be trusted?

are an example of  'change the project's objective' meme that plagues honest and constructive moves forward.  (do you recall the reason for charters?  i do.  the story went, public schools aren't working, so will will create innovative laboratories for new ideas to percolate, and we will bring back what is shown to work.  BUT in the interim, the mantra of teaching to the test, and measuring 'what works' by test scores, has been introduced.  nothing is going to be 'brought back'.  what WAS will be destroyed.)

always ask: who profits?  here's a heads-up on 'standardized testing', a $2.7 billion/year industry in the K-12 sector (as of 2009):  http://www.citypages.com/2011-02-23/news/inside-the-multimillion-dollar-essay-scoring-business/