THE CHARTER SCHOOL LIE

Roughly 80% of Charter Schools perform worse than their public school counterparts. Charter Schools worsen segregation and harm public school districts. The history of Charter Schools is littered with financially mismanaged schools that are no longer open.

I could go on, and on, and on... you can read the whole article here.

People are getting RICH off of charter schools. Charter Schools are FOR PROFIT, meaning not all of the money goes to help students. You can read here, here, here, and here about how millionaires and billionaires are investing big money and making huge profits off of the charter school movement.

Perhaps the best talk I've ever, ever heard about how the entire country has been "duped" when it comes to the entire educational landscape came from this Orlando math teacher.

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If you want me to make this really simple for you, I'll draw you a picture. Let's imagine the gray school is the "BAD PUBLIC SCHOOL," and the green school is the "BRIGHT SHINY AMAZING CHARTER SCHOOL."

To simplify the numbers, let's say there are 10 students in this BAD PUBLIC SCHOOL. It's so bad that two parents, exercising their "school choice," pull their students out to enroll them in the BRIGHT SHINY AMAZING CHARTER SCHOOL. This is exactly what happens, only on a much larger scale.

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So now we have 8 students at the BAD PUBLIC SCHOOL, and 2 students at the BRIGHT SHINY AMAZING CHARTER SCHOOL.

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This is happening at other schools in the area, with other parents exercising their "school choice" and pulling their children out of the BAD PUBLIC SCHOOLS and enrolling them in this new BRIGHT SHINY AMAZING CHARTER SCHOOL.

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Now here's the reality... let's say that this new BRIGHT SHINY AMAZING CHARTER SCHOOL is not one of the Charter Schools that is poorly performing, financially mismanaged Charter Schools that give Charter Schools a bad name. Let's pretend that this BRIGHT SHINY AMAZING CHARTER SCHOOL is actually a good school that does a good job educating kids. If that's the case, these 8 kids are in a better place getting a better education than the students in the BAD PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

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YES, some Charter Schools work. Not every Charter School is a failing school that is grossly mismanaged financially. But here is the problem with Charter Schools...

What about these 8 kids we left in the BAD PUBLIC SCHOOL? What happens to these kids that we're leaving behind? Because every student can't enroll in a Charter School or Private School. We need our Public Schools to work.

So here's a novel idea... why not give more funding to fix the poverty in the communities where our BAD PUBLIC SCHOOLS are located, where we've left these 8 kids behind? I mean, we know what all of the research says, that poverty and poor performing schools are synonymous. So why not spend the money to help poor people in poor communities, which in turn would help these underperforming schools?

Instead, that money is making rich people even richer while we leave an entire generation of kids in poverty stricken communities, all in the name of "school choice" and the charter school movement.