June 26, 2008
Dear Senator Jansen;
I heard on the grapevine that an amendment was being introduced giving Charter high schools the ability to selectively recruit their students. I thought this would be a good opportunity to give you my thoughts on the issue.
Charter schools, especially the for-profit charters, have been financially viable because of the way Michigan pays the same tuition for low-cost elementary students as the far more costly high schools. I believe this is one reason why there are so few Charter high schools.
A second reason for Charter viability has been their ability to avoid responsibility for the extremely high cost special needs and at-risk students. There are exceptions of course, but my observation is that the public schools handle the vast majority of these kids and incur punishing costs since the Michigan formula again makes no distinction.
In both cases, the Charters win by segmenting the student market and picking off the most profitable parts. Ironically, this is presented as a good thing since it increases “competition” for the public schools. This is not competition; it is exploitation of a market loophole where one class of schools is required by law to take all students, while the other can selectively choose the most profitable ones.
If Charters are to provide competition, they must be made to play on an even field with the public schools. Any amendment to further skew the advantages they already have is bad public policy for Michigan, and I am strongly against it.
Sincerely
Snipe
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2 comments:
Why would our senator support the charters to the detriment of the public schools? Who does this aid?
Charter Schools are an ideological darling of conservative politicians who hate the MEA and would also like public funding for religious schools. They also have this warped Ayn Rand ideal about raw capitalism (competition) being the foundation of everything good.
Even though test results show the Charters do no better than the Public schools, supporters continue to push for more, in the conservative tradition of don't bother me with the facts.
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