I’m baffled by this. My wife worked at a charter school and it was nothing like this. The teachers were constantly trying to get certain kids out of their classroom who were actively threatening staff and other students, and the administration would never do anything. The assumption being that losing a kid would hurt numbers and impact funding.
Your wife needed to know how to demand special ed evaluations most likely (or get the parents to), since that would create costs and cause action. What you're reporting is typical for a profit driven charter that doesn't have much pressure to show high academic performance and is driven by profit motive. Keeping the kids in the seats keeps money coming in. Probably didn't have much of a wait-list to give them more discretion with behavioral bouncing.
Half of her kids had special education needs. You “demand special ed evaluations” and the result is, the kid comes back to your class with an IEP and congratulations, you now have to create an alternate version of each lesson plan.
The parent comment captures the education system’s attitude toward teachers perfectly. The problem is always due to a shortcoming of the teacher, and the solution is always the responsibility of the teacher.
TBH that sounds a lot more similar to the average public than most charters I've heard employees discuss.
Do you have pull out programs, self contained classrooms, etc.? How common is it to have manifestation hearings for the kids your wife thinks are risky in the classroom?
I’m realizing the term “charter school” is probably overloaded.
The charter school my wife taught at (in CA) had to prove itself to the district and fight for public dollars, hence the inability to lose any kids (and dollars).
The charter school I went to years ago sounds more like the kind you’re talking about. Basically a private school that received no public funding.
Huh, I've never heard of a charter model where the local district had any oversight.
To me a charter is just a school that is privately run, usually for either ideological or profit motives, or both, that parents can choose to send their kids to instead of a public school, and which gets money from the state, usually a bit less than a public school would, for each attending child. In turn, the charter school is usually subject to different and less stringent oversight and standards than the public school.
Unlike publics, usually charters do not have to accept mid-term enrollment and parents have to figure out transportation. In demand charters can cap their enrollment and use a lottery for admissions.
Okay, I think that probably describes the charter school my wife taught at, though it was not run for ideological or profit motives, it was inner-city.
The key though is this point:
> gets money from the state, usually a bit less than a public school would, for each attending child
So the charter is under the same pressure as the public school since compensation is directly tied to headcount, the top priority is keeping kids or you won’t survive. I’m not sure how the schools you’re mentioning are able to push kids out and not lose money. Maybe they’re just in affluent areas.
All that to say, I’m not a huge fan of charter schools but I doubt they’re the source of our problem.
One side of the coin is basically softened McCarthyism as a school, which "encourages families to be actively involved in religious organizations of their choice" and [paraphrasing] "supports the national Motto of the United States: In God We Trust."
The other is taking advantage of the angst among professional and white collar parents and runs a curriculum several years ahead of grade level, and takes advantage of filled wait-lists to create high pressure and somewhat rigid environments where kids who don't perform at a high level in even one subject get held back a year and get pressured to leave.
I can't speak to the more "American Exceptionalism" oriented schools as much, despite relative ubiquity - I've heard of them refusing to service IEPs (or resisting doing evals) here and there.
But the BASIS style ones are constantly sending kids back to the public schools that are somewhat psychologicaly damaged despite performing at quite a high level. Typical policies are things like "After grade 9, students must maintain an average score of 3 or above on all AP Exams or the student may not receive full financial support for AP Exams beyond the six that are required for graduation." I have the impression that students go back to publics because of things like not wanting to repeat a year because of struggling with Mandarin and developing self esteem issues. I think they (BASIS) also have non required courses available that have extra fees associated and aren't actually included with the state funded enrollment.
Both angles are able to effectively select student populations that cost less to serve than the student population overall and avoid IEP kids and services for them.
Obviously there are others, but anecdotally, other types don't seem to have a lot of longevity.
Funding varies by locality, but yes, the public schools get funding from the federal government, the state government, and the local government. Most local funding is provided by property taxes, which can vary by local housing valuations. Most state funding programs try to allocate funds to equalize the per student funding across the state to help correct the discrepancy by locality. Federal funds are usually grant related, but oftentimes those grants are need-based or targeted to higher needs groups (% on IEP).
