They absolutely are, but I don’t think it’s to “make rich people richer” argument, but instead to get parents on their side (i.e. we’re in favor of freedom of education, meaning parents have more control). That’s the short-term election angle, but SEL doesn’t really impact that at all.
I personally am in favor of charter schools (my kids attend one) and public schools, and I think we should be making it easier for kids (not adults) to choose between them. That means improving mass transit and perhaps ending school buses so all schools are on a level playing field, both in terms of funding and school access. I think charter schools make public schools better by increasing competition and pushing schools to specialize. We picked our charter school because the admin sucked at our public school, which caused a lot of churn in teachers (many teacher left after 1-2 years), and our charter school didn’t have that problem. They’ve since replaced the admin, but I think that’s mostly because parents could take their child elsewhere if they didn’t like the school. We intend for our kids to go to the regular public school after they finish at this one (they’re in K-6, and they’ll move to the public school for 7-12).
However, I absolutely hate the Republican rhetoric around education. They constantly point to public schools as some kind of socialist demon, and that’s absolutely not the case.
They absolutely are, but I don’t think it’s to “make rich people richer” argument, but instead to get parents on their side (i.e. we’re in favor of freedom of education, meaning parents have more control). That’s the short-term election angle, but SEL doesn’t really impact that at all.
I personally am in favor of charter schools (my kids attend one) and public schools, and I think we should be making it easier for kids (not adults) to choose between them. That means improving mass transit and perhaps ending school buses so all schools are on a level playing field, both in terms of funding and school access. I think charter schools make public schools better by increasing competition and pushing schools to specialize. We picked our charter school because the admin sucked at our public school, which caused a lot of churn in teachers (many teacher left after 1-2 years), and our charter school didn’t have that problem. They’ve since replaced the admin, but I think that’s mostly because parents could take their child elsewhere if they didn’t like the school. We intend for our kids to go to the regular public school after they finish at this one (they’re in K-6, and they’ll move to the public school for 7-12).
However, I absolutely hate the Republican rhetoric around education. They constantly point to public schools as some kind of socialist demon, and that’s absolutely not the case.
Every dollar spent on charter schools undermines public education.