With Alabama now set to become the newest home for charter schools, lots of questions are being asked about them. At the moment school boards all over the state are trying to decide if they should sign up to be a charter school authorizer.
(I attended a school board meeting for one of the state’s largest systems this week. Their attorney lead them through a discussion about charters. It was evident that the board members are way behind the learning curve on this issue.)
The internet is full of info on charters–both good and bad. One of the sources I turn to is the Answer Sheet blog at the Washington Post by Valerie Strauss. She does a good job of keeping up with this sector and her writing is quite readable, unlike some of the research reports I wade through. I recommend you book mark this site.
Here is a very interesting story she has about Ohio and charter schools there that includes the following.
No sector — not local governments, school districts, court systems, public universities or hospitals — misspends tax dollars like charter schools in Ohio.
If Charters are not outperforming public schools and are costing the taxpayers $millions, why are legislators continuing to support bills for Charters in Alabama? It is simply amazing that some people think they can take negative facts, research, and results and wave a magic wand and make them work in another setting!! Or, perhaps they just see $$$$ signs.
You pretty well summed it up with your last sentence. Look back over my posts about political money. As best I can tell, the three LARGEST campaign contributions made in the 2014 Alabama election cycle were $100.000 from a California millionaire, $100,000 from a Michigan millionaire and $150,000 from an Arkansas millionaire.
All of this went to the Alabama Federation for Children to spend on legislative and state board of education campaigns. In fact, these were the ONLY contributions this PAC got.
Frankly, I have a really hard time believing that one morning in San Francisco a rich real estate developer woke up, told his wife he didn’t sleep well because he was worried about schools kids in Wilcox County, AL and proceeded to write a check for $100.000.