We don’t oppose charter schools, per se, but we have seen too many examples of charter schools that claim to be more successful than public schools while hiding that they utilize some highly questionable means, which would not be allowed in public schools. Here’s a recent example.
“Success Academy, the high-performing charter school network in New York City, has long been dogged by accusations that its remarkable accomplishments are due, in part, to a practice of weeding out weak or difficult students. The network has always denied it. But documents obtained by The New York Times and interviews with 10 current and former Success employees at five schools suggest that some administrators in the network have singled out children they would like to see leave…
“But when a reporter asked if she knew that her son had been included last year on the ‘Got to Go’ list, Ms. Cooper said she did not.
“’I’m a little upset about that,’ she said after a minute. ‘They could have let me know he was on a list that he ‘had to go.’ And I would have asked them why, because he’s not a bad child. He just talks too much sometimes. He doesn’t hit kids, he doesn’t knock kids over, he doesn’t scream, he just talks too much. So I don’t understand why he’s on this list.’”
Read more here: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/10/30/nyregion/at-a-success-academy-charter-school-singling-out-pupils-who-have-got-to-go.html?referer&_r=0