the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Mar 16, 2015
The justification for allowing charter schools has always been that they would be “authorized” by public educational institutions such as universities. So even if the schools were run by someone wanting to make a profit on them, authorization was supposed to guarantee SOMEBODY knew what they were doing.
Well, another study has come out, blowing that idea to hell. The Education Trust-Midwest has found that in Michigan, six charter authorizers of the 16 they studied received below-average to failing grades: meaning the schools they authorized consistently failed to do as well as the school districts they drew students from.
That doesn’t sound too bad–that means ten of the 16 authorizers did well. But those ten authorized only 13 charter schools among them, while the worst performing six authorized a whopping 153 schools!
What would be in it for public universities like Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan and Northern Michigan? A little thing called money: the authorizers take 3% of the annual state funding provided for every student at every school they approve.
The numbers tell the story: these schools have turned themselves into rubber stamps for all manner of sleazeball charter operators–just so they can get in on draining more of the children’s education money for themselves!