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    Who are the NERD fund donors Mr Snyder?

    Raise the curtain.

    Display: Sort:
    Because (none / 0) (#9)
    by archiespeck on Wed Dec 07, 2011 at 01:05:24 PM EST
    They are taking money from the union bureaucracy's pocket.

    The union exists to feed the union.

    Parent

    • Ahh thank you by JGillman, 12/07/2011 01:09:38 PM EST (none / 0)
    There's a moral hazard (none / 0) (#22)
    by mm9 on Thu Dec 08, 2011 at 12:24:41 AM EST
    I apologize in advance for the tediousness of this post. I do not mean to talk down to anyone, I just want to be as clear as I can. Even so, it is likely that I will wind up being unclear on some points anyway, in which case I will be happy to provide further explanation.

    The problem with for-profit charters is that the profit motive to provide a superior education is indirect. There are two basic things that a for-profit enterprise can do to make a profit, increase revenue and decrease expenses. For a for-profit charter, the primary method of increasing revenue is to attract more students. One way to do this is to have a superior product by providing a superior education, in which case there is no issue. The other is to attract students through strong marketing to cover up an mediocre to weak product. And this is where we run into issues because it allows for charters that market themselves well to cut expenses in ways that produces a weaker education in order to increase profit. And that is a problem when you're talking about a taxpayer-funded operation.

    Now, the obvious retort to this line of reasoning is that charters are still subject to government oversight and thus cannot get away with inferior results. There are two flaws to this retort. Firstly, the method by which the federal, state, and local governments collect performance data, namely standardized testing, is flawed. It is perfectly possible to direct a curriculum to meet the demands of the test while providing a poor education. Of course, this is a problem with public schools to, but as charters can run more efficiently than public schools, they could implement such a misdirected curriculum more easily. Secondly, and more importantly, as for-choice schools, charter schools in general are likely to attract students whose parents are more involved with their education. And once again, generally a child with involved parents is more likely to do well in school than one without involved parents. Thus, in general, students at charters should, on the whole, outperform students at regular schools even if the quality of education between the two options is equal.

    Now, I think I have adequately established that there is a potential issue with for-profit charters. However, I freely admit that I have no idea if this is actually a problem with for-profit charters. I am far from an expert on education and have seen little reliable data regarding the efficacy of for-profit charters and non-profit charters, seeing as most studies are conducted by people with a bone in the fight. Thus, I am undecided on where I would come down on this issue. I do not think that there should be a cap on charter schools, by any means (the liberal argument is that charters do not necessarily provide a superior education and represent a backhanded attack against the teachers' union, neither of which is justification for a cap), but I can see that there is a reasonable argument against for-profit charters.

    Parent

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