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this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2023
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United States | News & Politics
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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.
That's only true in the short to medium term, and it's usually less impactful than many opponents claim. Longer term, new schools will be built less often, so it all largely comes out in the wash and isn't much different vs new school construction.
One thing that's interesting is that charter schools receive significantly less funding per student on average vs public schools (biased source, but the numbers should be trustworthy). That reduced funding is due to the reduced requirements on charter schools, such as no buses or special needs programs. At least in theory, traditional public and charter schools are on even footing per student. Charter schools also often factor in some level of profit since they're generally run by private orgs, so they tend to be a bit more efficient at dollars spent vs learning outcomes (e.g. our charter school is in a nondescript office building, our public school building is bespoke and takes up ~2x the space per student). Public schools have no such profit motive, so they can be a bit less careful with their budgets. That doesn't directly impact students or taxpayers, but it does show that public schools may have some fat to trim, so the short and medium term impact is often less than you'd otherwise expect for a funding cut.
I think both sides of this argument misrepresent the facts. Charter schools aren't perfect, but they also aren't the drag on public school funding opponents claim.