Page 13 - School Planning & Management, April 2018

Charter Schools
tem led by seven elected members who were look-
ing to build their own political careers. Today there are around 80 charter schools and each school has its own nonprofit status and their own board. Char- ter schools are now the centers of the community that the during after hours the public can access the school’s auditoriums and gymnasiums and use them as centers for health and wellness.
According to Bingler, taxpayers are paying less money to make more use of facilities already embedded into school buildings.
However, student performance is yet to see dramatic increases as public education in inner city new Orleans is impacted by multiple socio- economic factors.
“It took a mindset to make this happen,” Bingler said. The key here has been innova- tion and a lot of transparency and community involvement. Across different measures, this charter school system has achieved success and people feel that “it just feels right” to build a system this way.
Despite successes in some quarters, charter school administrators have been accused of massive fraud, abrupt school closures and financial embezzlement of public money in Ohio, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Florida. This prompted HBO commentator, John Oliver, to make a scathing attack on the charter school system, pointing out it’s gross inefficiencies in states with less oversight.
According to Abramson, public schools in the U.S. give an opportunity for every student to suc- ceed unlike highly selective educational systems like China where only the top students have access to a good education while a large majority are left to fend themselves on a mediocre education.
“All charter schools do is get kids out of school. In the whole idea of public schools, everybody has a chance. Profit is the motive and they don’t have a better body for accountability.”
Abramson feels that instead of spending more money on charter schools, efforts should be made to hire more social workers and invest more on creating school systems with smaller class sizes and necessary support systems.
However, charter schools definitely are making a dent in the education system in the country. A recent ruling by the Louisiana
Supreme Court not to suspend state per pupil funding for 42 charter schools is great news for 16,000 students in the state.
“Around the country, there are states and communities where charter schools’ innovation, strong results, and popularity with families
are threatening the status quo and rattling defenders of no-choice education. We hope that anyone who was hoping the Louisiana Supreme
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Court would rule against state per-pupil funding for charter schools will now re-consider how their time and resources could be better spent to make all public schools great,” says the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. SPM
>>Sarat Pratapchandran is a Houston-based writer and founder of www.lettersnatcher.com, a boutique communications firm.
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APRIL 2018 / SCHOOL PLANNING & MANAGEMENT 13