A couple new entries in the charter school hall of horrors. In New York City:
A whopping 80% of special-needs kids who enroll as kindergartners in city charter schools leave by the time they reach third grade, a report by the Independent Budget Office released Thursday shows.
In Columbus, Ohio, 17 charter schools closed in 2013:
Nine of the 17 schools that closed in 2013 lasted only a few months this past fall. When they closed, more than 250 students had to find new schools. The state spent more than $1.6 million in taxpayer money to keep the nine schools open only from August through October or November.But while 2013 was unusual, closings are not rare. A Dispatch analysis of state data found that 29 percent of Ohio’s charter schools have shut, dating to 1997 when the publicly funded but often privately run schools became legal in Ohio. Nearly 400 currently are operating, about 75 of them in Columbus.
Meanwhile, Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst once again released its education report card, which measures states not on their educational outcomes but on whether they have corporate education policies in place. That means you get gems like Louisiana getting a B- while Connecticut got a D+, even though Connecticut’s educational outcomes are substantially better than Louisiana’s. Hilarious, isn’t it, how the people who scream the most loudly about accountability when it comes to teachers tasked with educating the most challenged students absolutely reject accountability when it comes to their own policies?
This article was originally printed on Daily Kos on January 18, 2014. Reprinted with permission.
About the Author: Laura Clawson is the labor editor at the Daily Kos.
