CAMom,

Do you think that what your charter is doing can be exported? Originally the idea was for charter schools to experiment and come up with effective models of instruction that could be brought into the other public schools. It sounds like you have a great program, but it already can't serve the number of students who would like to participate. Is there some reason your local school district isn't spreading what you're doing to other schools?

I am not at all opposed to public charters if they are funded through the same formula as the other local schools, but I am deeply concerned about public money being spent on private charters/private schools. Don't get me wrong, many public schools need a lot of work learning to effectively serve the full range of students who attend them. My main concern is that solutions which can only serve a few kids (not because only a few kids fit, as would be the case with services designed for children at "the tails", but because there isn't enough resource to go around)are problematic. A free appropriate public education can't be available only through lottery and I don't see any evidence that private schools can do better on a grand scale, so I don't want public money flowing out of the public schools and into the private (and sometimes for profit) education system.


Re: public schools expelling students for behavior. I would point out a) that students are not permanently expelled from public schools; b) the bar for expulsion is typically for much more extreme behaviors than those that can lead to the removal of a student from a charter program.

No easy answers, that's for sure!