I also find the notion that charters siphon the best students away to be a false argument. These are students that would have been in private school or enrolled in district transfers to another district.
In addition, many charters enroll students from out of their neighborhood zone, therefore bringing money INTO the district that wasn't there before. I
I agree; my eldest son tried a charter when his private school closed. Our local public schools would be a terrible fit for my kids. The charter we tried (and will abandon in favor of homeschooling this fall) was so-so at best and the math department was, well, poor.
We've probably all heard about the studies showing that charters are no better and no worse than public schools. IMO, charter schools may be an education fad, with many people assuming they must be better because they're new and not the public schools. At my son's charter, I saw a lot of the same flawed thinking that plagues the public schools: everyone is capable of becoming president, there's no such thing as a "mathy mind," anyone can study anything they want and do well, etc.
But I also think that the problem driving it all is a failed philosophy. The industrial metrics we use to measure schools have huge flaws. We assume that everyone can perform at age-grade level, yet this isn't true. But we have a law that says if kids don't perform at age-grade level, a school can lose funding, so schools toe the line.
We measure "learning" with simplistic multiple choice tests. And because of the law, we dumb the textbooks and tests down, and then pretend that people are learning geometry and passing meaningful tests. Then we wonder why our students perform poorly on harder international tests and why so many people drop out of college or end up in remedial classes.
I don't think this problem will go away until public education finally admits that abilities differ. Private schools do this all the time. Why can't public schools?
