- - - - - I may be naive, but can't students from failed charter schools attend another charter school as well as the conventional public school? - - - - -
I'd suggest reading the series in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about the model charter school program in that city. Two sets of articles: the first hopeful and complementary, describing how powerful institutions in the region (universities, medical centers, etc) were going to sponsor each of the five "super charters", full backing of the political class, will fix all the problems and can't fail, etc... Then the second set of articles four years later when the for-profit operator pulled out (no profits), the big sponsors disappeared, and the children were told in June they were going back to their home public school districts (which were in even worse shape after losing four years of funding).
Sure, parents can find different charters. Of course that's a large investment of time, effort, and money for a family which might not have much of any of those to spare. But it is important to keep in mind the effect on the children: pulled away from their friends, their teachers, their familiar building and routine. A school and a teacher can be very large things in the life of a 2nd grader (esp one from a neighborhood where the school might be the only safe place he can go); pulling them here and there by what seems to them a whim is not a good thing. To me anyway.
I would suggest that, but unfortunately last time I checked the STLPD had put up a paywall so those articles may no longer be available. Try google and see if you can get to them though. Here's one link
http://www.stltoday.com/news/l...
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