The charter school myth
by Adriana Villavicencio
Most Republicans and Democrats can only agree on three things: vacations in August, getting reelected, and charter schools. Charter schools – technically public schools that aren’t required to comply with all of the regulations imposed on regular public schools – have become a bipartisan hallmark of current education reform and have been portrayed as the salvation of failing schools systems in large urban districts.
The media is so rife with charter success stories, miracles, and models of achievement that it is easy to forget that only 17% of charter schools outperform public schools, while 37% of charter schools perform worse than public schools. The truth is some charter schools are great, some are terrible, and most are somewhere in between (guess what…the same can be said of regular public schools).
There are, however, some successful charters that stand out when compared to their district schools, but when
