Profits before students with charter schools | Detroit Free Press | freep.com

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Profits before students with charter schools

Kurt Strazdins/McClatchy-Tribune

• FILED UNDER

• Opinion
• Letters To The Editor
• Charter Schools
• Rick Snyder
• Grosse Pointe

Now that Gov. Rick Snyder has lifted the cap on charter schools, we can expect to see a rise in for-profit companies running schools under the "authority" of universities.

In case anyone thinks charter schools are still "public" because they are run by universities, read the print in Senate Bill 618, which lists the kinds of entities that can "obtain a contract to organize and operate 1 or more 2 public school academies": "partnership, nonprofit or business corporation, labor organization, or any other association, corporation, trust, or other legal entity."

Lifting the cap on charter schools further privatizes our public school system. Money will continue to be drained from the public sector and poured into the private sector in the form of for-profit charter schools.

The schools will be accountable to company shareholders, not