Study: Don’t Make Mortgage Industry Mistakes with Charter Schools
The study warns policy makers to beware of treating the charter school industry like the mortgage industry in the mid-2000s when risky and lax lending led to a glut of home loans that borrowers really could not afford, causing them to lose their houses to foreclosure and crippling the economy.
“And the primary problem that we found was this emphasis by supporters of charter school expansion in calling for multiple authorizers,” said Preston Green III, professor of educational leadership and law at the University of Connecticut.
Authorizers other than the local school board, such as from the private sector or universities, says UConn professor Green. He led the study entitled, “Are We Heading Toward a Charter School ‘Bubble’?: Lessons from the Subprime Mortgage Crisis.”
Green and professors from Montclair State, Rutgers andWisconsin fear the impact of too many authorizers who are not connected to local school districts in African-American and urban areas.
“If a charter school does not do well and is slated for closing, then it is the school district in which those children are living that have to assume the responsibility of providing an education for those children. And so because of this natural lack of risk, or assumption of the risk, these charters may be much more likely to engage in lax screening,” Green said.
“I think those charges are unfounded particularly in New Jersey where we have very strong charter authorization,” said Shavar Jeffries, former president of Newark Schools Advisory Board.
Jeffries says it’s about educating children and holding schools accountable.
“New Jersey has really led the way in that regard and in our state Study: Don't Make Mortgage Industry Mistakes with Charter Schools | Video | NJTV News: