More than 765 Charter Schools Closed in Three Years
Currently, about 3.2 million students are enrolled in roughly 7,000 privately-operated charter schools across the country. This represents less than 7% of all students and 7% of all schools in the country.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, more than 765 charter schools closed between 2014-15 and 2016-2017,1 leaving thousands of families stressed, abandoned, dislocated, and angry. This figure represents more than one out of ten charter schools in the country by today’s numbers. The real closure figure is likely higher. To be sure, more than 3,000 charter schools have closed in under three decades.
The top three reasons privately-operated charter schools close are financial malfeasance, poor academic performance, and low enrollment.
With regard to academic performance, for example, the Washington Post (November 1, 2019) reminds us that:
When you take all charters and all public schools into consideration, students at charters do worse than those at public schools. According to the Department of Education’s National Assessment of Educational Progress, public school students in fourth, eighth and 12th grades outperform charter school students in math, reading and science.
It is also worth recalling that the vast majority of high-performing nations do not have charter schools.
Today, nearly 60% of charter schools are in urban settings where schools tend to be under-funded, over-tested, constantly-shamed, and attended mostly by poor and low-income minority students. Charter school advocates prefer to CONTINUE READING: More than 765 Charter Schools Closed in Three Years | Dissident Voice
