Seventeen Charter Schools Siphon $155 Million from Buffalo Public School System
To the shock of many, the Buffalo News, Buffalo’s main newspaper, recently published an article exposing serious problems with charter schools. Like Rochester’s Democrat and Chronicle, the Buffalo News usually goes out of its way to provide biased reporting on charter schools, almost always presenting them in the most favorable light possible, while consistently ignoring well-documented problems.
The Buffalo News published “Viewpoints: Charter schools are no educational panacea”1 by Buffalo School Board Member Larry Scott on January 18, 2020.
Several points are worth highlighting.
First, non-profit and for-profit charter schools have never been a panacea for education problems. Charter schools have solved no problems in education and society. On the contrary, they have harmed education, society, the economy, and the national interest for decades. Charter schools have multiplied problems for themselves and others. Far too many problems plague the segregated and deregulated charter school sector to claim that charter schools will solve the problems we were told for years they would solve. Thus, for example, poor academic performance, discriminatory enrollment practices, inflated administrator pay, high employee and student turnover rates, corruption, poor oversight, shady real estate deals, and closures have plagued the entire charter school sector for more than 25 years. Controversy and charter schools are fellow-travelers. Wherever charter schools pop up, scandal and questionable practices are not far behind.
Adding insult to injury, 17 charter schools in Buffalo annually siphon tens of CONTINUE READING: Seventeen Charter Schools Siphon $155 Million from Buffalo Public School System | Dissident Voice