While they have constantly been at it, every now and then charter school advocates self-servingly complain more vociferously than usual about how they are unable to funnel even more public funds from public schools into the hands of narrow private interests.
A quick review of charter school news in recent days shows no fewer than a dozen well-coordinated articles about how privately-operated charter schools are not receiving their “fair share” of public funds and that public schools are getting more money than them and this supposedly puts charter schools “at a disadvantage.” The well-synchronized news articles revolve around a November 2020 “study” from the University of Arkansas, Department of Education Reform, titled: “Charter School Funding: Inequity Surges in the Cities.”1 Not surprisingly, the Department of Education Reform is funded by the main billionaire supporters of school privatization such as the Walton Foundation. Such “studies” are usually capital-centered disinformation pieces, not rigorous research conducted on the basis of fidelity to the public interest.2
First and foremost, crisis-prone charter schools are privatized education arrangements that operate according to the outdated ideologies of individualism, consumerism, and the “free market.” Charter schools are contract schools, not state agencies like public schools. Charter schools are not public schools in the proper sense of the word. Charter schools and public schools are different entities with different legal, social, historical, and economic profiles and aims. They cannot be equated. It is a misnomer to call CONTINUE READING: Charter School Promoters Complain About Inability to Pilfer More Public Funds | Dissident Voice