Charter Schools are an uncommon kind of public schools where financial support comes from the Government, but the administration is managed like a private school.
This difference opens up a myriad of possibilities to change the way teaching is done, promising improvements in grades and different curriculums that alters the education of children.
The main appeal of charter schools is offering a diversity of possibilities and choices for parents about what kind of education they want. Public Schools have set curriculums and depend on the school board district association to choose the education curriculum, the teachers, and the financial administration of the school.
However, even if the primary concept of charter schools is simple to understand, the execution is relatively complex, here we present the pros and cons of charter schools in an attempt to exemplify how they work
Pros of Charter Schools
- Possibilities and Choices
Charter schools allow the administration to offer different curriculums and teaching methods; this is an excellent plus for parents who like to research and find the perfect school that suits their children’s needs.
- Benefits of Private Schools Without the Fees
The independent administration of charter schools allows them to hire their specialized teachers, offer different courses with alternate teaching methods just like Private Schools – however, there are no tuition fees because they are government funded.
- Innovative and Alternate Methods
Like private schools, each charter school is allowed to enforce and seek their own goals and vision, which means that you’ll often find schools offering wildly different teaching methods than local public schools.
- Stronger emphasis on education
Charter schools can be closed if they underperform and don’t fulfill the objectives they set, so they try their best to overachieve and have higher grades than public schools.
- Support from outsiders
Although the principal funding comes from the government, charter schools are commonly aided by the community and other organizations seeking to improve the education of the next generation.
Cons of Charter Schools
- Corruption & Mismanagement
Not everything is perfect – several reports state that some charter schools misspend their funding on unnecessary projects and decisions. Some journalists found charter schools administrations taking this funding for personal gain.
- A Complete Lack of Knowledge
While the district education board supervises public schools, charter schools choose their curriculums. Sometimes this turns great, and their decisions are based on proper research, but some schools try to innovate too much and end up underperforming, affecting the education of the students enrolled.
This debate goes beyond education and criticism; charter schools often take the best students they can and avoid problem students, leaving the public schools to deal with all these problems while taking any good students from their classrooms with no repercussions for the charter schools.
- Teacher commitment
Since they work as private schools, the labor and disciplinary policies are entirely different, making teachers work for up to 60 hours a week with little to no extra incentive, making teacher turnover higher than public schools.
Criticism and Current State of Charter Schools
In the United States, there are over 6,900 charter schools and enroll about 3.1 million students, mostly from minorities and low-income families. This initiative is validated by offering better choices for the parents seeking specific education values for their children.
The criticism associated with Charter schools comes from particular cases of mismanagement and corruption, but these innovative and uncommon schools directly affect the education of your children, thus supporting this initiative could positively influence the outcome of the next generation.
