The 35 year Chilean charter school experiment that never worked

In most states, students are enrolled for the entire year in charter schools. The public school they would have gone to will have lost the funding for that child and generally students are not allowed to enroll in the public school. We had a situation last year in DE where a charter school had been financially mismanaged into running out of money several months before the end of the school year, the public schools would have otherwise gone to, would not take them, and the charter school teachers could not be paid and therefore could not be required to work. For a while it looked like the school would shut down, and all the students would be required to repeat the year at some other school next year, including the seniors who would not be able to graduate (and thus not go on to college - losing their application fees, etc.). Finally the State Legislature bailed out the school at taxpayer expense, the school finished the year and was then shut down. The administrators who were responsible were fired, and the board had to take over administration at their own expense. The kids will now have to re-enroll elsewhere for next year, but their options will be very limited, either very expensive private schools or back to the public school they wanted out of.

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You clearly don't understand what a charter school is. Students do not pay to go to them, they are publicly funded, just like public schools, from money that would have gone to the public school with that student. They type of school you are referencing is a private school.

 

And how do you know the teachers are horrible at teaching? Have you spent time in the classrooms doing evaluations? What is your expertise in determining a good teacher from a bad teacher? Do you have any training in education? Do you have any experience in the classroom as a teacher yourself? I spent almost 10 years as a classroom teacher, and from my experience most teachers work very hard at their job, yes there are some poor teachers, and usually they do not last very long, unions or no. The real problem is that many of the best teachers leave, mostly for higher pay fairly early in their career. They also leave do to the politics of the School Boards and administrators who frequently play their power games at the expense of teachers and students.

 

You don't understand what are charter schools. Charter schools are private schools with public funding. And to go to them you pay. Less than in a private school(pure) but the student pays. I assure you.

With charter education you make that only people who can afford it will receive education, and the worst, you are giving public money to private entities that only want to get profit.

The logic with education and healthcare would be a dual system: public and private, and abolish the abomination of charter system.

 

The existence of a protest does not actually mean that much. The fact is, every system is going to have imperfections, and often left-wing groups will exploit those imperfections to replace any given system, with another of their own design. However, typically that system is nearly always much worse than the original system ever was.

For example, the Chilean bus system. There were problems with the for profit bus system. Now the bus system is nationalized, and the result is fewer bus riders are transported, and the system is losing money every year. Before, the bus system run by for-profit companies, were in fact profitable, and there was a high level of service, taking more bus riders to and from work.

The rise of Lenin in Russia, was due largely to the faults of the Imperial system. Yet the result was far more brutal and oppressive of the Russian people, and more disastrous for the Russian economy, than the Imperial system had ever been.

Similarly, Hugo Chavez was elected into office, due to the perceived faults of the constitutional system in Venezuela. Yet the results have been that Venezuela has gone from being the leading economy in Latin America, to be the worst performing economy, with food shortages, and a drastically devalued currency, and power outages. The current left-wing system is worse than the previous had ever been, to the point Venezuela has the highest rate of people leaving the country, of any Latin American country.

Honestly, you can whip people up into a protest over nothing. It's not that hard.

That said, I read your links. They simply don't say what you claim the do. I read it top to bottom. I don't know how to make this any clearer. The statements you are making in this thread, are *NOT* supported by the statements in the links you provided.

If the public schools are 'more under funded' than private schools, the solution is to promote more private schools. Not to force more kids into underfunded public schools.

You claim that public and charter schools are struggling. Yet your link said that attendance is now *UP* to OECD levels. If your school system has the same rate of attendance as our public only school system is, then you must be doing fairly well.

And saying that charter schools are there for profit, is fine. There's nothing wrong with that.

Look, FORD motor company isn't there for profit, not to simply build cars. It is BECAUSE they want to profit, that they build really good cars. I have a really nice car, all because Ford wanted to to profit. This is a good thing.

You already admitted that the private schools are doing better than the public ones. Obviously the charter schools are educating better, so they can profit. This is not a bad thing. This is a good thing. Everything that exists in an economy only exists for profit. No one would do it, if they didn't profit. *YOU* would not do it, if you didn't profit from it.

And further, having a degree doesn't make you a good teacher. I know many people who have degrees, that were horrible awful teachers. I know others who had no degree, and could teach you everything there was to know about a given topic.

Given the fact that parents are CHOOSING to move their kids away from public schools, apparently having a degree doesn't make public schools good.

 

Think about what you are saying. We have crappy public schools. We have a scale of charter schools with a partial subsidy of vouchers, which the better the school the more you pay. And expensive private schools.

Your claim is that we should *FORCE* everyone to go to the crappy public schools, because not *EVERYONE* can go to a charter school?

Instead of a system where those who work hard, and earn more money, can afford a better school,.... no no, let's SCREW THEM ALL. And this is better by what logic?

 

Public schools are bad, because the money goes to private hands.

If you are rich, go to private school.

In my country for example, that we have the same system as Chile with public, charter and private schools, the public schools are much better than charter schools. And just a few elite private schools surpass the results of the public schools.

A good public school is much better than a private, and if you are wealthy enough pay yourself a private school.

Did you ignore the part of dual system: public and private? In countries like Finland, 99% of education is public and it is because it's the best and everybody can access to its educative system. Most of people have at least high school level and great ratio of university students and graduated.

 

One bad school. Big deal. No one said every charter model would work. We said that the ones that don't will be closed and the ones that do will be replicated. Unlike the public school system as it currently stands.

 

I have been a student in a public school an I can assure you there are many horrible teachers. I would say about half should be replaced in my experience. There are certainly two tiers of educators and teachers who are honest about it will agree. There is an A team and a B team in every school.

 

Thanks! Some people just will never get it. It's like talking to a brick wall. Their mind insists on telling them one thing. But the facts present a different picture.

 

By your logic, what you are saying that if we have two apple trees, let's only water one because we only have enough water for one. Instead of doing what is fair to both trees by giving each one an equal amount. You are doing the same to a poor kid competing with a well off kid. If the rich parents a as you say work harder, make more money, then their child gets to go to a so called better school. But a poor kid through no fault of his own cannot go to a so called better school. So, what you are doing is segregating classes based on income and the children who are disenfranchised because of this system of private and charter get punished for not being lucky enough to be in the other group. That would be according to your logic. You're all heart!

 

Again, our US schools are given vastly more money.... and yet we have bad education in bad public schools. Money isn't the problem. It's the incentives of the system that causes the problem. Public government run schools are typically bad.

You mention the Finland School system. Well here's some facts for you. First, Finish schools spend 30% less money than US schools, and yet have better over all education scores than American students. Further, Finish Teachers have a starting salary of under $29,000 a year, compared to a US teacher of $36,000 a year... still they have better educational outcomes than the US.

Again, it's not about the money. You can dump a BILLION dollars into a crappy government school with bad teachers, and it will remain a crappy school with highly paid bad teachers.

And by the way, your other claims about Finland, are actually wrong. 99% is *not* public, and *not* everyone has access.

While Finland does not have public/private charter schools, it does have private schools, and currently 37% of all students go to non-government private schools. Further, all schools have an admission process. You don't get to go to whatever school you want. Instead you have to apply, and schools choose which students they will take. Additionally Finish students are only required to be in school for 8 years. During the years we would call "high school", you can only get into school if they allow you, and your grades in previous years determine which school will take you. If you don't make good grades during compulsory education, then you don't get to go to the school you want. If your grades are *too* low, then they may not take you at all, and you won't get a high school education at all.

There is a ton of free-market process in that. School compete with each other over profit for example. Granted the public schools are paid entirely from the government, but the students and parents choose which school they go to, and thus choose where the government goes. If a school performs badly, and students and parents refuse to go there, that school closes because they have no money, no profit. Public schools that perform better, and attract more students, get more money, and profit more.

Competition, profit, a free-market. All of those are Milton Friedman ideas, and the Finish are doing very well using them.

You keep saying that a good public school is better than private.... yet that isn't how it is here. Private school routinely better educate than the public schools. So I'm sorry, but it just isn't true.

 

Equal is not fair. Fair does not require equal. If I have two sons, and one works his but off to earn money to buy a car, and the other does not, the son that worked really hard is going to have a nice car.... and the other will not.... That's fair. It's no where near equal, but it is in fact fair.

And further, poor kids are not being "disenfranchised", like you claim. The literacy rates, and education rates in Chile have gone up year after year. Today Chile has the leading education system in all of Latin America. You are the one who wants everyone to have a worse edcuation. Under the previous system, and under the systems that other countries in Latin America are using, everything was, and is worse. Less education, less opportunity.

It's less equal.... true. But it's still better over all. You want everything to be equal... but equally worse. That's not a win. That's loss for you.

Instead of having more apples on the trees that get watered, and less apples on the trees that are less watered... you want to prevent all watering, so there are no apples. At least if there are no apples, that's equal. Just like all the other Latin Countries with worse education systems than Chile, at least they have *equal* bad education.

 

The money goes where the students want to go, the students go to where they'll get the best education.

The parents of these kids pay taxes too, often more taxes than the average! You want to force more of their money into something 'you' prefer which in turn puts choice out of the reach of more people. Creating larger divides between the have and have nots.

As pointed out already, they have to pay out of their own pockets as well, you simply dont do that if do dont see value for your money.

These guys believe the only reason Communist Motors make crap cars is because to many people buy one of the many Ford, GM, Toyota, BMW ect ect ect models. If only somehow they could 'force' people into owning the one and only model of Communist Motors, then is wouldnt be as crap.

 

I was a teacher for many years, and have worked with teachers for many more. Most are quite good. some are not. This is true in any profession. Don't forget one very important fact, schools reflect the community they are in. The stronger and healthier a community, the better the schools are, the weaker communities have weaker schools. Teachers are like anyone else, they will go where the best money and working conditions are, which means those school districts get the pick of the litter, Poor communities, with low tax bases and high poverty also tend to pay a lot less, they have to take pretty much what they get.

 

That was just one example, last year my state shut down 4 charters, which is about an average year, That about 10% per year, whose students have been ill served. Charters have not proven to be the big boon to education that their supporters have claimed.

 

Not in DE they don't pay. Charter Schools are not allowed to charge their students period. They have to go with the money they get from the state, which is the amount that the state would have provided for that student at the public school. The money is transferred to the Charter.

 

They pay more. You are wrong there. Take Detroit or Chicago. Terrible schools, big pay and the incompetent teachers have job security found nowhere else. Less then 1% of teachers are fired for incompetence in public schools, in private schools it is about 10% much closer to the average for professionals.

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This is the case most places. It is a good alternative for kids who don't have good public schools. I don't understand how anyone can fight the wishes of parents and kids in favor of adults who want taxpayer funded jobs and protection from market forces.

 

Yet your bad public schools still operate though. Some charters like KIPP and university prepatory though are big successes everywhere tried. It is a young experiment, don't plan on all winners at first, cream rises to the top but only if you wait long and give it time.

 

You don't understand anything.

I don't care of the value of money, or for my money. I want to give everybody access to education, to healthcare, to shelter. I want a healthy society, not a society where the divides between the haves and the not haves grow exponentially, as you prefer. Because you want that the not haves should not be able to access to education, and they should be ignorant. It is the fact.

 

What I don't defend are the charter schools.

You don't read what I post or what? I said that the sytem should be dual: Public and private school. And charter be abolished.

I've been studying a year in Finland, I know pretty well the Finnish system, by the way.

In Spain the best schools are public. In Finland, the same, whatever you say. In Germany, it is the same.

And I know how work the private schools in Spain, they normally inflate the results of their students to gain prestige.

 

lol you want to make it so less people have access to better education that people. Meaning its your idea to hold the majority back while only the elites can afford the best. You create the divide!

 

Better education?

In my experience charter education never surpasses public education. Public education can be good or bad. It depends on many factors. But obviously, to public schools access the most diverse people that they would never be accepted in charter or private schools, making that apparently the results are worse. But education is not about results. Education is about being educated. And you can get it in a public or a private.

And about the charter, the point is about not giving money to private entities, that they goal is getting profits with a public service, and that is unacceptable.

If you want a private education, pay for it. But not that mixture, where public money goes to private corporations. And like it or not, doing this I assure you that you limit access to the education, and in the case of Chile or Spain it is true.

 

More kids in Chile go to private and charter schools now (with their voucher) then every before. Why do you think it leads to more of a divide, instead of less?

In Sweden, the same thing, and the public schools have openly changed their models to adapt successful charter models. Why do you think that they had to, or had the opportunity too?

For the good charters, like KIPP, that get scores that simply trounce the control standard, and their students come from a lottery, (the control used in the data I posted a page back was the kids who showed up for the lottery, but didnt get in. 1000s always try to get into the 100s of seats available), why should they suffer, because there have been a few charter schools you have heard about that didnt do a great job?

Are you sure you are an anarchist? Government school near monopoly is about the least anarchist thing I can think of.

 

"But not that mixture, where public money goes to private corporations."

Taxcutter says:
Why not? Government contracts all sorts of functions to the private sector. Road construction/maintenance. Lab work. Food services. Why is instruction any different?

Charters are a waypoint of the path to vouchers. Vouchers put the choice into the hands of the parents. When you have vouchers you can develop a system of true competition for both schools and students.