Quote (EndlessSky @ Nov 6 2018 12:20pm)
If successful, they kill funding for public schools. Its going to create pressures similar to a market.
in theory, if you could literally divert the entire population, sure.
in reality, where they are currently only able to absorb a tiny percent, and in the future even given optimistic growth patterns are still only able to absorb a tiny percent of the total population, no.
the other issue is a large part of the problem with schools are the students/parents themselves, who bring issues with them to charter schools. much of the positive data on charter schools is due to "good families" moving to the schools.
my wife's district has a charter in it's bounds and has families moving back and forth between the two all the time, while other families from the neighboring district fight tooth and nail to school choice their children into the public system in their town. it's a constant flux and causes many issues, not least being the lax curriculum requirements on charter schools.
they're regionally effective, they're increasing in effectiveness overtime, they're a part of the solution (albeit a small part), but they're FAR, like really really really really far, from THE solution. if you don't have any experience in public school work i understand thinking that, it's being lauded as the end all be all by many right winged think tanks and they've got biased but interesting data on it, but not. that's a pretty longshot pipedream to fix the quagmire that is US public schools.
the most wide reaching solution would be to undo uniform pay structures and move towards some sort of meritocracy, not a true meritocracy but something more economical than collectively bargained pay rubrics. Also allowing for higher demanded positions to receive more pay than lower demand positions, that would do a lot to fix the high number of undemanded applicants we see leaving colleges in fields like Phy Ed.