Arizona Lax on Charter Schools? This Is News?

The Arizona Republic in today's (9/2/2007) paper has an article pointing out that charter schools are held to lesser account when it comes to how they handle taxpayer money. Well, duh. This is news? Apparently to the Republic. Where have they been? The article reports there have been examples of this going back years. What have they been doing? What have the Republican Legislators who own, operate or lobby for Charter Schools been doing? Opps, silly question. They've been lining their pockets with taxpayer money while making it look like they are for improving education. What was I thinking?

Charter schools in Arizona are nothing more than a way to subsidize private corporations and politician's efforts to use taxpayer money to undermine public education. The reason there are a lot of reports stating charter schools are deficient is because they ARE deficient. Anyone can cherry-pick one kid or one school, but overall, charters cannot compete with public schools.

Has the notion of competition worked? Yes, but only in the sense that someone is watching and waiting for educational systems to do better. However, at the end of the day public schools in Arizona are producing better educated children than charter schools. The numbers are out there. Go look at them. It's true! But here's a dirty secret: if you're an underperforming kid at a charter school, they'll kick you back into the public system so they look better. Boy's it's great to see how interested they are in each child, isn't it?

What the problem few people here recognize is Arizona --still-- ranks last in education. So arguments about saving money are assinine when our kids are not able to compete with children from other states or countries. THAT is what gets lost in this public vs. charter debate.

I will also point out that every other state in the country labels charter schools as an EXPERIMENT--except Arizona, where elected officials own or manage charter schools. There should be plenty of outrage about that, but why look at that issue when you should be looking at this shiny ball I have in my other hand. The PBS program NOW did an expose on charter schools in New Orleans and they're attrocious. In fact, one of the charter operators there that has been kicked out runs charters here. Where's the story on that?

People need to get their heads out of their (inappropriate term) and look at education as a way to prepare our kids for the future, not how can we give them the minimum of training at the lowest cost. It's not our future, it's theirs.