Charters and Choice Win School Election

[Wesley Mouch]

I knew parents in Detroit weren't fond of DPS, but I had no idea 60% of parents now have successfully avoided DPS.

From mlive.com, DPS has the 6th highest student escape rate, with 62,000 of 104,000 bolting:

#6. Detroit Public Schools [[Wayne County)

Fall 2016 enrollment in the Detroit school district equated to 40% of public-school students who lived in the district. The breakdown:

• Number of students living in the district: 104,322;
• District's fall 2016 enrollment: 41,388;
• Gain from non-resident students: 1,811;
• Loss from residents enrolled in other districts: -14,134;
• Loss from residents enrolled in charters: -50,611;
• Net loss: -62,934.

I believe in public education, but at what point should a district be dissolved and re-constituted into something parents like?

[aj3647]

I knew parents in Detroit weren't fond of DPS, but I had no idea 60% of parents now have successfully avoided DPS.

From mlive.com, DPS has the 6th highest student escape rate, with 62,000 of 104,000 bolting:


I believe in public education, but at what point should a district be dissolved and re-constituted into something parents like?

Does public perception equate to quality? How about posting some statistics comparing the actual performance of charter schools in Michigan to their public school counterparts?

Do you think that the millions and millions of dollars spent by Betsy DeVos to promote charter schools and attack public schools might have influenced the public perception of public schools, perhaps unfairly?

http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...t-poor-grades/

Despite two decades of charter-school growth, the state’s overall academic progress has failed to keep pace with other states: Michigan ranks near the bottom for fourth- and eighth-grade math and fourth-grade reading on a nationally representative test, nicknamed the “Nation’s Report Card.” Notably, the state’s charter schools scored worse on that test than their traditional public-school counterparts, according to an analysis of federal data.

Critics say Michigan’s laissez-faire attitude about charter-school regulation has led to marginal and, in some cases, terrible schools in the state’s poorest communities as part of a system dominated by for-profit operators. Charter-school growth has also weakened the finances and enrollment of traditional public-school districts like Detroit’s, at a time when many communities are still recovering from the economic downturn that hit Michigan’s auto industry particularly hard.

The results in Michigan are so disappointing that even some supporters of school choice are critical of the state’s policies.

“The bottom line should be, ‘Are kids achieving better or worse because of this expansion of choice?’” said Michigan State Board of Education President John Austin, a DeVos critic who also describes himself as a strong charter-school supporter. “It’s destroying learning outcomes ... and the DeVoses were a principal agent of that.”

[JBMcB]

Does public perception equate to quality?

If parents were happy with DPS, they would have left their kids in.

Maybe charter schools are better or worse, but if you think that your child is not getting a good education in their public school, what other choice do you have besides moving?

[Bham1982]

For-profit charters win, and the families of Detroit lose. Charters have even worse performance than DPS, but they market better, taking advantage of the least savvy parents. Every new student means greater profits.