A look at the numbers of the D.O.E.s charter school report

The Florida Department of Education’s much self celebrated charter school report really shows the inequity of the system and how poorly performing charter schools as a group is doing.

Before I crunch the numbers I just want to say, isn’t it morally reprehensible that the Florida Government feels the need to sell you the concept of charter schools? If they spent just half the time trying to improve the lot of our public school students as they did trying to fill the pockets of corporations with public money, which is what Florida’s charter system actually does, then our schools would be in a much better place.

Now for the numbers:

Charter schools have a little over 157 thousand students; public schools have nearly sixteen and a half times that amount. That alone makes honest comparisons difficult.

Public schools have a greater percentage of students on free and reduced lunch than charter schools do, 55-45% and a greater amount of disabled students, 14.6% to 9.9%. Charter schools have also been criticized for excluding English as a second languages learners.

Many charter schools require parental involvement unfortunately many public schools just wish for it. Furthermore charter schools often have a greater leeway with whom they admit and who they keep than public schools do.

So with all these advantages, the best charter schools can do is muster a few percentage points here and there. Color me not impressed, color me outraged in fact.

Friends despite the Florida D.O.Es flowery report and remember they are not the most impartial bunch, I am sure people much smarter than me are going to tear their report apart, the real solution we should be following is to improve all our public schools not to outsource our children’s education.