We are told again and again that the free market does an inherently better job than the government on just about anything that the private sector can legitimately do. This being the case, I am puzzled by charter schools. No, not by the conflicting research on whether public schools do a better job than charter schools (commentaries that disagree here, here, a particularly obnoxious one here, and the best one here, showing that charter schools might be 2-4% better, and commentaries that agree or at least find the data comparable here and here).
No, what has me puzzled is the fact that charter schools seem to be more costly to run than expected. Whether we are talking about $15 Million dollar grants in Minnesota or fundraisers to build facilities in Chicago, more than one person thinks it is time to have a critical look at what charter schools cost. Maybe this kind of questioning is why Edison Schools became a privately held company. Yeah, they’ve got problems.
These foibles are nothing compared to the collapse of a 60 campus charter school system in California. This system closed suddenly in the late summer, leaving parents to scramble finding new schools for children, leaving teachers to scramble for new jobs, leaving student records and other valuable assets to rot in abandoned facilities. Granted, there appears to have been some “misunderstanding” of the law — and I have no patience for businessmen who do not know the laws that pertain to their businesses — but this situation is absurd. This system received about $5000 per student, some systems receive as much as $9000 per student. Nevertheless we are still talking about charter schools going bankrupt, having massive fundraisers, and pulling down multi-million dollar government grants. Is too much money being put in corporate pockets instead of educating students?
That’s a whole lot more than the average per pupil spending of about $7500, let alone what the Cato Institute thinks* private schools cost on average.
Charter schools cost more money, and do not appear to do a statistically significantly better job than public schools. Let’s stop wasting taxpayers’ and parents’ money.
* I have discussed this more in-depth elsewhere. To be brief, the Cato Instutute includes schools that provide partially subsidized education, non-accredited schools, and schools with very low enrollment. This drives average cost down.