Public education is the most common form of schooling that American children receive at an early age
Public education is the most common form of schooling that American children receive at an early age. There are a large number of educational options for students today. Alongside these are charter schools and public schools; charter schools receive public funding from the government, but the funds they receive is usually less than what public schools tend to be receiving. Parents have a choice of sending their children to charter schools, rather than having school districts dictate what public school will accept their children. Attending students in charter schools are usually picked by lottery. Charter schools are free to students, receive public funding like public schools and are entitled to federal categorical funding for eligible students. While Charter schools have great differences from public schools- and there has been countless debates over if charter schools have been a prominent addition to America’s education system- Charters have helped minority students, are innovative, and have positive academic rewards upon students.
Minnesota passed their first charter school law in 1991 – and a year later they established their first charter school. From then on Charter schools began to gain their own attention from the public because of former President Bill Clinton’s decision to include a program that helped support Charter schools in the Improving America’s School Act, and keep them growing. This acts allows for Charter schools to authorize $15 million for aid to districts-via states-that want to establish charter schools (IASA Part C, 1994.) Charter schools are a sort of public school that receives a special charter, or written rules, depending on the state government. A charter, also known as contracts, are a series of documents that gives rights to a person or group of individuals. Charter schools are denied from having students to pay any tuition for their education. The schools also cannot set any type of admissions requirements. If too many students were enrolled to the charter of their parents choice, the school must choose its students through a lottery system. Over the course of time, different groups began supporting the charter cause; for example, Missouri Charter Public Schools Association, California Charter Schools Association, Colorado League of Charter Schools, DC Association of Chartered Public Schools, etc. Parents wanted greater ability to choose where their children went to school, and that’s why charter schools came into the picture.
It’s important for families, especially minorities to have public education available to them and Charter schools have been a huge benefit to families with minority students. According to a study done by The National Charter School Research Project, “Nationally, charter schools serve a large proportion of minority and low income students than is found in traditional public schools,a characteristic due largely to the disproportionate number of charter schools located in urban areas.” (Lake ; Hill 2010.) Minorities in America have experienced a long history of very limited education in their lives. These obstacles are a major reason as to why minority students are at a greater risk to drop out of their studies, and are more exposed to the criminal justice system. Charter Schools are given the opportunity to help these students without any borders on how they educate them, a charter school can have a huge amount of ways to educate their students. In essence, charter schools are in nature located in certain districts that attend to a incommensurate number of students who have been commonly found to be more at a risk of an unsuccessful educational future.
The achievement gap is shown through standardized tests, course selection, dropout rates, and college-completion rates, and along with other academic performances given in schools. Closing this achievement gap has and will always be the top priority for educators and hopefully for the current education reforms. Charter schools have an important role in slowly shutting down this achievement gap throughout the years. Charter schools are known as public, but they operate with greater self-governing than many public schools that are not associated with charter schools. Compared to regular public schools, they often have way more control over their budgets, greater discretion over hiring and staffing decisions, and greater opportunity to create innovative programs. Nelson Smith, the senior advisor for National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, says “Charter schools are giving administrators the freedom to innovate, teachers the ability to be creative, parents the chance to be involved, and students the opportunity to learn—creating a partnership that leads to improved student achievement.” A study done by CREDO, the center for research on education outcomes, found that now withstanding the fact that some charter schools do more suitable work than the traditional public schools, more than half of charter schools do the same or worse. More or less of 17 percent of charter schools seem accomplished outstandingly better than the regular public schools. (Center for Public Education.)
Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) started a movement dedicated to supporting charter schools called the No-Excuses Movement. Schools like this are fortunate enough to be the reason as to why students have been successful when it comes to their students raising their test scores and going above their educational performance. Nowadays, there are 99 KIPP schools in 20 different states, with a combined enrollment of over 26,000 students. The reason why charter schools are commonly called “No-Excuse Schools” is because their enrolled students are expected to have high behavioral and academic expectations. (Dewey to Delpit.) It follows from here that schools like these expect their students to follow their school policy and are expected to work hard, giving each student equal opportunity to complete their tasks with no excuses. This method being used has caused educators to debate on this because they view this as a rigorous routine, but others believe that every student, no matter what his or her background, is capable of high academic achievement and success in life.
As stated in the introduction paragraph of this essay, charter schools have been a benefit to many families due to the wide variety of ways they are given to accommodate to each students way of being taught. It is important to recognize that families should have the access to chose whatever type of school district they deem is best for their child to attend, either it being homeschooling, charter schools, public schools, or private schools. These research findings obviously give charter schools a positive viewpoint, but are charter schools a preferred choice when sending their kids to school? Charter schools are the alternative to traditional public schools and there will always be the argument of charter schools being the best resolution, which is why this essay provides the reader with enough evidence in support of charter schools.
