Charter schools

Killing the golden goose

Charter schools are working, but New York’s mayor wants to stop them

See article

Readers' comments



Rocinante25 in reply to Juan Hervada

While I think there is a point to be made about the power of the teacher's Unions in American politics, you're insane. Politicians are put under very strict scrutiny especially when it has to do with the success or failure of their policies. They have a vested interest in their success not the other way around. Teachers unions, which are an interest group that supports people from either party (mostly democrats)are interested in keeping the benefits that they have while society has an interest in improving education. That's the real explanation.

guest-semjjnl in reply to hYPZLL3rrB

Competition is not fair and public schools that are allowed to choose and refuse students have a better result. It all sounds good on paper but what would happen to the charters if they had to accept all students. Have you been to neighborhoods that the charters took over? Guess what
,the students are not from the neighborhoods where they are located.The students in the neighborhoods are left on the outside and are shipped to distant schools. Once again black people are underserved and lose their public domain and are displaced with a new form of gentrification.

hYPZLL3rrB in reply to guest-seaimnj

Your solution commits the kids to demonstrably failing schools in any event. So, heed your own advice and fix the public school system. Parents are going to vote with their feet anyway. If you don't believe it, visit Detroit.

guest-seaimnj in reply to hYPZLL3rrB

First, providing an alternative only makes sense if the alternative is better. Most charter schools are no different from or even worse than public schools.

Second, who knows how many of those 793 kids would thrive or even be allowed to stay at a top charter school chain? Between discouraging kids with real disabilities, weeding out those whose parents are insufficiently committed, forbidding mid-year enrollment or enrollment after 3rd grade, etc, I'm sure that far from 100% of these students would succeed at a Success Academy. Do we help the most motivated and least problematic poor kids and condemn the rest to educational hell?

As I said before, charter schools sound nice (especially when you read these kinds of articles), but spending time in one of the "best" charter school chains quickly disabused me of these ideas, which I used to share.

hYPZLL3rrB in reply to guest-seaimoo

"Yes, American public education is flawed."

From that NYC DOE evaluation, below, the performance of this one school looks like abject failure. How could you deny those 793 kids and their parents an alternative? Closing down the competition is not going to fix the problems in the public schools.


I am surprised by the level of bias in this "news" article. Regardless of where one comes down on charter schools, you have to agree that the subheading/captions/etc sound more like political slogans than factual statements.

As for the debate itself. Yes, American public education is flawed. But that doesn't mean that charter schools are a better solution. How many of you have worked at a charter school? I came into one of the NYC chains feeling very gung-ho about saving children and fixing a broken system, with absolutely no vested interest in the status quo. And I very quickly witnessed the very real issues of cherry-picking, excessive test prep, misleading data, unqualified teachers, and more. Before adopting or expressing strong opinions, please consider educating yourself about charter schools firsthand.

Clastics in reply to guest-smnlsij

Over a 9 month school year, 2 weeks in reading and one month in math is equivalent to 5% and 10% of additional learning. Over the course of a 13-year primary education, this is equivalent to approxmimately 1 year of additional learning.

In my mind, this is a pretty significant improvement. The cost of education is in the region of $15k for students in NY public schools. Likewise, the substitute for the final year of school can be thought of as additional year in the workforce (say $30k in earnings for the typical graduate). Because it is argued that expense and deferred income are less than the benefit to society (otherwise, why would we educate them?), it can be said that this increased learning equates to an equivalent of more than $45k in value creation relative to the base-line.

ARandomGuy in reply to J. Kemp

Bloomberg robbed my city for 12 years (thats right he got term limits extended just for himself) while setting up his cronies to rake in the big bucks from us taxpayers. He did absolutely nothing for the average Joe in NYC. Bloomberg was a disgrace.

Medicine4theDead in reply to teacup775

Actually, John Bruer from MIT and the Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance would suggest intelligent novices who would provide cognitive modeling to problem solving. There seven limitations of expertise, many of which pertain to teaching.

Imaginary anecdotal evidence is just that--imaginary anecdotal evidence. What is the name of this garden of eden magic school that has no name and exists only in your imagination? Where is this school? In the peaceful, democracy loving nation of Iraq? Mission Accomplished.

eigenkiwano in reply to eigenkiwano

You both make me angry... Charter schools are not a good way of expressing a conservative worldview, as it doesn't reduce taxation at all. It is instead a subsidy for private schools, paid for out of public school money. Conservatives should on balance oppose all subsidies (although most instead like some subsidies but not others, seemingly arbitrarily). So this really shouldn't even fall into the tired Republican/Democrat insult storm that has paralyzed virtually ever other meaningful debate in this country.

Medicine4theDead in reply to Alex-Arg

Credentials prove a lot? A lot of what exactly? Nonsense? None of your statements prove anything except what you want them to prove. They are "valid" indicators of what? They are "reliable" how? And some of them have absolutely nothing to do with teaching.

You are very good at profspeak though.


It is clear from the title of the article that the Economist is biased. It is clear from the evidence, that Charter schools are not significantly better than public schools. The history of school choice first began with vouchers for children to attend private Catholic school, which it turns out are worse than public schools.

The problem with choice is that choice isn't better if the choice is made based on irrational beliefs.



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