Do charters really differ that much from regular public schools?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
Except when they dump their problem kids to the neighborhood DCPS after count day. |
Anonymous
| We left an HRC for a Title I DCPS. The teachers are far more qualified, there is more structure and organization, and you have more recourse/supervision. For my kid with an IEP I have decided that I will never again do a charter. L |
Anonymous
| My kid with an IEP is at a charter popular on these boards. I would nervous to send kid to DCPS with the needs kid has. |
Anonymous
+1 For easier to hold DCPS accountable and get services your child is legally eligible to receive. |
Anonymous
It can be easier. I had much better luck from a special needs perspective in a charter than DCPS, which didn't recognize my child's language disorder at all. Charter was immediately responsive, and hired an SLP who had specialized training in my kid's disorder (which is rare) to work with DC. DCPS wanted to bus my child 75 minutes from home and put in a self-contained classroom for children with intellectual disabilities. Not all DCPS schools are good, and not all charters are bad. And vice versa. |
Anonymous
|
Have been at both a HRCS and also a DCPS school. Both were/are pretty good.
What I have noticed is that charters tend to build each year upon what went well the year before. They pick up where they left off. DCPS reinvents the wheel, especially when key personnel leave. So in 10 years a charter school can go from opening with 50 students to a sought-after HRCS, while a DCPS may or may not improve in that time. And also charters can and have been closed for poor performance. DCPS closes schools based on building capacity and population shifts. |
Anonymous
and what exactly is a "typical neighborhood DCPS"? Many DCPS schools have very high engagement level. This just sounds like some pro-charter meme you pulled out of your ass. |
Anonymous
First of all, aftercare is only subsidized at Title 1 schools. Every other school community pays to operate aftercare. And charters do get DC government facilities funding (see DC Code 38–2908) - ~$3K/student). That's just totally wrong. There's been a court case which argued it's not equal to DCPS (charter plaintifs LOST by the way), but that's hardly the same as suggesting charters have to pay all of their costs. They can also get funding from outside the government allotment, none of which impacts the standard per pupil fee (DC Code38–2906). |
Anonymous
They're more engaged by the very effort it took to research and get into a charter, i.e., they're not sitting back and taking the path of least effort (the neighborhood DCPS). |
Anonymous
That's not really a high bar. What - an internet connection? Lots of parents seek out OOB DCPS seats. Think harder |
Anonymous
Not in the neighborhoods that have the best and the worst DCPS. |
Anonymous
Yes, if certain charters can keep out families without internet, I'm sure they would. (They definitely did create barriers like access to car and internet back in the pre-common lottery era.) |
Anonymous
And so did DCPS for OOB. My neighbor camped out for Oyster for 3 days to be first in line (it worked). But both of those anecdotes ancient history. There's no reason to keep trotting it out. |
Anonymous
That is such bullshit, you lying liar-pants. Your pants are aflame. EVERYONE uses the lottery system to get in to every school. You may have preference at certain schools due to physical location (e.g., your local DCPS) or a sibling already enrolled. Nonetheless, the lottery systems ensures EVERYONE goes through the same doors in a randomized order. The charters don't get to choose their students. What a load of crap. 
|
Anonymous
If it were pro-charter, she wouldn't have raised the cherry-picking canard. She's one of the anti-charter folks that resents charters because she views them as having stolen or seduced the more engaged families which she imagines would otherwise be attending her neighborhood school. |