Drawbacks of charter schools

Charter schools have been a major topic in recent years. There are some people out there who might be interested in my opinions of charter schools. If you don't want to read this entire post, let me provide a quick summary. Some choice is better than no choice, so I'm mildly favorable, but charter schools will ultimately prove ineffective at solving our educational crisis.


Now it's time for me to explain. We are deeply entrenched in the flawed and dangerous traditional schooling model. Schools are consistently evaluated based off of their performances as traditional schools. No innovative school will ever outperform a traditional school at being a traditional school.

One of the primary arguments in favor of charter schools has been innovation. The problem with this is that we are tying their hands. Instead of schools trying their best to maximize the quality of education provided, these schools are looking for quick gimmicks to add to the traditional model.

To make matters worse, one of the reasons people attend charter schools is because they have struggled with traditional schooling. When a traditional school attracts students who struggle within traditional schools, that school will be at a disadvantage. This makes it far more difficult for a charter school to stand out for quality.

Again, school quality is generally based off of performance as a traditional school. There have even been measures of performance that assume a traditional approach. Any deviation from the traditional approach, even if it benefits the education of their students, will make a school look bad.

Charter schools are very similar to the traditional schooling model, so they are certainly not going to revolutionize the primitive process. This does not mean that everyone should attend the schools assigned to them. There should always be a way out of an unhealthy and destructive situation. While charters may fall short, it is certainly an improvement over the no-way-out model that most teachers and their unions demand we maintain.