Report Exposes How Charter Schools Are Doomed to Fail – at Taxpayers’ Expense
From Bucks County Beacon
A new report from the Network for Public Education details how badly the charter school industry has been failing that taxpayers who fund it.
The Network for Public Education was founded by educator Anthony Cody and noted education historian Diane Ravitch. The group seeks to “preserve, promote, improve and strengthen public schools for both current and future generations of students.” The group has produced numerous reports about public schools, charter schools and voucher programs.
Issued in November 2024, the new NPE report “Doomed to Fail” looks at charter school closures, studying charter school stability going back to 1998.
Charter schools are privately owned and operated, but funded with taxpayer dollars. Because they often come with the word “public” attached, charter schools raise the expectation that they will have the same sort of stability and reliability that public schools demonstrate. But that’s not always the case. As the study notes:
Charter schools close at far higher rates than public schools. And, unlike public school districts where infrequent closures are orderly with the district finding a new school for the child, charter school closures are often chaotic and abrupt, taking parents by surprise.
Now that charter schools have been allowed in many states for over 20 years, NPE is able to study the closure rate for cohorts of charters. What they have found is that by the time a cohort of charter schools has reached the five year mark, one in four have closed.
By year 10, four in 10 charters have closed. At the end of 15 years, nearly half of charter schools have closed.
The theoretical model for charters, the one touted by charter advocates, is that charter schools are granted a charter by an authorizer. Charters would trade autonomy for accountability. That charter constitutes an agreement—the school promises it will meet certain goals, and if it fails, the authorizer will close it down.
But in practice, it turns out that charters close down for several other reasons. The leading reason for charter closures is low enrollment. The school may never reach its necessary enrollment, it may suffer a precipitous drop, or it may experience a slow decline. Whatever the case, at a certain point, since charters are funded on a per pupil basis, and without enough students, a charter will not have enough funding to exist.
Thank you!