Charter schools are public schools.

Charter schools cannot be selective.

This is simply not true.

It is 100% true in California. See the following government web page:

https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/ch/cefcharterschools.asp

  A charter school is a public school that may provide instruction in any combination of grades (transitional kindergarten through grade twelve).

  A charter school shall admit all students who wish to attend the school; however, if the number of students exceeds the school's capacity, attendance shall be determined by a public random drawing.

That isn’t different from a choice public school, at least in the surface. I would never call these schools charter, however.

Magnet and charter schools have a lot in common. You could look at state charter school statutes as encouraging school districts to be proactive about setting up academy model and magnet schools.

One could look at it that way, sure, but the people that put in these policies are specifically trying to lower taxes by dismantling public education.

No, that doesn’t reflect the situation. Charters enshrine the public school revenue by allocating some of it to “better” schools. They make it harder to lower school district revenue as they (in the eyes of parents) make the established system work better.

That is not the stated goal of charter schools. They openly state private business can do better than government.

That’s different than aiming to reduce district tax levied. I’ve read a variety of statements from charters themselves, including that one. There are also proposals to privatize administration of school districts using the same reasoning. In education, no matter who is speaking, typically the focus is on performance, retaining teachers and meeting more diverse student needs.

That's the thing with on-paper rights... there is always a way around denying undesirables their rights. Be it onerous voter ID requirements as a tactic of vote suppression, onerous requirements for paperwork and apply systems [1] or kafkaesque processes [2] to make it harder to get unemployment insurance, or in schools looking away at instances of bullying that aren't outright violence, unfair grading and other forms of retaliation.

[1] https://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/administrative-failures-pl...

[2] https://www.legalaiddc.org/blogs/client-spotlight-unemployme...

It is. They can't put it in bold, but they can avoid special ed evaluations and services, have policies that make undesirable students repeat grades so their family will put them elsewhere, and more. It's just very much "unofficial."

"Any child of any ability, race, socioeconomic background has a right to an education."

Public education is notoriously bad at addressing the situation when some particular child frequently disrupts education of twenty others who would like to make use of their right. This is something that the noble proclamations like yours tend to just ignore.

"The charter school - better for your child? Sounds like it.

Better for society, no."

I'm curious how you think this is true. If it's better for the children in them, then they should have a better education and be more likely to contribute to society yo their maximum potential. So there's the positive side. What we would have to show is that there is a significant negative side for the students still in public schools that was not there before. The only real argument I've heard from this was about how to reduces funding from public schools. However, it also reduces costs for the reduced number of students, so it doesn't seem like a big factor. In fact, most studies show public schools having significantly higher per student budgets than the charters. So what is the negative impact on society?

==So what is the negative impact on society?==

Don't these scores sort of suggest a negative impact? We've been leaning further and further into charter schools in the US and I don't see where education is thriving.

If there are positive impacts on society, I would think you could very easily show us over the past 20 decades. We have more than 10x the number of charter school students today than in 2000.

==In fact, most studies show public schools having significantly higher per student budgets than the charters.==

I thought charter schools were public schools.

Charter schools are generally considered public schools, but generally aren't called "public schools" due to the charter structure. "Public schools" in this example are TPA (traditional public schools). TPAs have higher per student funding than charter schools.

You are presenting a generic correlation between downward trending test scores and prevalence of charter schools. Are there any studies with a real correlation that corrects for other factors? Let's remember that correlation is not causation. Especially consider that achievement was already on a downward trend and that 10x number you quote is only resulting in 6-10% of all public school students today. Even if there is a correlation with the number of charter school students and a decrease in test scores, what is the actual reason or mechanism? Just saying overall scores are still going down and charter enrollments are up doesn't show anything.

My public school denied education to 99% of students because they let the 1% of students who shouldn't have been there disrupt the classroom every single day.

The outcome for society is that every single student got a sub-par education, because things moved at a glacial pace, had constant interruptions, students felt unsafe, the pace was so slow that students felt bored, etc.

A far better outcome would have been to make a small public school for the highly-academically oriented students (top-10%, future doctors and engineers) a disruption-free normal curriculum (middle-80%) and a special-needs school for all the students who had learning disabilities, behavioral issues, etc which prevented them from being able to thrive in a conventional classroom.

> special-needs school for all the students who had learning disabilities, behavioral issues, etc

What about the students that fit into more than one group? I did not "thrive" in any classroom nor would I still. I had behavioral problems and a learning disability (though I was still an A/B student). I still became a software engineer, but I didn't know I had a learning disability until my 20s. Had I know when I was a kid, where would I have been placed? I had special needs, which were completely ignored (and still are), but I turned out average to above average enough.

Well actually, I did have one instance of being in an 'under the table' special needs program when I was in 6th grade. I was never told why I was in this program for part of every school day, and my parents were never informed. Idk about anyone else, but I did not enjoy being treated like a 'lesser person' because of something I could not control.

Also, what good are these special needs programs for students with learning disabilities when there is no place for many such people in the working world? If anything, I find these programs set people up for more failure than success. The golden rule of non-visible disabilities is to never mention them to any prospective or current employer. Often times, it's a one-way ticket to an eventual PIP/lay-off/firing. 1.5x time on tests is cute, but virtually no employer is giving someone 1.5x on a deadline because they are disabled.

Unfortunately schools err on the side of IEP kids because not enough non-IEP kids' families sue them for being denied FAPE because of the classroom antics of severe children being mainstreamed. (Whereas they are frequently in litigation with insane parents of IEP kids.)