Charter Schools are often managed poorly but can be constructive when properly managed by state policymakers, complementing Public K-12 schools as an expression of Christian principles that stress love for neighbor, broadly, and love for other people’s children. Christian history is replete with examples of educational efforts, literacy goals and policies, and honoring the development of children.

Wikipedia, Harmony Public Schools, Texas (Wikipedia article) a good example of the structural problem of receiving public funding under private management

Civil Rights Project UCLA (Civil Rights Project website) led by Gary Orfield, excellent researcher on education and civil rights

Stephanie Banchero, Daley School Plan Fails to Make Grade (Chicago Tribune, Jan 17, 2010) writes of Chicago, “Scores from the elementary schools created under Renaissance 2010 are nearly identical to the city average, and scores at the remade high schools are below the already abysmal city average, the analysis found. The moribund test scores follow other less than enthusiastic findings about Renaissance 2010 -- that displaced students ended up mostly in other low performing schools and that mass closings led to youth violence as rival gang members ended up in the same classrooms. Together, they suggest the initiative hasn't lived up to its promise.”  Rick Perlstein, The Chicago School (Jacobin Magazine, Apr 20, 2016) notes, “In 2009, a study from the University of Chicago found that “test scores in the Renaissance schools slightly lagged those of students with similar backgrounds who attended neighborhood schools.” A second study from the respected independent nonprofit research institute SRI International judged neighborhood and charter schools to be about tied. Those results were replicated the next year in a third study at DePaul.”

Sharon Otterman, Lauded Harlem Schools Have Their Own Problems (New York Times, Oct 12, 2010) writes of Harlem Children's Zone, “The school, which opened in 2004 in a gleaming new building on 125th Street, should have had a senior class by now, but the batch of students that started then, as sixth graders, was dismissed by the board en masse before reaching the ninth grade after it judged the students’ performance too weak to found a high school on. Mr. Canada called the dismissal “a tragedy.””  

Real Reform Studios, The Inconvenient Truth Behind "Waiting for Superman" (Real Reform Studios video, Feb 10, 2012) 70 min video

Shukree Tilghman, The March @ 50: Still Segregated (PBS, 2013) interview with Dr. Gary Orfield about integrated and segregated schools

Center for Research on Education Outcomes, Charter School Performance in Massachusetts (CREDO, Feb 28, 2013)

Joshua D. Angrist, Parag A. Pathak, and Christopher R. Walters, Explaining Charter School Effectiveness (American Economic Journal, Oct 2013)

Sally Kohn, How Charter Schools and Testing Regimes Have Helped Re-Segregate Our Schools (The Daily Beast, May 16, 2014)

Valerie Strauss, Separating Fact from Fiction in 21 Claims About Charter Schools (Washington Post, Feb 28, 2015)

Jeff Guo, White Parents in North Carolina Are Using Charter Schools to Secede from the Education System (Washington Post, Apr 15, 2015)

Andrea Gabor, The Myth of the New Orleans School Makeover (NY Times, Aug 22, 2015)

Susan Dynarski, Urban Charter Schools Often Succeed. Suburban Ones Often Don’t. (NY Times, Nov 20, 2015)

Jeff Bryant, We're Onto the Phony Education Reformers: Charter School Charlatans and Faux Reformers Take It on the Chin (Salon, Jan 9, 2016)

Luc Schuster, Charter School Funding, Explained (MA Budget and Policy Center, Apr 6, 2016) MA Question 2

Rick Perlstein, The Chicago School: How Chicago Elites Imported Charters, Closed Neighborhood Schools, and Snuffed Out Creativity (Jacobin, Apr 20, 2016)

Mark Karlin, The Scam of Charter Schools Starts to Show Cracks in New Orleans (Truth Out, Apr 28, 2016)

Peter Greene, The Free Market Is Incompatible With Public Education (Huffington Post, May 16, 2016) about charter school closings leaving families in the lurch

MA Office of Charter Schools and School Redesign, Charter School Performance Criteria (MA Dept of Elementary and Secondary Education, Jun 2016)

Valerie Strauss, Why Charter Schools Gets Public Education Advocates So Angry (Washington Post, Jul 27, 2016)

Patch Staff, California Charter Schools 'Cherry-Pick' Students: Report (Castro Valley Patch, Aug 4, 2016)

CBS SF, Charter Schools Under Fire For Discriminatory Enrollment Practices (CBS San Francisco, Aug 4, 2016)

John Oliver, Charter Schools (Last Week Tonight, Aug 21, 2016)

Emma Brown, National Labor Relations Board Decides Charter Schools Are Private Corporations, Not Public Schools (Washington Post, Aug 30, 2016)

Sarah Cohodes and Susan M. Dynarski, Massachusetts Charter Cap Holds Back Disadvantaged Students (Brookings, Sep 15, 2016)

Jeff Bryant, Elizabeth Warren Clarifies The Charter Schools Debate (Common Dreams, Sep 29, 2016)

Anya Kamenetz, Questions Of Race And Charter Schools Divide Education Reformers (NPR, Sep 30, 2016)

Valerie Strauss, Obama's Real Education Legacy: Common Core, Testing, Charter Schools (Washington Post, Oct 21, 2016)

Christopher C. Martell, Why I Am Voting No on 2 (blog, Sep 13, 2016) on MA Question 2

Tanya Mosley, Should Mass. Expand Charter Schools? A Look At Ballot Question 2 (WBUR, Sep 13, 2016) MA Question 2

Martin J. Walsh, Vote No on 2 (Boston Globe, Oct 18, 2016) MA Question 2

Michael Loconto, It's Not Anti-Charter to Oppose Lifting the Cap (Commonwealth, Oct 21, 2016) MA Question 2

Jonathan A. Knee, Why For-Profit Education Fails (The Atlantic, Nov 2016)

David Leonhardt, Schools That Work (NY Times, Nov 4, 2016) high expectation, high support

Douglas K. Harris, Betsy DeVos and the Wrong Way to Fix Schools (NY Times, Nov 25, 2016) comparing Detroit to New Orleans

Bruce D. Baker, Exploring the Consequences of Charter School Expansion in U.S. Cities (Economic Policy Institute Nov 30, 2016)

Rachel M. Cohen, The War on Public Schools: Charters, Vouchers, and Disposable Teachers are Trump’s Targets (American Prospect, Jan 4, 2017)

Susan Dynarski, Free Market for Education? Economists Generally Don’t Buy It (NY Times, Dec 30, 2016)

Bill Quigley, New Orleans Charter School Problems Exposed At NAACP Hearing (Huffington Post, Apr 25, 2017)

David Osborne, Reinventing America's Schools: Creating a 21st Century Education System (Amazon book, Sep 5, 2017)

Brian Tyler Cohen, Betsy DeVos Fails to Answer BASIC Question at Congressional Hearing (Brian Tyler Cohen, Feb 27, 2020) re: charter schools, which fail at a rate of 40% nationally, and allow executives to spend public money on ridiculous and corrupt items

Krystal Ball, Forget The Masks, Statues The Real Culture War Has Just Begun (Rising | The Hill, Jul 14, 2020) defunding public education; DeVos wants to push school privatization

Cory Turner, How Education Secretary Betsy DeVos Will Be Remembered (NPR, Nov 19, 2020) revising Title IX sexual assault allegation processes; borrower defense and student loans; school choice (charter and voucher)

Allie Miller, Former Philly Charter School Officer Charged with Embezzlement (PhillyVoice, Nov 21, 2020) “Darnell Smith, who worked at Khepera Charter School in North Philly, embezzled more than $350,000 from the school while making a six-figure salary. The school, which opened in 2004, was eventually forced to close due to financial woes caused by Smith's theft from funds intended for students and teachers.”

Meagan Day, Elites Profit From “Nonprofit” Charter Schools: An Interview with Carol Burris (Jacobin Magazine, Jul 25, 2021) “Charter schools don’t improve education outcomes. But they do funnel taxpayer money into the pockets of unscrupulous — often criminal — school operators. It’s a national disgrace that needs to end.”

James Li, Does School Choice Harm Or Help US Education? Breaking Points, Jul 16, 2023. Points out data on “school choice” programs vs. standard public schools. Milton Friedman emerged as the loudest voice against Brown v. Board.

Andy Spears, The Future is Now. The Education Report | Substack, Dec 19, 2024. “The Arizona State Board for Charter Schools’ approved an application for an AI-based virtual academy on Monday. Unbound Academy, which also operates in Texas and Florida under the name Alpha Schools, claims that kids can learn twice as much using a two-hour learning plan that gets customized by an AI program instead of a traditional human teacher in front of a classroom. Kids begin their day with two hours of instruction on standard topics like language, math and science, guided by an AI that continuously adjusts the learning plan based on how the child is doing in each subject. Yes, there will be adults around - but they are there for emotional and mental support. After two hours of hyper-focused AI instruction, students can build life skills. One example the program sites: “. . . narrating scenarios in the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons.””