[papagrit]

No they don't. Charter schools that get to cherry pick their student's improve. Failing public schools have very little to do with competition. If charter schools are such a good thing, so innovative, etc why not make all ky schools charter schools and allow them to play by their rules?The failure of schools first starts at home with the breakdown of the family, then extends to the court system that cannot deal with the student issues and also has a lot to do with now the influx of technology that parents use and let cripple their kids. No to mention that everything in he system changes every 4 years due to politics. Now imagine your job changing basically every system that you use every 4 years and you see the problems that you have. Public schools never get "good" at anything because it is always changing. Schools are an easy target in a society that everyone needs someone to blame. I have been around education now for about 30 years and there have been no less than 20 system changes I have been through. How can you be successful if your changing stuff all that time? I could go on and on. Look at your most successful programs.... what do they have in common? Most of the time it's stability in some shape form or fashion. That's what's missing from education. Not a different type of school. To be real honest you have been hoodwinked. This was all just a ploy to get your tax dollars to pay for religious schools under disguise along with a list of schools that make money for profit. It will all be clear before too long.

As the son of a woman who taught in a public school for thirty years, I agree with SOME of your argument. The school staff can't be held responsible for the breakdown of the family component. Stability is also the best component for ANY social structure to succeed from schooling to athletics to employment. My kids got to enroll in a public school system with stability in structure with Rockcastle County Schools. GREAT SYSTEM! Saw two dud teachers through the entire 13 years my kids attended. One teacher has since retired and the other moved on. There is no need for a charter school to compete with the Rockcastle school system because they have things well in hand there and provide an excellent education for their kids.

On the other hand, I have been told by friends, (some on here) how their kids have been educated at schools here in Kentucky. How teachers encourage cheating on state tests by leaving the room or even actually assisting kids to get the answers. How teachers decided to take days off and give the kids "study hall" instead of teaching math because they were having bad days and were sitting in the front texting someone the entire class while the kids just sat there. How a teacher would put a sign on her desk that read "Do not interrupt me or ask questions", when she didn't feel like talking to the kids. Though it's been a decade or two, I know a guy that didn't even learn to read in school. He just got passed on and on until he got his diploma. He'd just leave class and go work with the janitors and grounds staff at his school during class. I didn't send my kids to this public school system because of this, even though I'm pretty sure it doesn't happen now. But man, if I didn't have a choice but to send my kids to a school system like that, I'm sure we would have, at the very least, been homeschooling and my kids would have just had to have missed out on athletics.
I am looking at this charter school issue from an academic point of view, not an athletic point of view. I'd let my kid get "cherry picked" if the public school failed my own children academically. The recruiting in high school sports is already an issue and granted, charter schools won't help that issue at all. Both of my kids were recruited by other school coaches and professionals starting with middle school by other public schools, not private ones. It happens, and we just happily stayed with the hand that was dealt us. But my point is the academic side of things needs to improve in certain public schools, or people are going to charter schools in those districts with these new rules. The teachers in the failing public schools are going to get stuck with the less than inspired students while some of the more inspiring teachers move to teach the students that want to learn at a charter school that is publicly funded. The public schools that are failing the kids had better get their act together so parents don't decide to charter schools in their school districts in the first place. If that means getting together as a staff and figuring out how to provide the stability that is needed for a successful education to keep parents from chartering a school, then so be it.
I'm not against charter schools for these reasons.