Fluent Essays

Running Head: CHARTER SCHOOLS 1 CHARTER SCHOOLS 3 Charter Schools Student’s Name Institution Affiliation Date Introduction Many individuals today seem to believe that charter schools have hurt traditional public schools, although there are other studies that disapprove that charter schools have adversely affected traditional public schools. Charter schools are autonomously run public institutions that have been granted higher flexibility in their activities in return for more liability for performance. Charter schools are considered to be independent because they function according to the basic principle of autonomy for accountability (Epple, Romano, & Zimmer, 2016). Traditional public schools are also public institutions that are categorized into grades and are overseen by school districts. These institutions are normally where the majority of kids acquire their primary and secondary education. Unlike the traditional public schools, charter schools are not part of a school district; but instead, they are managed and controlled directly by the state board of education, which comprises the founding parents and educators. Although many individuals know that there are dissimilarities between charter schools and traditional public schools, they also have some similarities, which include maintaining a collection of standards in order to receive funding, they do not charge tuition, are open to the public, receive public funding, and are all types of public schools. This project will mainly concentrate on the impact charter schools have had on traditional public schools, both negative and positive, although many believe that charter schools have presented positive impacts. Positive effects of charter schools on traditional public schools Based on several benefits that charter schools offer in a learning environment, it shows that they do not hurt traditional public schools. Some of the benefits of charter schools include the presence of a customized curriculum, no red tape education, small classrooms, real-world learning, and promotion of inclusion and involvement of the community. Most parents normally struggle to provide the best opportunities for their kids to succeed, and school is one of the places that young individuals spend a lot of their time. Since every child is different, school choice is very important, and charter schools are considered to be the best option because they provide numerous alternatives that can better align with the educational needs of the children. “Charter schools promote inclusion and involvement of the community in order to assist in fostering social and educational growth in every child. “When children are in their adolescent years, they strive to seek a sense of belonging and the structure of charter schools provides the opportunity and ability to build in a traditional school environment” (Walters, 2018). They also provide several after-school activities and events which can assist students further pursue additional interests that might not be accessible in other learning institutions. Charter schools promote real-world learning because they are extremely rigid and have no room to deviate from the approved curriculum. In most cases, learners find themselves adapting their curriculum to real-world skills that would otherwise be impossible to teach in a traditional public school. The primary goal of the chartered schools is to ensure that they apply real-world and practical instruction in their topics, activities, coursework, and assignments. One of the greatest benefits of charter schools is having small classrooms in their learning environment. This helps and gives the educators the flexibility to provide more individualized attention to every learner, which fosters a more inclusive learning environment. “In charter schools, there is no red tape education because despite charter schools being funded publicly by state and federal tax dollars, they have more independence compared to traditional public schools” (Betts, & Tang, 2018). Whenever they notice something is not working academically, their educational team can deal with the issue and fix it immediately, unlike traditional public schools, which might have to wait for a whole school year to address something that might not be meeting the wants of their learners. Similar to real-world learning, in which students learn how to solve various problems and adapt to the unexpected, charter schools also do the same to ensure that their curriculum provides every student with the tools they need to succeed. Moreover, charter schools provide the opportunity and ability for the learning institutions to customize better the curriculum of students or their pathway of graduation centered on their likes and interests instead of focusing on the typical public school curriculum only. Some children might want to pursue a particular track that is more science or arts-oriented, and in a charter school, they can pursue that track. According to research that was carried out, it was discovered that exposure to charter schools greatly raised the performance of students at close traditional public schools. The positive impacts improved with nearness to the next charter school because most of the learners at traditional public schools co-located with charters experienced the highest positive effects. After examining the potential school-level causes for positive charter impacts using the survey information of parents and teachers, there are several things that were discovered. First, traditional public schools close to charter schools experienced enhanced student and parent engagement, greater anticipations for learners, and enhanced insights of safety and school cleanliness which all translated to improved performance of the students. The traditional public schools also enlarged per-pupil expenditures to nine percent, which had resulted from the attrition of the students. Negative effects of charter schools on traditional public schools Although charter schools seem to have several positive impacts on traditional public schools, they also have some negative effects which have greatly affected both the students, parents, and educators. The notion that charter schools have drained resources away from school districts has become a national debate in many charter schools. “For instance, during the January teachers strike in Los Angeles, the teachers said that they were striking in order to stop charter schools from draining their schools because their traditional public schools had been forced to sack teachers due to loss of students to charter schools” (Baker, 2016). This has led to several states like California considering efforts to restrict charter school extension in response to those issues. The expansion of charter schools has become a vital driver of decreasing enrollment in several areas because, based on a latest analysis, it was discovered that in San Diego and Los Angeles, more than half of the traditional public schools enrollment losses had been due to charter schools. In Pennsylvania, investigators predicted that traditional public schools could regain more than twenty percent of the money lost to charter schools in the first year by cutting costs, and in five years, they would be able to recover no more than two-thirds. It is evident based on the study that was carried out in New York that the growth of charter schools has led to additional costs to the traditional public schools since district schools ended up with a higher share of low-income learners and learners with disabilities. Conclusion In conclusion, based on the several positive effects of charter schools on traditional public institutions, it is clear that charter schools do not hurt traditional public schools. The charter schools have significantly helped in increasing the performance of students at close traditional public schools, and the effects kept increasing with nearness to the next charter schools. Additionally, those traditional public schools that were near to charter schools were reported to have experienced enhanced student and parent engagement, enhanced insights of safety and school cleanliness, and higher expectations for students. References Baker, B. D. (2016). Exploring the Consequences of Charter School Expansion in US Cities. Economic Policy Institute. Betts, J. R., & Tang, Y. E. (2018). The effects of charter schools on student achievement. In-School Choice at the Crossroads (pp. 69-91). Routledge. Epple, D., Romano, R., & Zimmer, R. (2016). Charter schools: A survey of research on their characteristics and effectiveness. Handbook of the Economics of Education, 5, 139-208. Walters, C. R. (2018). The demand for effective charter schools. Journal of Political Economy, 126(6), 2179-2223.