The explosion of charter schools in the U.S. is allowing individuals, corporations, and organizations to use public funds to secure their own financial gain and private profit—often at the expense of the common interest they claim to serve, a new policy brief from the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado-Boulder finds.
Released Thursday by Rutgers Professor Bruce Baker and Western Michigan University Professor Gary Miron, the report argues that charter school policy promotes “privatization and profiteering” via the following channels, as quoted from the report:
- A substantial share of public expenditure intended for the delivery of direct educational services to children is being extracted inadvertently or intentionally for personal or business financial gain, creating substantial inefficiencies;
- Public assets are being unnecessarily transferred to private hands, at public expense, risking the future provision of ‘public’ education;