wjbc t1_iyb60rp wrote on November 30, 2022 at 2:21 AM

Charter schools aren't unionized. They operate like private schools, except that they are publicly funded.

This gives the schools more freedom, but you may get a lot of younger teachers who didn't obtain a union job and will leave as soon as they do obtain a union job. The same is true of private schools, though.

The quality of student at a charter school may be better simply because of the hoops parents and students have to go through to attend a charter school. And the school may have more freedom to expel troublesome students.

As with any school, research the options because the quality can vary a lot.

Wxfisch t1_iyb7ci4 wrote on November 30, 2022 at 2:31 AM

Some charter schools are unionized, though many are not. Typically the draw of charter schools are that they are not the local public school. That is to say if a family lives somewhere where the public school is less than stellar, parents often choose charter schools as a “free” alternative to the public school. Some states have also invested heavily in charter schools, often to the detriment of public schools (see PA). This means charter schools have to compete for students, being run like businesses with marketing teams and multiple locations.

cake_fan_girl t1_iyb8ln1 wrote on November 30, 2022 at 2:41 AM

This. I work at a public charter school and the main draw is that we aren't the huge, local high school. My largest class is 14. My school is on the campus of a local technical college and we offer dual enrollment courses as well. My state is not heavily into funding public charters (yet), so the principal definitely runs the school like a business. We get zero local tax dollars, so any funding we get is based on number of students. Having worked in private, large public, and now public charter.... School is school. There will be issues everywhere. Is it great that my current students have a free option for a more individualized education? Yeah, especially because many of them were planning to drop out. Are there benefits to a large school that we don't have? Yeah, I am a science teacher who has a TOTAL of 3 beakers. As a parent, pick what your kid needs. Leave the politics out of a major part of your kid's childhood and send them somewhere where they will learn to love reading, thinking, and learning.