I

n September of 2004, there were two. By the end of the last school year, there were six. But over the summer, one closed because it didn't have enough money. This week, another opened and several more are in the works.

Charter schools seem to be catching on statewide, and more students from Berlin to Goffstown are enrolling in the small, highly focused public schools. But while the schools report academic success, paying the bills has proven more difficult. And it only promises to get harder unless state lawmakers make major changes, an option that not everyone involved sees as probable.

It has been three years since the state secured $7.2 million in federal grants for a 10-year pilot program to establish up to 20 charter schools in New Hampshire. The grants were to be divvied up among the schools, depending on their enrollment, and used to pay start-up costs for three years.

But the schools, many in their second year, have come to rely on that money. With only $3,500 per student from the state, and per-pupil costs between $6,000 and $10,000, school officials say they use that money to fill the gaps. Towns do it with local taxes, but because charter schools are open-enrollment schools, meaning anyone can attend, they don't have that option.

All charter school officials interviewed for this story said they're worried about their schools' uncertain financial future. With the grant money scheduled to run out next year, they said, they've started to put together contingency plans and look to the state government.

"The state has put us in a precarious place," said Emily Hamilton, director of the Seacoast Charter School in Stratham.

Part of the "enchantment" with charter schools is that they pledge to teach kids better for less money, said Sue Hollins, a charter school enthusiast and head of the New Hampshire Center for School Reform.

from stateline.org

It’s hilarious to me that anyone thinks they can do a better [or same] job educating kids for LESS money than our massively under funded public schools. What makes this article even more hilarious is that the charter school people are hollering for MORE MONEY to support their plan to educate kids with less money. They are just proving the point that public school advocates have been making since the inception of the idea of charter schools. You can’t educate kids for cheaper than is already being done EVEN when you hire non-union uncertified teachers.

The money wasted on this experiment could best be used in the PROVEN public school system. Charters schools will be asking for more money up until the minute the book closes on their failed experiment. The only CHEAPER part of charter schools is how they seek to redefine teacher’s pay and benefits more in the line with a hourly wage earning daycare worker than that of a skilled and well trained professional. Guess what kind of teachers they get to take those jobs?

Many of these dismantle-the-public-school “reformers” would like to see any kid coming out of high school be eligible for a $15 an hour job teaching. You DON’T see these wealthy families sending their Harvard bound children to “charter” schools.

# posted by Jon Easton : 2:32 PM  5 comments