a for-profit charter school is trying to take over an entire school district

https://whyy.org/articles/judge-rejects-petition-to-charterize-all-of-chester-calling-it-premature/

Chester Upland School District serves a highly impoverished area, and the schools reflect the lack of funding from property taxes.

So, it has been serving as a laboratory for people who wish for all schools to be private, for-profit entities.

two important pulls from the article

“Publicly available research discloses that children served by Chester Community Charter School exhibit lower achievement scores compared with district schools in all categories of PSSA testing in math, English language arts and science, saying that CCCS has a lower score on the state school performance profile than three other district schools: Stetser, Main Street and Chester Upland School of the Arts,” said McInerney.

and

Charter schools in Pennsylvania are paid a certain amount per student, money that comes from the sending school district. Based on a formula, charters can receive more than three times as much for students with special needs, but isn’t required to spend all that money on those students. CCCS has historically had a relatively high proportion of special education students, compared to other charters and most districts.

Despite court orders, Gureghian has declined to make public the books of his management organization, saying that as a private business he is not obligated to, even though most of his revenue comes from taxpayer dollars.

Submitted December 05, 2019 at 08:51AM by boundfortrees https://ift.tt/2DR93O0