Charter Schools Legislation - Not Just About Education

Money, get away.

Ethics Issue?? Would charter school legislation be proposed in Mississippi absent the possibility of receiving federal funds?

Here's an interesting conversation:

Mississippi Guesser:

Whatever their merits, tax-funded charter schools are not a free market alternative. Like every other government program, they are funded through taxation and drive out legitimate free market alternatives.

LivinLife:

They may not be a free market alternative, but they incorporate free market principles into the system. Most of our country's economy is not free market anyway. Moreover, I question the premise that schools can and should be ran by the free market. If corporations funded schools, students would only learn certain material. If schools were all funded privately by parents, we'd be worse off than corporations. Publicly funded schools with free market principles in place are the best way to go, including through use of vouchers, but that is an entirely different argument.

Mississippi Guesser:

The existence of private schools is evidence that the free market would work. What schools are working, public or private?

Freedonian:

Some of the private schools are nothing more than unaccredited religious propaganda machines. Of course, if people want to pay to have their children taught that science and evolution are lies and that their deity is charge of everything and that the universe and the earth are only 6,000 years old, that is their right to do. I just think that it is a fantastically dunderheaded thing to do.

I predict that the real fight will come about when the first of these charter schools want to have religious instruction as part of the curriculum when the legislation clearly states that these programs will be nonsectarian. How is the old 'They're taking prayer and god out of our schools!' line going to work then?

Mississippi Guesser:

Public schools are nothing but statist propaganda machines...the argument can go both ways. What is the overarching goal of the public school system? I'm not exactly sure, but I think its just to have kids graduate.

Within the private sector, you can take a look at all the schools and find one whose goal/mission suits what you want for your kids and eventually what the kids want.

There are college preparatory schools, vocational schools, athletic schools, etc.

I can certainly foresee a possible problem with trying to keep the charter schools secular. These charter schools will still be under the power of the state, and the power over what is taught will remain where it is now...with the state. The only way for parents to have the prevailing say so in what their child learns is through home school or private school.