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Please stop spreading misinformation. Public charter schools aren't allowed to kick out underperforming students.


They are allowed to screen prospective students up front. They also won't kick out under-performers for getting Ds. They will find a disciplinary reason to do so.

Every one of us could have been kicked out of school at one time or another if we had fallen under the microscope looking for an excuse.


No, that's also misinformation. Public charter schools in most states aren't allowed to screen prospective students up front. Any parents can enroll their children, and when a charter school is oversubscribed they use admission lotteries. And they follow the same disciplinary procedures as other public schools.



I’ve read the NYT piece, and I am not sure how it disproves the statement made earlier.

I expected it to be an example of how the school changes their rules to target a student, but it was just a case of school that is very strict.


If you want to be exceedingly pedantic, a student at a typical charter school in the United States has much weaker due process guarantees than a student at a public school. The school administration at a charter school has much less government oversight by design, and in some states there is effectively none.


Please don’t spread misinformation. Charter school law varies by state and you should not make blanket statements about what they are allowed to do.


They appear to be essentially correct. There is little variance by state in how they accept students from the public. Were you thinking of a particular state? Here's information on the admission laws for each state from Wested. https://wested2024.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/upl...


In zero states can you show up at a charter school and say “I live next door, I want to enrol” and be enrolled. That is an enormous difference from public schools that immediately eliminates the most disadvantaged students from the applicant pool.

Moreover, some charter schools require things like parental time volunteering, which eliminates more kids, or introductory essays - they don’t score the essays! They just require it to be done! By horrible coincidence this eliminates more cough lower performing children, who simply never submit a completed application for the lottery, so sad. This definitely happens in multiple states but here’s one specific example:

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-charter-app...


> By horrible coincidence this eliminates more cough lower performing children

If it's not scored it can't possibly eliminate low-performing children on that unconflated characteristic alone - a motivated underperformer will still get in.

It eliminates the unmotivated, which correlates obviously with underperforming. While it can be a vicious circle, I'd say no-motivation -> underperformance is of much greater relevance than underperformance -> no-motivation.

The obvious hint is how it tests the parents too. sure. maybe they are very motivated but just work so much they cannot volunteer or spare any time, but doesn't that also somewhat render their 'motivation' moot as well?


That is concerning, but the original post was claiming a significant variance of state law. The wested legal summary focuses on that.


Your link is about the mandated lottery system that applies when too many applicants submit applications to the same charter school, so it clearly doesn’t protect students whose parents were strongly advised not to apply.


Are you thinking of a particular situation? Charters usually have to market to fill the school because it's expensive to operate below capacity. (That's not unique to charters; public school districts also market to maximize voluntary enrollment.)




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