It's Called Capitalism...Brilliant

Excellent column written by Daniel Ruth today.
He makes really valid points about not just the Newpoint/ Windsor Prep / East Windsor middle Academy scandal, but on charter schools in general. 

You can read his column here, but my favorite, and perhaps the truest part came at the end of his column : 
"Whatever their virtues, charter schools still drain away precious resources that could, and should, be directed at traditional public schools. Or put another way, why should public tax dollars be diverted to support a charter school that is used by a for-profit management company as a profit center? What would we call this? Socialized corporate educational welfare?

There is precious little evidence charter schools represent a renaissance of intellectual firepower. For example, of the four remaining schools still under Newpoint's stumblebum management until its executives ran away, one school had a state grade of B, one received a C and two others were D rated schools.(me: and this is the upgrade freebie the state gave them..not an actual earned grade. Last earned grade at Windsor Prep was an F)

Here's a revolutionary concept. If a group of investors believes it has a successful educational concept, great. Go start your own private school without grifting tax dollars away from public classrooms. It's called capitalism. It's all the rage. They even teach it in economics classes, but not it would seem at any of Newpoint's schools."

He sums things up pretty succinctly, don't you think? The only problem is most of the parents want that private school quality education for free. 

Well, I guess you all got exactly what you paid for. 

I would go one further than Mr. Ruth though. I would question the ability of a group of inexperienced parents ability to successfully rectify the myriad problems these schools are facing AND develop a practical, and successful operational plan.

I know you have a super analytical guy, and a couple of business owners, yadda, yadda, yadda...but what about people with actual experience and knowledge in operating a school?

Seriously folks, we are talking a lot of tax payer dollars being required to fund this hopeful endeavor. Millions in fact for that one year.  That matters.

I guess we will see.