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Pros And Cons Of Charter Schools

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Since the 1980s, charter schools have allowed families to exercise school choice, a practice that had begun a few decades earlier when parents preferred to control their children’s education because of religious views or racial prejudices. As dissatisfaction with the performance public schools grew during the late 20th century, parents called on government to subsidize an arrangement where children could receive adequate education outside of the traditional public school system. Thus, two major school choice devices emerged: charter schools, privately run schools that receive public funding, and tuition vouchers, which cover some or all of tuition at participating private schools.
Nevertheless, these options have become controversial establishments for a number of reasons. Charter schools in particular have been criticized because they are run by independent private organizations with less regulation than a traditional public schools and therefore, extraordinary educational opportunities are just as common as extreme cases of operational negligence. An annual Phi Delta Kappa poll on public schools reported that the nation was split on whether or not charter schools should have the same required standards as local public schools. Communities with satisfactory public schools typically said yes, and those with struggling public schools typically said no. In Atlanta, reports of educational inadequacy, lack of diversity, and financial mismanagement spurred the city’s NAACP
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