Breaking Down
the Top Myths
About Charter Schools
1.)
Rochester charter schools cherry pick the best students. It makes them look good and RCSD look bad.
This is a dangerous myth because every child in Rochester deserves the best education regardless of their housing or family situation, financial support, or academic challenges.
Rochester City School District has let down the most needy students for decades and to suggest that it’s the student’s job to make the school look good is an example of exactly what’s wrong with their values. It’s the school’s job to SERVE the student and to support the child’s growth. It’s the school’s job to make the child look good and do well. Not the other way around.
The truth is PARENTS CHOOSE charter schools. Rochester charter schools are governed by the SUNY governing board and must enroll students on a first come, first serve basis. There is no “best” student, there are just good parents who want the best for their children.
There is a lottery every year held by an independent organization. All schools must participate in the lottery if there are more student applicants than available spots. After the lottery it is all first come first serve basis.
2.)
Charter schools are unregulated. They’re a hot mess, I saw it on TV.
Saying that charter schools are bad makes for good television, but it’s bad news. It’s not the truth, and it doesn’t tell the whole story. Especially not for Rochester’s kids.
Rochester charter schools are highly regulated by the SUNY governing body or NYSED. They are held to a higher standard than RCSD schools and sometimes saddled with herculean tasks that no district school is asked to meet. Charter schools have to prove they are meeting these regulations every year or they will be closed by their Authorizing SUNY governing body and lose their charter.
Here’s some examples of how charter schools are held to a higher standard.
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In NYS, district school students simply have to pass Regents exams with a 65% or higher. How well those students pass their exams is not reflected.
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Rochester charter schools have to have 65% of their students get an 80% on the Math Regents exam to stay open.
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Rochester charter schools have to have 65% of their students get a 75% on the ELA Regents exam to stay open.
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This means that Rochester charter schools have to make sure their students truly master the curriculum just to keep their doors open
Rochester charter schools have other standards they have to meet such as graduation rates that are 75% or higher. They have to ensure enough of their students require special education or ELL programs. They have to show that they’re growing.
One of the biggest, most unfair demands placed on charter schools is that they have to prove each year that they’re outperforming local district schools. This means that charter schools have to do better by students just to keep the doors open.
Year by year, Rochester charter schools are required to outperform RCSD schools and they do it with a third of the budget. They are an example of what’s possible when you tie a school’s success to the student’s success.
If an RCSD school fails their students (and thirty percent of Rochester’s district school students are failed by their school,) they are allowed to keep their doors open.
They can even change their name to distance themselves from the bad reputation they rightfully earned, but they don’t have to meet their student’s needs any differently.
Think of the name change that Franklin High School is currently undergoing from Franklin to Padilla. Changing the name doesn’t change the way that school has failed so many of its students for so long. It doesn’t change the policies. The school can continue to accept students and underperform under a different name. This is an example of how RCSD schools are under regulated.
3.)
It costs me for my kids to go to charter schools because they aren’t public schools and charge tuition.
Charter schools do not charge tuition because they ARE public schools.
This means that charter schools provide all the same services as traditional public schools such as special education, support for English language learners, transportation, breakfast and lunch, while also being one of the best options to ensure your child is college ready and ready for life from kindergarten to twelfth grade! Need to address that charters do not cost $
4.)
Charter schools don’t provide special education or classrooms for English Language Learners.
Please also see our section on charter schools and regulations.
Not only is this untrue, the truth is that our charter schools are great choices for special education and ELL students!
Rochester charter schools are required by the SUNY charter school governing body and NYSED to ensure that Special Education is a priority. Most Charters in NYS average almost 12% of their student populations receiving for special education service. English language learning is also a requirement and highly a priority by both authorizers.
5.)
Charter schools won’t transport my kids to school so I would have to drive them every day.
Rochester charter schools do provide transportation for students requiring bus transportation. Charter schools work with the district to ensure students are transported to and from school safely.
Some parents and grandparents choose to transport their kids to school, and some students walk if they are very close. Again, a charter school is a public school and you can rely on your local charter school to provide the same services you’d expect from any other public school with the benefit of a better education!
6.)
Charter schools expel and suspend students more than public schools.
This is another example of a myth that has caught fire due to over-eager headlines. There are stories that charter schools expel more of their students than traditional public schools with statistics that seem to back this up. However, you can design any graph to take data and make it suit almost any story you want to tell, but it doesn’t mean it tells the truth.
The truth is charter schools suspend fewer students than district schools across the nation. But you have to compare the charter schools to the district public schools in their area. When you compare charter schools to the five district public schools in their neighborhoods, the charter school almost always comes out with significantly fewer suspensions or expulsions.
If you’re looking for a public school that doesn’t solve all their problems by suspending your children, the facts say you’re safer with a charter school.
7.)
Rochester charter schools hurt RSCD schools and take money away from them.
Before we dismantle this myth, here’s a question for you to consider: Does a doctor, school, or institution have a right to (a word is missing here. Hurt?) your child? No. They don’t. Rather, institutions and institutional figures have a responsibility to give effective care to your child or else you take your children to someone who does.
When we describe traditional public schools as being robbed/hurt by charter schools, we are participating in a dangerous way of thinking that side steps the real problem: why charter schools are needed in the first place.
Black and brown students have been historically and consistently failed by traditional public schools. The truth is, they fare far better and have better college outcomes when Black and brown children attend charter schools. The data shows this again and again.
To say that Rochester charter schools hurt the Rochester City School District is to silence the voices of Black and brown parents whose children have paid for all the ways the RCSD has let them down over the decades.
There is no better predictor of whether a child who grows up in poverty will enter and stay in middle class as an adult than a college education. See our digital magazine (include link) to learn more about how the RCSD robs even high school graduates of a college education.
Now for the truth of whether Rochester’s charter schools take money away from the Rochester City School District.
The Rochester City School District makes money on charter schools. Anyone who tells you otherwise is dishonest.
The Rochester City School District receives money from the state based on the number of children in its district for their education.
If children are not enrolled in a district school, then RCSD is not financially responsible for them with the exception of collaborating on transportation and any special education services an individual child might need. Otherwise, RCSD receives funds from the state to forward to charter schools if local children are enrolled there. (Awkward sentence)
When you divvy up the budget the RCSD receives from New York State for students living in their area, the RCSD receives approximately $45k for each student, including those who go to charter schools. Of that, the RCSD passes on less than $15k to the charter schools responsible for those students. The truth is RCSD makes an average of $30k on students who are in charter schools.
Of the 204,000 Rochester students who attend district schools, almost 7,000 of them will face a future without a high school diploma. And even those who do graduate with an RCSD diploma will be ill-equipped to get through college. For Black and brown young people, this means access to the middle class will remain beyond their reach for life.
The truth is Rochester charter schools do more with a third of the budget that Rochester district schools receive. They work harder to meet student needs and they graduate more college ready students. This doesn’t make RCSD look good.
It’s a very inconvenient truth, and until RCSD is ready to take real responsibility for the thousands of kids they fail every year, they’re going to push the idea that charter schools are somehow to blame and are somehow a threat.
8.)
Charter schools aren’t as good as public schools.
There are two kinds of public schools; traditional district schools and charter schools. Charter schools ARE public schools.
Rochester charter schools are held to higher standards than Rochester’s district schools. The success and livelihood of each and every person working at the school is directly tied to the success of their students. This is because charter schools have to ensure they are meeting those higher academic standards in order to stay open. An underperforming district school gets to stay open and make changes as are convenient for them.
Charter schools are held to higher standards and work hard to meet them.
9.)
Charter school teachers aren’t certified.
As we’ve covered in other myths, charter schools in New York State are highly regulated. Rochester charter schools are required to employ a quota of certified teachers. There are certified teachers in all Rochester charter schools as required by law.
However, when it comes to teaching children in urban populations, Rochester charter schools also have access to specialized training that goes above and beyond what certified teachers are provided with. In fact, frequently the non-teaching staff is more trained on how to support children’s education, from the office staff all the way to environmental services.
Many Rochester charter schools have participated in Charter Champions’ intensive, school-wide training program. This program was tailor designed by Dr. Paul Miller and has been used again and again to train educators and staff in urban, impoverished environments to perform at levels that match those of private schools.