#potentialgrizzlies

[teechcartoon]

Today’s Teech: ...to protect from “potential grizzlies“

On January 17, 2017, Betsy DeVos argued that schools should be allowed guns to protect from local wildlife.

[tinylittlehands]

[dwelker]

Education Dept sweetens pot to get more charter applicants

In light of the Charter School Program awards announcements last week of September.

I’m struck that fed ED is devoting ever more money chasing ever fewer people who actually want to open charters.

Except for the growth in charter chains, the pattern over last few years is clear: there are fewer people stepping forward to open new charter schools.

From March 2017 Ed Week The number of new charter schools plummeted in the 2015-16 school year, with 329 new charters setting up shop, compared to nearly twice that many—640—that opened just four years earlier.

Why have the numbers of new charter schools dropped off so sharply in recent years, even as student enrollment in charters continues to increase year over year?

It's a big question that one major player [Natl Association of Charter School Authorizers] n the charter school sector—those with the power to approve new schools and shut down failing ones—has pledged to answer, paying careful attention to any part they might be playing in the slowdown.\

<ENDQUOTE>

I've been looking at this phenomenon for a while.  More telling is the absolute growth in open charter schools (newly opened MINUS closed charters) has also been declining for years.

In graphic below, NACSA is using the charter school openings data from Natl Alliance of Public Charter Schools. 

In stitching together the NAPCS annual "Estimated Public Charter School Enrollment" reports over many years, the trend of fewer openings and more closures is clear.

The EdWeek article says NACSA wants to “study” this question over next few years.  

The more important questions are:

 - why so many “authorized” charter schools fail?

 - how much federal stimulus was wasted on failed charter schools? 

ED during the transition from Obama to Trump released the final report on SIG program titled: “School Improvement Grants: Implementation and Effectiveness.”

Don’t hold your breath for that type of comprehensive study on charter school implementation and effectiveness even though the federal money from SIG stimulus ($3 billion) is comparable to federal charter school creation (approx $2.5 billion).