Wednesday, March 02, 2011

Charter school “facts”

An advertisement in the ghost town formerly known as Southdale (well, that’s not entirely fair, but things have been pretty grim there of late):charter schools billboard

“Charter schools are designed to boost student achievement” says the advertisement. That put me in mind of a post that Rob wrote last spring:

Charter schools crash and burn in Minnesota

According to Rob’s post (and statistics from the Minnesota Department of Education in it), charters fail at a rate seven times greater than public schools in Minnesota.

So who writes this propaganda? The website listed is publiccharters.org. Although its primary purpose seems to be lobbying, it’s a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit, with just under six million dollars in gross receipts for 2009. There is no information in the linked 990 identifying donors, and the website is likewise silent.

Worth looking into, don’t you think?

Update: Be sure to read the comments to this post for more information about charters and publiccharters.org.

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