Milwaukee is wisely embracing charter schools
Mike Ford:
Say an enterprising kid in your neighborhood offers to mow your lawn for $50. Say he turns around and pays another kid $35 to mow your lawn. The lawn gets mowed, the kid who actually mows the lawn makes $35 and the enterprising kid makes $15.
Should you be upset that you paid $50 for a job that someone did for $35 or satisfied that the job you paid for was completed?
The way you answer that question probably explains how you feel about the Milwaukee Public Schools' increasing willingness to authorize charter schools. The insiders call them non-instrumentality charter schools, which means they are freed from many bureaucratic regulations and are staffed with nonunion teachers.
In the eyes of the state, an MPS nonunion charter student is just like any other MPS student. Last year, the district received $9,799 in state aid and local property tax for each MPS pupil, including those in nonunion charter schools. The School Board, however, sends only $7,775 per pupil to nonunion charter schools. Meaning, nonunion charter students generate over $2,000 more per-pupil in revenue than the district spends to educate them.
Milwaukee Public Schoos are making tough choices to improve education.
Posted by Jim Zellmer at September 17, 2012 1:05 AM
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