Here are two charter schools that are doing exactly what critics allege: Skimming certain kinds of students!
Preuss School UCSD, only takes students if they are low-income and neither parent has finished college. Remember, these are the very students who allegedly make achievement gap closing impossible. Yet at Preuss all apply to four-year colleges and of the first graduating class 91 percent are going on to four-year schools.
Kipp Adelante did so well its first year open, with a low-income/high minority population, that more affluent students started applying. As a public school, the school must take students first-come first-served or by lottery. How did the school respond? It stepped up outreach and recruitment in low-income neighborhoods even more to ensure that it continued to serve the students it opened to serve.
Public charter schools nationwide serve more low-income and minority students than traditional public schools. This is in no small part because many schools are explicitly targeting these students. This scandalous skimming of the most underserved students must stop! So remember, results like these don’t matter, ideology does! To the barricades! It’s very important to discredit such schools as quickly as possible.
*Photo credits: The Eduwife.