5 Devastating Facts about Charter Schools that you won't hear during National School Choice Week

http://www.alternet.org/education/5-devastating-facts-about-charter-schools-you-wont-hear-national-school-choice-week?akid=12725.294211.ZA7bwi&rd=1&src=newsletter1030979&t=17

1. There are no data that support the idea that charter schools are superior to public schools.
2. Unlike public schools, charters can pick and choose their students.  

3. Children who are better resourced with more family support are the winners in the school choice game. Children from disorganized families don’t even enter the lottery. Children with significant special needs are not well served in charter schools that lack the appropriate resources.
4. It’s family income, stupid. Ravitch and many others have pointed out numerous studies linking income and test scores. One study demonstrates how SAT scores favor students from wealthy families. Another study at Washington State University confirms the correlation between parental income and ACT and SAT scores, while a different article on the widening academic achievement gap between the rich and the poor shows how the gap between children from high- and low-income families is roughly 30 to 40 percent larger among children born in 2001 than among those born twenty-five years earlier. 
5. Public schools, in some communities, are doing just fine. The idea that our schools are falling behind and our students will not be able to compete globally is, according to a number of education experts, off base. Diane Ravitch, among others, has written that the notion that American students’ scores on international tests have declined is a myth.