The Trump Education Budget calls for increased funding towards voucher programs that rich people will use as a tax cut to pay less towards their child's private school tuition. There is no net increase for traditional or public charter schools. This should not be allowed as both traditional and charter public schools are in desperate needs of additional funding.
Student performance at Traditional and Charter Public Schools have both good and not so good stories to tell. While most schools do well by the children they serve, there is still a need to restructure our education system which is still mired in a late nineteenth/early twentieth-century model.
One idea building on the charter school experience and that of districts under court order to better integrate their demographics would be to create magnet schools districts within regions and school districts. Magnet Schools were around before Charter Schools and there are similar missions in that they both pick a specialty. Some are art schools. Some are STEM. Some are liberal arts college prep. and some are career prep. Some cater to helping children earn a diploma while others assist students in graduating with college credit (either through A.P., I.B., or an alliance with a community college.) Instead of having schools in the district or region offer the same at each school, why not restructure and tell families in their school districts/regions that there are specialty magnet schools that are geared towards their child's interest. This would possibly foster better social development for the student as well as achievement. The child and families can reserve the right to change their mind at the semester or end of the year break.
This may be the perfect marriage between the traditional and charter camps and it could reinvigorate public education for the better.
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