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Persuasive Charter Schools Essay

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In June 2004 the “Renaissance 2010” initiative was introduced in Chicago. Mayor Richard Daley pushed for this idea to offer high quality education to all Chicago students of all diversities. Renaissance 2010 goal was to replace many of the lower performing schools with at least a hundred new small schools under a mix of governance arrangements, including charters. Charter schools are publicly funded institutions that operate under their own standards of conduct and curriculum outside the realm of local public school districts. Although these schools are funded by tax dollars, charter schools are ultimately given the freedom to establish their own methods of operation, similar to how many private schools are able to design their instructional …show more content…

The reason for that some schools do decide to convert could be that either the school is not meeting the educational standards that it should be, or even that parents are unhappy with the quality education that their children are receiving. An application for a conversion to a charter school can be made by a parent, teacher, principal, district school board or school council, but must be approved by most of the teachers and also a majority of the parents. In order for the conversion to pass, most of the parents must participate in the vote for conversion. The charter school also has to create alternative arrangements that will be put in place to serve its current students that choose not to attend the school after it is converted, such as placing them in near or surrounding public schools in which they may attend. Converting a charter school costs large amounts of money, but no matter how much you put into it, there is no guarantee that it will become successful. A major faulty in this is that teachers who may have been extremely successful in educating these students, will be fired with the creation of the new charter school. Once a public school is converted, the charter school has the power to fire any and all existing staff in order to provide an “improved staff”. This leaves many teachers out of jobs, causing teachers to be unemployed for short or even large amounts of time until they are hired at another

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