So I’ve seen some stuff about charter schools but I’m not from the states and don’t think my country has them (if they do I’m not aware and they aren’t well know).
They seem a little controversial and I’m not getting why (apart from what seems like gentrification. But again don’t know what they are so I might be wrong) so please ELI5
In: 10
You’re a 5 year old. Your mom wants you to be healthy, so every night she cooks you a nice healthy dinner with vegetables, some protein, and all the things you need to grow up big and strong, following the rules of good nutrition. Of course she doesn’t charge you for meals, these are provided by the family at no cost to you. This is equivalent to public schools that follow the standard educational curriculum, and are supported by public money. And the curriculum is based on the current best practice as indicated by relevant research, to give students a “healthy” education.
Now, as a typical 5 year old, you don’t particularly want to follow those nutritional rules, you’d rather eat candy for every meal. Your mom clearly isn’t too happy about this, but in the interests of “freedom”, she says to you “fine, you can eat candy for every meal, BUT you need to pay for it all out of your own, I’m not going to buy you candy”. It’s not a great thing for the kid, but hey, it’s their money, their choice. This is equivalent to private schools – the students pay fees, the schools can then teach them whatever they want, they don’t need to follow the standard curriculum. They can be as healthy or unhealthy as they want to be, but it doesn’t cost any public money.
Now, in the final scenario our petulant 5 year old who wants to eat candy for every meal says to his mom “hey, since I’m not eating the meals you used to make for me, you should give me the money you would have spent on those meals. Then I can go buy my own candy with THAT money!” So the mom, through some kind of insanity, takes the $50 per week or whatever those nice healthy, nutritious meals would have cost, and gives that money to the 5 year old, who then goes and stuffs himself full of candy morning and night. These are *charter schools*, who somehow manage to not follow the public curriculum, but get public money anyway.
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