The charter school-touting NY Post runs a story on a report showing charter schools cost less per pupil than traditional public schools because they have lower salary and pension costs.
This is supposed to spur Bill de Blasio to begin to support charters, I suppose, but if you dig down deep into the story, you see the connection between de Blasio's Tale of Two Cities campaign theme and charter schools.
In short, charters and traditional public schools are a Tale of Two Cities.
Charter pay teachers less because they keep turning them over after they burn them out with insane workloads and schedules. They pay no pensions, just make contributions to a 401(k) plan, so their retirement costs are quite low too.
Traditional pubic schools do not have as a high a turnover rate as charters, so their salary costs are higher. Also, they provide pensions for their teachers.
Charters set up expectations for their kids - you will work longer and harder to make less money, we will exploit you with long hours and an insane schedule, and then when you burn out, we will discard you like yesterday's news.
That's one of recipes for why we have a Tale of Two Cities in the first place.
Don't forget the rent-free buildings.
ReplyDelete