Charter School Shut Downs Abandon Thousands of Students

It is a cool and breezy August afternoon here in east central Illinois.  Robyn and I have been taking it easy.  We watched the "Hunger Games," and I was like, "Holy crap!  This is PG-13?" Then we watched "Zombieland," because I wanted to watch something uplifting, and I guess I was into having a "Woody Harrelson Drunkenly Stars in Post-Apocalyptic Films" Festival.  That should be an entire genre in itself. 

So that's what I did instead of blogging.  I do have a lot of things to share though:

Kansas City Public Schools are expecting a huge increase in enrollment this year after several area charter schools were closed down for failing to provide their students with a curriculum aligned with state standards.  Via the AP:

Enrollment has swelled in unaccredited St. Louis and Kansas City public schools as about 5,000 students from shuttered charter schools find a new place to get an education.
Years of declining enrollment, spurred by families moving to the suburbs or enrolling child in private, parochial or charter schools, meant the two districts saw less money from the state, which forced deep budget cuts. The Kansas City district had to close nearly half of its buildings before the 2010-11 academic year to avoid bankruptcy.

Of course, because of these budget cuts - partially caused by the loss of revenue as students left the district for these same charter schools, run by the Imagine Schools management company - means that KC is not able to accommodate all of these new students.  There was a plan to move some of these students to neighboring districts, such as Independence, Lee's Summit, and North Kansas City.  According to EdWeek, "Missouri law allows students in Kansas City to transfer to nearby accredited school districts, at the expense of the Kansas City district."  However:

A Missouri circuit court judge sided Thursday with three school districts that said they would suffer financial harm if students from the unaccredited Kansas City, Mo. school system were allowed to transfer in to their smaller, accredited districts.... The judgment was a victory for three Kansas City-area districts—Independence, Lee's Summit and North Kansas City—which were able to demonstrate to the court that the cost of educating transfer students from Kansas City would impose a financial burden.

 This is the danger of the public-private charter school system: Public funds went to Imagine Schools, which are not held to the same state standards, and eventually leave town.  This leaves their students, who are predominantly minorities, and have high levels of students with disabilities who have a federal guarantee to an education back in a system that has been robbed over the previous years.  And there is no incentive for the suburban districts - which are both whiter and wealthier - to take in those urban students.  I have no idea what Kansas City is going to do.

Paging Professor Harold Hill: