[cdman]

Yes, due to an unfair advantage. As per the text you quoted:

> charter schools don't serve special needs students. More than that, charter schools bias towards engaged and interested parents. Because of policies like No Child Left Behind, it is really bad for local neighborhood schools to have all of their high performing students leave for charter schools.

[ryanx435]

so if I'm an engaged and interested parent, and I want my child to succeed, looks like charter schools are the correct answer about where to send my kids.

[scilro]

Could be in many cases.

But the question of "where should I send _my_ kids" should be considered separately from "how should education in this country as a whole be structured."

You have to distinguish between the macro and micro. Another example is college. If my nephew asked me whether he should go to college, I'd say, definitely do that, if you can afford it. But on a macro level, college in the US has kind of become scam and we have to do something about it.

[gremlinsinc]

I'm afraid college won't matter at all when my 1yr old graduates.

Automation will have decimated many industries, what will be left is up in the air, and when he graduates will those jobs still be there?

Unless in the future college is more of an extra-curricular boredom thing because post-scarcity society and all (wishful thinking).

[thedufer]

Not necessarily. Charter schools do much better if you measure just output, but are frequently quite average once you control for their advantageous population.

[mkaziz]

So if I want my kids to be surrounded by other, smart(er) kids / kids with engaged parents, I should send them to charter schools?

[SolaceQuantum]

It depends how much you weigh “Does the charter school actually teach my child better than a public school”(statistically, no, and they might even teach worse!) and also “do I care about exposing my child to people they’re different from”(ie. Avoiding them being stuck in a bubble) and also “am I unable to find another environment for intellectual pursuits”(clubs, extracurriculars, etc. when I was young there were definitely after-school schooling available for smart kids, and at school you can stay late for science teachers to teach you more science).

[mercutio2]

An individual parent’s incentives do tend to point in this direction, if their metric for success as a parent doesn’t include being exposed to children whose family’s aren’t as successful.

But when taken to an extreme, this leads to exclusive areas and excluded people.