Judith Ruiz-Branch - Michigan News Connection


A recent report analyzing nationwide school closures shows in Michigan, about one in three charter schools fails.

Michigan has the largest number of charter schools run by for-profit companies in the nation, with more than 80% run specifically by charter management groups. The report found backers of the schools accept closures as a natural consequence of market forces.

Mitchell Robinson, member of the Michigan State Board of Education, suggested charter schools are being treated a lot like dry cleaners or dollar stores. They pop up in strip malls, he said, and can be gone just months later.

"Our state is attracting people who put profits before the best interests of kids and families, teachers and our state, and that's unacceptable," Robinson asserted.

Expenditures include millions of federal dollars allocated to Michigan for charter schools which have never opened, Robinson added. The report, from the National Center for Charter School Accountability, found nearly half of the charter schools closing nationwide cited low enrollment as the reason. About 20% of closures were due to fraud and mismanagement of funds.

Senator Dayna Polehanki, D-Livonia, proposed legislation this summer to require the same level of transparency for charter schools as public schools, but it has not passed.

Robinson thinks greater transparency would help families make more informed choices about where to send their kids to school.

"Teachers don't think of their kids as child-shaped ATMs, we think of our kids as human beings that are the best things that their families are sending to us every day, that their hopes and dreams are wrapped up in, and we're trying to help those kids become who they want to be," Robinson emphasized. "In a lot of charter schools, they're seeing kids as dollars."

Michigan spends more than $1 billion on charter schools per year, according to the State Board of Education, all of which are state funded. As of the last school year, there were more than 360 charter schools in Michigan. They enroll about 11% of the state's 1.4 million K-12 students.

A link to the full report is provided.