A look at Michigan charter schools

“The idea was, you would create a small school, typically outside the regular structures of a school district where newer educational practices could be tried out,” says reporter Koby Levin.

school hallway lined with red lockers and white brick

Charter schools make up a significant percent of student learning in the state. About 10% of K-12 students — most of them in Detroit and other cities — attend a charter school.

These schools are a weird hybrid of public and private — giving private individuals autonomy to create a school with state funding but not the local tax dollars to do it. This makes charter schools a politically controversial topic for Democrats and Republicans.

“They have not definitively proved that they are able to consistently able to produce better test scores, higher academic results than their counterparts.” — Koby Levin, reporter


Listen: The weird and nuanced ways charter schools operate in Michigan.

 


 Guest

Koby Levin is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit. He recently wrote a piece entitled, “What is a Michigan Charter School? A primer on a surprisingly hard-to-answer question.”

Levin says it’s very difficult to know whether charter schools have improved student educational achievement. Rather, they appear to be providing a similar service to students when compared with the public school option.

“They have not definitively proved that they are able to consistently able to produce better test scores, higher academic results than their counterparts,” says Levin.

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