How To Know When Your Charter School Sucks

Wisdom by Mark Naison:

1. It's leader calls himself/herself a CEO.
2. The CEO's salary is more than three times the salary of the highest paid teacher in the school.
3. The board of the school is full of hedge fund executives [or corporate directors].
4. Teachers in the school are terrorized and students treated as though they were in prison or on the verge of being sent to prison.
5. The construction company who built the school is owned by a relative of a politician or a powerful community organization.
6. The school teaches that those who practice some of the world's great religions are heading straight to hell.
7. The school drives out students who are discipline problems or don't test well.
8. The school accepts a co-location with a public school and then tells its teachers and students not to talk to anyone in the other school.

My comments: If your school shows any signs of this illness, 1) remove your child, 2) organize to shut it down, and 3) publicize how much public money is being wasted on a vicious form of corporate welfare.