Thursday, March 11, 2010

Kansas City Closes Half of their Schools

Now this is one drastic cost cutting measure. My money is on this happening to many more districts as we go forward mainly because of this reason:

Covington has stressed that the district's buildings are only half-full as its population has plummeted amid political squabbling and chronically abysmal test scores. The district's enrollment of fewer than 18,000 students is about half of what the schools had a decade ago and just a quarter of its peak in the late 1960s.

Many students have left for publicly funded charter schools, private and parochial schools and the suburbs. The school district also isn't the only one serving students in Kansas City; several smaller ones operate in the city's boundaries.

Parents just took their kids out of these failing schools and made sure that they got a decent education. I can see these alternative schools being very popular as more parents find out that the normal public school in a lower income area will never get any better. Test scores will always be abysmal and they will always get either the dregs of the districts teachers or young teachers who will quickly become disillusioned and move to these alternative schools. I think the charter school might be the end of public education as we know it.

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