Preston Green, at the University of Connecticut, said there’s more at stake than the rights of students attending charter schools, which have continued to experience growth through the pandemic. If charters are not state actors, it would be easier for them to exclude some students, he said.

“The big concerns with charters are the lack of oversight and the draining of funds from public schools,” said Preston Green, the John and Carla Klein Professor of Urban Education at the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education. “Charter schools can be detrimental to the larger public school system even if they benefit, in relative terms, a small number of children.”

Preston Green noted that the Trump administration’s analysis still doesn’t seem to allow for federal money for charter schools run in a religious manner, but said this could be a step in that direction. This “is a further advancement of what they want in the end, which I think is direct funding of religious education,” he said.

“Despite the intent and plain language of the racial imbalance law, charter schools, which are now among the most racially isolated schools in the state, are specifically excluded from SDE’s report,” writes Wendy Lecker and Robert Cotto. “This is particularly troubling since Connecticut law defines charter schools as public schools subject to all federal and state laws to which public schools are subject. Charter schools can be granted a specific exemption from some laws but only if they request that in their application. If the legislature intended to exempt charters from the racial imbalance law, it could have amended the law and done so explicitly.”

“We really need to think systematically about how to permit charter schools to exist in a way that won’t deleteriously impact school districts,” says Preston Green, a professor of education at UConn’s Neag School of Education. “So understand that when I’m calling for a moratorium, I’m not calling for a backdoor closure but, rather, really thinking deliberately about how they can exist and be situated in a way that their inefficiencies are lessened.”

“You’re going to end up with these [less diverse] enclaves,” reflects University of Connecticut professor of educational leadership and law Preston Green on what happens when parents choose. “Because with people, like will always go to like.”

“We really need to think systematically about how to permit charter schools to exist in a way that won’t deleteriously impact school districts,” Preston Green says. “So understand that when I’m calling for a moratorium, I’m not calling for a backdoor closure but, rather, really thinking deliberately about how they can exist and be situated in a way that their inefficiencies are lessened.”

“I think there was a failure to anticipate private entities taking advantage,” said Preston Green, a professor of education leadership and law at the University of Connecticut.  “The lack of guidelines for those companies opened the way to potential abuses — drawing a comparison to the lax regulation of financial markets that led to the subprime mortgage crisis a decade ago. ”

“While critics charge that charter schools are siphoning money away from public schools, a more fundamental issue frequently flies under the radar: the questionable business practices that allow people who own and run charter schools to make large profits.”

“The authors describe how a “bubble” happens, how certain populations are targeted, how they clamor to get in to what appears to be a good deal, then stampede out when the bubble bursts. This may be happening now in urban African American communities,” writes Ravitch. “This article is worth your time.”