Declining Enrollment and Charter Schools

Just finished reading the superintendent's missive concerning the budget shortfall vis a vis declining enrollment. . .I've been in the district for fifteen years. . .During that period I've watched our district dance with the charter school movement. . .Now fifteen years later we are reaping the fruits of our missteps. . .If you are not aware of the following statistic, you should be: St. Paul, Minnesota has a higher percentage of students enrolled in charter schools (about 13-14%) than any other city in the United States. . .Of course, we have declining enrollment and a resulting multimillion dollar budget shortfall--add even 1/2 of those charter school students to the rolls of the St. Paul Public Schools, and our budget shortfall shrinks to a manageable number. . .Why the alleged leaders of St. Paul continue to offer support to a movement that continues to gut our school district remains a mystery to me--or does it?. . .Ask yourself this question: what has the Humphrey Institute, for example, done for you lately?. . .Is it truly an organization interested in the continued viability of the St. Paul Public Schools, or does it operate as a veritable "Trojan Horse" within our midst, with its real goal the continued support of alternative educational institutions to the point where our District is reduced in size to the point of irrelevance. . .Think of anti-government activist Grover Norquist's notorious quote: "We will shrink government to the size where it can be drowned in a bathtub.". . .Naivete allowed the charter school movement to be viewed as a symbiotic partner with our district, when it fact it operates in a parasitic fashion sucking the very lifeblood (students) from the host until inevitable death occurs. . .To be continued. . .drfaust