Traditional school alternatives get much less attention than charter schools

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The Kentucky Education Association, the dominant teachers’ union in this state, loves to prattle on about how charter schools don’t get enough attention and accountability.

While that is nonsense, just listen to what is happening in our traditional public school system that the union so loves.

A recent news story says that ‘alternative schools’ that operate within the traditional public school system in Kentucky have grown out of control to the point where Frankfort says they don’t even know how many of these schools exist.

Even worse, no-one seems to have a handle on how many students are in these alternative schools or why they got placed there. Are some of these ‘schools’ really just functioning as holding tanks? Who can tell?

Now, this is really simple. You can’t hold a school accountable if you don’t even know it is there.

One more point. The union claims that charter schools push out kids who are not progressing. While that allegation is hotly contested by some charter school operators, we now know that public schools in Kentucky actually are doing the same sort of thing.

So, the KEA better pay some more attention to what is really happening out there before they disparage charter schools. You see, each charter school has to hold a state-issued charter before it can even start operations. Apparently, no such accountability applies if a traditional public school wants to create its own spinoffs in Kentucky, and Frankfort currently does not have a handle on this problem.