Opinion
School & District Management Opinion

Do Charter School (And Magnet) Lotteries Really Work?

By Alexander Russo — June 15, 2007 1 min read
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One of the most persistent -- and hotly disputed -- criticisms of charter schools is that they don’t take all kids. This is old news. But one key issue that I’ve never seen addressed is the notion that the list of kids who win the lottery to get into a charter is substantially different from the list of kids who actually enroll and start school in the fall. The perception is that the two lists are substantially different, and that kids who drop out of the process or decide to go elsewhere aren’t replaced by lottery kids but rather by principals’ choices -- and that there’s little or no monitoring. Have charter schools addressed this concern, and is it legitimate or not really that much of a problem?

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