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http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/Charter-School-Paradox.pdf One thing that's amazed me recently was hearing that libertarians were pushing very hard for charter schools. The justification is all about compromise: since charter schools are supposedly "more like" private schools (they aren't clear on how), libertarians are all for them. Charter schools, for those who aren't familiar, are privately owned schools that get government funding roughly equivalent to public schools and operate to some extent like a public school. If it sounds like a really bad idea its because it is: it's an unholy union of Wesley Mouch-like private companies and public money. Now instead of just a plain old public employee union lobbying the government for more money, charters are moving us into the express lane where the brightest minds in for-profit companies devise new and exciting ways to get more money from the government. The above-linked Cato article tells of the punchline: that the last vestige of private education in the USA--private schools--are quickly being replaced with charter schools. Basically, a private school cannot compete with a local charter school that gets massive subsidies from the government, so they die. Or more likely, they convert themselves to a charter school and get some of that free money for themselves. The Cato study above points out an immediate problem with this as well: your taxes are going to go up since you are now going to start paying for a whole bunch of people's private school (before they were paying for it all now they are paying for only a portion and sticking taxpayers with the rest). Make no mistake, although they are sometimes touted as having "less regulatory burden", charter schools are heavily regulated as one would expect from something supported by taxpayers. So the plan is clear: first kill all true private schools in the USA in favor of pseudo-government controlled charter schools, and then slowly turn the ratchet on charter schools, eventually making them "privately owned" in name only.
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