The Impact Of Charter School Expansion

• Andrea Bauer
• Hirsch Metropolitan High School, in Greater Grand Crossing, once had more than 2,000 students. It now has fewer than 300.

A mayor who wanted to privatize his school system would realize it couldn’t be done in one swoop. There’d be too much opposition from parents and union teachers. A better plan would be to add charters slowly, and let them nibble off students from the traditional schools. Many of the regular schools would wither away, until closing them seemed only prudent.

They have, however, bitten away at the traditional schools, which is part of the reason 50 “underutilized” elementary schools were closed last year.

As enrollments shrink, high schools “are virtually forced to drop courses like Advanced Placement, art and foreign languages because they have too few students to make them viable,” Karp wrote. “They also can’t support many sports teams or extracurricular activities.” They become “less attractive to students.”