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LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Six companies responsible for teaching 17,000 Michigan's charter school students fail to produce test scores that match even low-scoring traditional public schools, records show.
The companies manage about $123.7 million in tax money each year.
The low-performing companies include three of the biggest for-profit charter school managers in the state, The Detroit News said Sunday.
They are Mosaica Foundation, The Leona Group and Charter School Administration Services. Together, they manage schools with more than a quarter of the 63,000 students in charter schools in the state.
Let me just add that this Michigan program is essentially more like a voucher program than a normal charter school program. From what I understand there are some very good charter schools, but as with vouchers the devil is in the details. It isn't enough to say "voucher system" or "charter school program" - without further qualifications those are meaningless phrases.