As a retired public-school teacher, I have my own (generally negative) thoughts about Charter schools, their cherry-picking practices, and their taking necessary funds from public schools.

I have a niece who attends a Charter school and is on an IEP. She performs several years below grade level, although she has been AT THE SAME SCHOOL for several years. I'm in a better position to determine whether or not her needs were being met than her mother, so I spent and entire day observing her classes. They were obviously being taught by young people who had little exprience and no effective classroom skills. At no point during the day was there any attention or time given to her IEP.

At the end of the day, I sat down with a copy of my niece's IEP and met with the PART-TIME IEP Coordinator. She had absolutely no excuse for why my niece was being so poorly serviced and came just this close to admitting that the school was not prepared to carry out an IEP, which you remind us is a federal mandate. We know what Charter schools really represent, and it is not educational democracy.