My name is Sophia Ramey and I am a sophomore at Syracuse University. I attended traditional public schools in Belmont, Massachusetts, throughout my entire childhood. I have recently conducted some research on charter schools to learn more about them and I am glad I did. It has now come to my attention that charter schools do not reap the benefits that they claim to and I would like to petition to stop their spread across America.

Charter schools were designed as an alternative to traditional public schools to help failing districts. Despite their failure to do their job, their growth is currently being promoted by our presidential administration and they are beginning to cause more damage to our education system than good. Because charter schools are unregulated, do not require certified teachers, and can shut down at any time, their desired effects have not succeeded. Students can be enrolled in a school one day, and the next day they can announce that the school is shutting down and the students must relocate.

Charter schools have also not been proven to necessarily perform higher than traditional public schools, which defeats their purpose. When the test scores of traditional public school students were compared with charter school students in the same district, there were no significant differences found. Because teachers in charters are not required to have any specific educational background, they cannot provide students with the highest quality learning.

They also have a selection process that allows them to take just the top performers out of traditional public schools, and leave behind struggling students in schools with limited resources. Charter schools are unable to provide students with disabilities with proper education, so even on the rare occasion where they accept these students, they often counsel them out of the school system.

Although their intentions are good and they offer school choice to students and parents, their ideas are not executed correctly. Charters receive support from some very big names, like Bill Gates and Reed Hastings, but we must bring it to their attention that they are pouring their money into the wrong solution.