An example of a focus school is Base Line School for the Arts at Base Line Middle School. If these schools have extra room, students from elsewhere in the district may apply to attend during open enrollment, through Feb. 15, but students in the attendance area have priority. But at least 99 others have closed or been converted back to more traditional learning programs. Thirty-three of those 99 were shut down amid allegations of mismanagement or misappropriation of public money, in some cases resulting in lawsuits seeking millions of dollars of public money. A study of U.S. Department of Education computer records by Scripps Howard News Service found that charter schools are at least five times more likely to close than traditional programs.
Proponents say the higher closure rate proves that charter schools are held accountable.
A charter school is an autonomously run, publicly funded institution authorized by state or local officials who require performance reviews every three or five years. Given the enormous burden charter schools are facing, it's amazing the 2,000 charter schools we have are doing as well as they are. Others advise caution over an experimental movement that has grown from the nation's first charter school founded in 1992 in St. Paul, Minn., to at least 2,073 schools open this year. The movement is still too young, and we don't know enough about them. Charter schools are under increased scrutiny in at least three states, most dramatically in Texas, where 10 schools closed in 1999 and 2000.