Argumentative Essay: Traditional Public Schools Vs. Charter Schools

Have you ever been prohibited from an amusement park ride just because you weren’t tall enough? What about not being able to play on a team just because of the way you look? These two scenarios are examples of exclusion, which is the act of denying someone the opportunity to participate in an activity or enter a place. Exclusion may be one of the biggest flaws when it comes to special education in schools. Unlike traditional public schools, charter schools aren’t required to provide resources for special education students. With unavailable resources, students with learning disabilities may not have the support they need to succeed. Due to the lack of resources they may also get discouraged, leading them to transfer from a charter school to a traditional public school.

Traditional public schools are generally much bigger than charter schools, giving them the ability to enroll more students and incorporate a variety of extracurricular activities. According to Peterson (2017) “Charter schools are funded by governments, but operate independently. This means that charter schools must persuade parents to select them instead of a neighborhood district school” (p.1). By having to recruit students for enrollment, charter schools target the most motivated students. Since charter schools are smaller than traditional public schools, they tend to run out of seating fast, therefore they enroll their students using a lottery. Due to this as students apply, they are put on a waitlist with the uncertainty of whether they will be enrolled or not. Once students are enrolled into a charter school they are held to an academic standard in attempt to protect the school’s numbers. If a student consistently gets bad grades or acts out, they will be expelled and replaced with another student from the waitlist who will stay on