[Kevin]

Originally Posted by DaemonSeid

Pumps money into the school system?? Really and it takes money from another to do so.

This is a technically false statement. The typical funding model for charters is that they are funded on a per-student basis from the district, then rely on grants and donations for the remainder of their budget. In many cases, the public school districts are given some of that money (i.e., a percentage of what would have gone to the school as the per-student amount) money as an administration fee to cover any of the incidental administrative costs associated with having kids in charter schools.

The public schools themselves loose nothing. They have fewer kids to teach, so yes, they have less money. You can't simply ignore the fact that the public schools are receiving less money because they have fewer kids to teach, thus lower costs. As if that's not even a factor.

And if the charter school is the better option, then why not offer hope to kids who otherwise would have had none? Look at the test scores. Here in Oklahoma, the same public schools have been at the bottom of the barrel, both before and after charter schools came into existence. Their scores really haven't moved significantly. Fortunately though, for the hundreds of kids whose parents have cared enough to provide transportation to a charter school (some kids ride the bus system which is horrible here), there was another choice. Many of those kids became the first in their family to graduate from high school, and just about all of them go to college and do well. They wouldn't have had that chance but for the charter schools. This isn't even debatable.

Eliminates crime and blight? NO! it moves crime and blight to places where crime and blight was NOT.

There will always be crime and blight. And if suddenly the real estate developers decide a place will be nice to develop, that crime and blight can be moved again. Like I said, developers, none of us owe people anything just because they're poor. It sucks being poor. It should suck being poor.

Unless you lived in a city that has gone through this within the last 30 to 40 years, or an expert urban planner, then I don't think you are too qualified to speak on this.

I practice eminent domain law, representing landowners against the government. Good enough? And gentrification is going on in the neighborhood my office is in. It's also going on in the neighborhood about 1/2 mile away from here. They got rid of a bunch of crack houses and really brought an old neighborhood back from the brink. There's a really nice strip of art galleries, a few high-end restaurants, a hipster-frequented pizza place, a great annual arts festival, lots of economic activity, lots of filled up rent houses and apartments, a really great vibe. Yeah, gentrification sucks.

Again with the housing market being the way it is, a lot of gentrification projects have stalled and a lot of people are stuck in the middle, for some it's worked out and some others not quite so. You have people who planned on making money flipping houses in gentrified areas because they knew they could make a quick sale and now they are stuck with houses they can't sell or have to sell for less than what they invested in so please, dispense with this 'it works out for everyone" BS.

So? Any investment involves risk. I lost money in the stock market when a small company I'd invested in had its CEO go south with a few million dollars. Do I deserve your pity as well?