I’ve considered transferring to a Charter school, which was ranked as one of the top in the nation. I’m curious to know, is the social environment at charter schools any better than in public high schools? I can’t seem to find much information about this on google. My public high school seems to be filled with idiots, it’s so saddening and anti-motivating to be around these people. Most people here in my high school seem to be a total hormonal idiot. Are charter high schools really any better than public high schools in this sense?
More opportunities, more people there go to ivies, why not? If you can then go.
@RandomScreen I’m aware there are more opportunities, slightly more ivy league acceptances and all. I’m just wondering how much of a difference is there in the social environment? Like, are people in the top Charter schools usually more mature and smart by a good factor? I’m tired of the drama, immaturity and gossip filled environment of my current high school.
@Not128k I go to a charter school and I still don’t like most of the people that go here. I probably have more friends in the public schools in our area.
@LordBendtner The charter school i’m planning to transfer to is ranked as one of the best charter schools in the nation (USA). I know there are some bad charter schools (I know one that’s worse than my current HS) but the one i’m applying to is very good. I suspect it might have a better social environment.
First off, charter schools are public schools, they just operate under somewhat different rules than most publics. (How different the rules are varies from state to state.)
Second, on average, students from charter schools don’t seem to perform any differently than students in other public schools. (The literature is quite mixed on this issue, but in general, no meaningful difference seems to be the predominant conclusion.) However, students in high-quality charters generally do better than the general public-school population, and those in low-quality charters generally do worse. This shouldn’t be a surprise, though, since students in high-quality non-charter public schools generally do better than the overall public-school population, and those in low-quality non-charter public schools generally do worse.
The one major weakness of charter schools, in my experience (as a parent of children in a high-performing charter school), is also its great strength: They tend to have strong parental/caregiver/community involvement. Unfortunately, sometimes you get parents believing that they know more about things like curriculum development than the teachers and administrators who are actually trained in those subjects, and that can get messy. Make sure you’re not stepping into anything like that, and if it’s a generally high-quality/high-performing charter in other ways, and things should go fine.
@dfbdfb Thanks for the information. The charter i’m considering is a high-quality/high-performing charter, it’s ranked as the best in my state.
@Not128k Do you by any chance live in cali?
No, I live in Delaware.
@LordBendtner The charter school I am planning to transfer to is ranked as one of the top charter schools in the country. I know there are some bad charter schools, one of them I know is way worse than my current high school. But wouldn’t one of the top charter schools be different?
@LordBendtner Nope, I live in Delaware.
No, I don’t live in California. I’m in Delaware.
Shoot, didn’t mean to spam. The message didn’t go through