There are some tricky ways a non-profit front can mask a for-profit operation. A non-profit that nominally runs a school could contract out some services to for-profit outfits. Of course the principals of a nominal non-profit could pay themselves above market salaries, in effect harvesting profits as labor compensation.
The key source of gain as others have said is evading union labor standards by contracting out and maintaining a revolving door of young teachers, since the biggest share of cost in education is labor.
Undoubtedly there will always be a few charters that are great schools, but on average, which is what counts, there is no evidence of an advantage. EPI has published a lot of research on this.
On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 8:11 PM, Michael Smith <mjs at smithbowen.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 22 Jun 2012 19:57:10 -0400
> shag carpet bomb <shag at cleandraws.com> wrote:
>
> > So, there's nothing about a charter itself that prevents it from being a
> > for-profit?
>
> Not the school itself, I think. But there's nothing in general
> that prevents a charter from handing over any or all of its
> operations to a for-profit entity. It's all a question of what the
> school board will stand for. Or rather, lie down for.
>
> --
> --
>
> Michael J. Smith
> mjs at smithbowen.net
>
> http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org
> http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com
> http://cars-suck.org
>
> Some fine cliches there. Should be encouraged. Too many damn people
> trying to be different. Coining phrases when a good platitude would
> do and save anxiety.
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>