Chicago City Wire

A director with a nonprofit organization that focuses on charter schools in the state says a charter school's autonomy allows for flexibility and innovation.

According to Melissa Ramirez Cooper, director of communications for the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, there are 141 charter public schools in Illinois that more than 64,700 students attend. Parents are finding that these charter schools are better equipped to prepare their children for college than traditional public schools in the state.

“A hallmark of the charter public school community is autonomy, which enables charter school administrators and teachers the flexibility to be innovative with curriculum and classrooms,” Ramirez Cooper told Chicago City Wire.

Melissa Ramirez Cooper | Illinois Network of Charter Schools

Chicago Public Schools spends more than $15,000 per child per year, but less than 20 percent of its students will graduate college-ready in four years. In contrast, the Archdiocese of Chicago Schools has a 90 percent college-ready graduation rate.

“Some charters are college-prep focused, STEM-focused, and others integrate the arts into curriculum and classrooms. This kind of flexibility and innovation aims to provide a range of options, so that parents can choose a charter school that best fit their child’s needs,” she said.

Charter schools may be more beneficial than public schools in the state because they have a higher level of academic achievement, higher graduation rates and post-secondary success, Ramirez Cooper said.

“In Chicago, one in four high school students attend a charter public school,” Ramirez Cooper said. 

Given the city’s new high school enrollment system – GoCPS – eighth-graders can rank up to 20 choices for high schools across Chicago.

Funding for charter schools is provided by the state through local property taxes. They are nonprofit schools that rely on this funding to operate. Parents do not pay for their children to attend a charter school and money is not taken out of the budget of district-run schools, allowing autonomous operation for a charter entity.

“In Illinois, public money for education belongs to students, and funding follows the student to their family’s public school of choice,” Ramirez Cooper said.

The Chicago Teachers Union recently criticized mayoral candidate Susana Mendoza over school vouchers, which a press release stated "rob public school districts of funds" and promote "charter schools over public schools."

"The last thing this city and our students need is Rahm 3.0—and that is exactly what Susana Mendoza represents," said CTU President Jesse Sharkey in the release. "She loves privatization, she has contempt for democracy for our school district, she did virtually nothing as state representative to leverage the funding that public schools desperately need—though she was happy to cosign the giveaway of hundreds millions of dollars for charters like UNO—and she would continue the politics of austerity and privatization that have plagued the regimes of the current mayor and his predecessor. People deserve to know what her agenda is—and we aim to help voters find out about her track record."