Can you support or counter-argue these statements?

Difficulties with accountability

The basic concept of charter schools is that they exercise increased autonomy in return for greater accountability. They are meant to be held accountable for both academic results and fiscal practices to several groups, including the sponsor that grants them, the parents who choose them, and the public that funds them. Charter schools can theoretically be closed for failing to meet the terms set forth in their charter, but in practice, this can be difficult, divisive, and controversial. One example was the 2003 revocation of the charter for a school called Urban Pioneer in the San Francisco Unified School District, which first came under scrutiny when two students died on a school wilderness outing.[68] An auditor’s report found that the school was in financial disarray[69] and posted the lowest test scores of any school in the district except those serving entirely non-English-speakers.[70] It was also accused of academic fraud, graduating students with far fewer than the required credits.[68] There is also the case of California Charter Academy, where a publicly funded but privately run chain of 60 charter schools became insolvent in August 2004, despite a budget of $100 million, which left thousands of children without a school to attend.[45]

In March 2009, the Center for Education Reform released its latest data on charter school closures. At that time they found that 657 of the more than 5250 charter schools that have ever opened had closed, for reasons ranging from district consolidation to failure to attract students. The study found that “41 percent of the nation’s charter closures resulted from financial deficiencies caused by either low student enrollment or inequitable funding,” while 14% had closed due to poor academic performance. The report also found that the absence of achievement data “correlates directly with the weakness of a state’s charter school law. For example, states like Iowa, Mississippi, Virginia and Wyoming have laws ranked either “D” or “F”. Progress among these schools has not been tracked objectively or clearly.”[14] A 2005 paper found that in Connecticut, which it characterized as having been highly selective in approving charter applications, a relatively large proportion of poorly performing charter schools have closed.[71] Under Connecticut’s relatively weak charter law[72], only 21 charter schools have opened in all, and of those, five have closed.[73] Of those, 3 closed for financial reasons. Charter school students in Connecticut are funded on average $4,278 less than regular public school students.[23]

In a September 2007 public policy report, education experts Andrew Rotherham and Sara Mead of Education Sector offered a series of recommendations to improve charter school quality through increased accountability. Some of their recommendations urged policymakers to: (i) provide more public oversight of charter school authorizers, including the removal of poor-quality authorizers, (ii) improve the quality of student performance data with more longitudinal student-linked data and multiple measures of school performance, and (iii) clarify state laws related to charter school closure, especially the treatment of displaced students.[74]

Distribution of funds
Additional concerns arise when, as in Michigan, charter schools are run for profit. Many educators worry that education will suffer when funding is split between profit and educational spending, rather than going completely toward educational spending as is done in traditional public schools.[75] Charter schools in Michigan, where for-profit charter schools are common, have performed at a lower level than their traditional public school counterparts.[71]
[edit]Lottery for admissions disappoints some
When admission depends partly on a random lottery, some hopeful applicants may be disappointed. A film about the admission lottery at the Harlem Success Academy, New York City, has been shown as The Lottery.[76][77] It was inspired by a 2008 lottery.[77]

Special needs getting less support or nonadmission
Studies have shown many instances of charter schools cutting programs or refusing to educate students with special needs in order to maintain profitability.[75]

Collective bargaining
Concern has also been raised about the exemption of charter school teachers from states’ collective bargaining laws, especially because “charter school teachers are even more likely than traditional public school teachers to be beset by the burn-out caused by working long hours, in poor facilities.”[78] It has recently been noted that “an increasing number of teachers at charter schools” are now attempting to restore collective bargaining rights.[79]

Racial segregation
Most studies find that Charter schools foster and support racial diversity coupled with elevated educational development. However, an article written for the journal Contexts, Linda A. Renzulli, an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Georgia, and Vincent J. Roscigno, coeditor of the American Sociological Review, use Renzulli’s own research as well as research by Amy Stuart Wells, Professor of Sociology and Education and the Coordinator of Policy Studies at Teachers College at Columbia University, to state that Charter Schools increase racial segregation.[45]

Too much power for teachers and parents
Professor Frank Smith, of Teachers College, Columbia University, sees the charter-school movement as a chance to involve entire communities in redesigning all schools and converting them to “client-centered, learning cultures” (1997). He favors the Advocacy Center Design process used by state-appointed Superintendent Laval Wilson to transform four failing New Jersey schools. Building stronger communities via newly designed institutions may prove more productive than charters’ typical “free-the-teacher-and-parent” approach.

Student test scores down and staff turnover higher
It is as yet unclear whether charters’ lackluster test results (when lackluster) will affect the enacting of future legislation. A Pennsylvania legislator who voted to create charter schools, State Rep. Mark B. Cohen of Philadelphia, said that “Charter schools offer increased flexibility to parents and administrators, but at a cost of reduced job security to school personnel. The evidence to date shows that the higher turnover of staff undermines school performance more than it enhances it, and that the problems of urban education are far too great for enhanced managerial authority to solve in the absence of far greater resources of staff, technology, and state of the art buildings.

source: wikipedia