The Charter Chronicles

Thanks to the assimilation of Catholics into the general population, their system of parochial education has been on the decline for decades. That is fact. What is less well-known is the relatively few Catholic schools that exist today are threatened not so much by traditional public schools as they are by charters.

I fully expect in the end for there to be schools and entire chains of charter school networks that will be blatantly religious yet get taxpayer money. That way they get around the sticky issue of vouchers.

I am thinking of those that supposedly cater to homeschooled students as one here in the Rogue Valley. The vast majority of homeschooled kids are taught at home for religious reasons, yet taxpayer money is going towards their education by the hiring of basically consultants ("teachers") who have a caseload and check in on the kids and parents to make sure they are following Oregon standards. They supposedly teach a small group of kids on campus at times--and campus I believe is a church. The owner/founder is a minister as well as an apparent educator (I believe charter operators have to have an administrator license to be able to start a charter in Oregon). The whole operation is questionable legally speaking, but it has gotten more and more popular in the past couple of years.

I interviewed for the position, but I didn't much care for the concept. The operator has mostly hired teachers from religious schools for these "teaching" positions.