We are now discovering that charter schools in Tennessee have been systematically kicking out struggling students just before state test time, pushing them back to public schools, who take the hit on their test scores, while the charters get money for the time that they were at their schools:

Leaders with Metro Nashville Public Schools have serious concerns about what is happening at some of the city’s most popular charter schools.

Students are leaving in large numbers at a particularly important time of the school year, and the consequences may have an impact on test scores.

Charter schools are literally built on the idea that they will outperform public, zoned schools. They are popular because they promise and deliver results, but some new numbers are raising big questions about charter schools.

One of the first things a visitor sees when stepping into Kipp Academy is a graph that shows how Kipp is outperforming Metro schools in every subject.

However, Kipp Academy is also one of the leaders in another stat that is not something to crow about.

When it comes to the net loss of students this year, charter schools are the top eight losers of students.

In fact, the only schools that have net losses of 10 to 33 percent are charter schools.

………

“That’s also a frustration for the zoned-school principals. They are getting clearly challenging kids back in their schools just prior to accountability testing,” said MNPS Chief Operating Officer Fred Carr.

Nineteen of the last 20 children to leave Kipp Academy had multiple out-of-school suspensions. Eleven of the 19 are classified as special needs, and all of them took their TCAPs at Metro zoned schools, so their scores won’t count against Kipp.

Of course it won’t count against Kipp.

The evidence, when corrected for things like students socio-economic status, is that charter schools don’t do any better than public schools, but that fact is ignored, because the educational reform establishment is dedicated to creating a for-profit educational system, so if fraud is required so that Wall Street can make a few bucks off of our children.

It’s applying the sub-prime mortgage industry to our education system.

H/t Diane Ravitch.