I get your point but it's meaningless without understanding why. Your premise is that they intentionally provide a substandard product. Considering what a low bar the public schools set, I find that surprising. Wouldn't they have an incentive to provide superior instruction to generate demand? Since that point is so obvious, I have to wonder if there isn't a problem with the data. There are too many possible variables to simply conclude that for-profit charter schools are inferior.
And where do tutoring services like Sylvan Learning Centers fit it? They are for profit. People go to them because the public schools are not getting the job done for some kids.
Let's take a look at how for-profit Charter schools have been added in North Carolina... Out-of-state for-profit Charter schools companies spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying the legislature. The legislature forced the Charter school government oversight commission to admit for-profit and online for-profit charter schools. The for-profit brick & mortar charter schools have had a horrible track record of failure in our state. They took state government money (grants - which other charter schools did not get) from their government buddies. Forced their for-profit schools to buy all their books & equipment from associated companies at 5x to 10x normal prices paid via tax dollars. And also swung real-estate deals to rent low-cost facilities (store fronts usually) for their schools and took kick-backs from inflated rents from their buddies who were the landlords. As well as hiring teachers who were not licensed at salaries well below the public school systems (therefore collecting the difference for the full-scale salaries paid by the state minus what they paid the teachers - about half the amount). Most of these for-profit charter schools lasted less than three years, however via crony-capitalism the owners made millions of dollars before disappearing from the state. This is how for-profit charter schools operate. They politically-connected owners have no interest in providing anything but a sub-standard product and ripping off the public - and they have done it in multiple states. There is no lack of data regarding for-profit Charter schools - in every state they have been a political connected crony-capitalism disaster - without exception. Online for-profit Charter schools only started this year in North Carolina so I can not comment on the results yet.
Sylvan, Mathnasium, and other learning centers do not take money from the state. Their owners (franchise) must provide students with results if they want to stay in business. These centers normally hire licensed teachers as the tutors (after school hours). Most of these centers do an excellent job. If they don't then they don't stay open. They are more akin to Private Schools than Charter Schools. Learning centers are very different than for-profit charter schools which exist to take X amount of money from the government, and provide "education" at the minimum possible cost (e.g. by hiring unqualified staff) to take away the most profit. While at the same time running side scams to extract excessive money for equipment & textbook costs. Sadly for profit colleges have the same rip-off model. They have the students take out large government loans and provide a "degree" which is worthless. As outlined in many press articles they are effectively a scam where the company executives have government connections to keep federal student loans flowing despite the inability of any of the for-profit graduates to get jobs.
Close and sell off all the schools. Terminate all the school employees. Buy one laptop per student every five years. Set them up with a Khan Academy account. Let them learn online at home. Maintain one county school building for monthly testing activity. If you want to participate in sports or other activities you can join a SELF FINANCED county club. Tax payers shouldn't have to pay for it. If you need additional tutoring maybe we subsidize visiting tutors. If you are a parent and need daycare because both spouses work maybe we give a tax deduction for daycre.
Yeah.... and let's see just how far we fall behind all the other western nations in educational achievement. Teachers in a classroom add value. Do you know why I support a public education system? Because I don't want to live with a bunch of idiots.
Teachers in a classroom may have added value in the past. These days, I'm not so sure. Between required indoctrination and unruly thugs who are immune to discipline, how much learning goes on? Not much, judging from test scores. If you live in pretty much any urban area today, you're paying sky-high taxes to support a school system your own kids cannot attend. At best the schools offer a poor education and at worst, they are dangerous. So you pay twice, once in the form of taxes and twice in the form of private school tuition. The only people who really like the system are the employees, and of course they bitch and moan constantly about being underpaid. Not too many of them leave for greener pastures however.
"Learning centers are very different than for-profit charter schools which exist to take X amount of money from the government, and provide "education" at the minimum possible cost (e.g. by hiring unqualified staff) to take away the most profit. While at the same time running side scams to extract excessive money for equipment & textbook costs. " I appreciate that explanation. I had assumed the for-profit charters had to compete for students and got by mainly on tuition. I wasn't aware they got other government money. So really, it is a problem of too much government and crony capitalism.
And yet we do live among a bunch of idiots. I support a strong public education system too, just not the one we have. Maybe if they actually focused on teaching, rather than social engineering, we'd produce graduates that don't so totally fit the idiot profile. I'm guessing there's a reason for the social engineering over teaching.
I find it is the politicians (school boards, etc.) and top administrators who are into social engineering. The teachers in the classroom are usually focused on teaching without a political agenda. Once in while you come across a teacher with a political agenda (left or right), they usually are very poor teachers. The educational results in the U.S. are actually among the best in the western world when you compare similar races and wealth demographics - our public schools generally are not "failing". In Wake County, we from the 1970s to the mid-2000s have endured a school board and top administrators who pushed a social engineering agenda of racial diversity across the public schools. They would bus students for miles (which was proven to lower results for students of all races). Finally the parents revolted and voted the idiots out. This led to neighborhood-based school assignment (as is done in 95% of the U.S.) Unfortunately the right-wing crowd they voted in had their own significant problems as well. Now we are back to a Democratic board but they have learned their lesson and no longer push the school assignment diversity nonsense (which is actually now illegal in our state after a court decision) -- because they know the parents would revolt again & vote them out if they pushed this busing-for-diversity nonsense.