alt Hacker NewsFalse. Charter schools are public schools and often served by school bus routes or other public transit. Walking or cycling can also be options for some students.
The real differentiating factor isn't wealth but simply giving a shit about your children. Parents have to take some minimal effort to enroll their children in a charter school and many simply don't bother.
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It's not just giving a shit: it's also the capacity to act on giving a shit. I'm exhausted at the end of the day after getting the kids to bed, and I'm fortunate to be in a stable marriage, live in a large home that my wife and I own, and work a well-paying WFH job. I can only imagine how tiring it must be to not have those advantages.
There are the parents doing heroics that I can hardly imagine, and they should be celebrated. But we need to design a system that provides a sufficient level of support for those families that only have an average level of capacity.
IME the differentiator is the fact that in most states charters have some way of filtering out the least profitable kids is a huge advantage for them, and concentrates the most expensive kids in the public schools.