This week, a new report showed charter schools serve roughly three times as many students as they did a decade ago, and 14 communities have more than 30 percent of their public-school students enrolled in charters.
Charters’ importance in America’s public education system has never been more clear. At the same time, critics, including teachers union leaders and some presidential candidates, continue to distort it.
A few correctives:
- Both boosters and detractors get a few things wrong on charters and discipline.
- Charter schools serve a growing number of students with special needs, and often provide more inclusion.
- They aren’t just R & D labs for districts.
The ultimate question ought to be whether schools, charter or otherwise, are meeting the needs of their communities.
Meanwhile…
The most pressing education issues remain all but invisible in the presidential campaign. Republicans are torn between federalism and the need for reform, while Democrats seem poised to reverse course. Marco Rubio backs a national school choice program that makes some libertarians nervous. Hillary Clinton turns to falsehoods on charter schools.
Louisiana voucher backers score an important legal victory.
A new deal on a rewrite of federal education laws likely won’t include Title I portability, but may include a different school choice-friendly funding proposal.
Religious schools may be barred from Montana’s new tax credit scholarship program.
The debate over portfolio management continues.
A dour take on NAEP urban district results.
A call for transparency from virtual charter schools.
A call for Nevada’s education savings account program to do more for low-income students.
Tweet of the Week
We lost a real teacher today in John Chubb, a man from whom I learned some lessons myself. Thoughts with his family and the NAIS community.
— Peter Gow (@pgow) November 14, 2015
Quote of the week
Of all the sundry education reforms that attract attention, only choice has the capacity to address the basic institutional problem plaguing America’s schools. The other reforms are all system-preserving. The schools remain subordinates in the structure of public authority — and they remain bureaucratic.
In principle, choice offers a clear, sharp break from the institutional past.
—John E. Chubb, writing with Terry M. Moe in a seminal document of the school choice movement. RIP.
Please send pushback, feedback, tips and links to tpillow[at]sufs[dot]org, and have a great week.
