This week in school choice: Villains

This week, supporters of the charter school movement continued to call out their own side on issues from school discipline to virtual charter regulation — and continued to be cast as the villains in the larger narrative about public education.

None of this means Rocketship doesn’t have room to improve its school climate, or that Detroit’s charter school sector doesn’t have serious issues that need to be addressed.

But the villification of people who offer options outside the traditional school system helps prop up policies that shortchange students who choose those schools.

 

See also: Alexander Russo on NPR’s Rocketship takedown

Meanwhile…

A look at education reform’s intramural divides. Do schools really need to be disrupted?

Finding the right policy for virtual charter schools.

Why a big, 17-city investment charter school facilities matters. What it will  mean for Memphis.

D.C.’s well-regarded schools chief steps down.

The downside of democratic control over charter schools.

Immigration can redeem education reform’s progressive credentials (just ask these award-winning charter school leaders).

North Carolina pares back charter school oversight.

More reflections from Marianne Lombardo of Democrats for Education Reform.

Quotes of the Week

We already have enough trouble in the school systems around the country, trying to educate children and trying to find out why schools are failing. And it’s people like that that are just trying to play the system and get money and not educate our children that’s causing the problem to be worse than it is.

– Letetia Jackson, who rented a home to a failed charter school operator on the lam from the law.

The case, as described by the Sun-Sentinel, serves as a reminder that oversight matters.

Tweet of the Week


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BY Travis Pillow

Travis Pillow is Director of Thought Leadership at Step Up For Students and editor of NextSteps. He lives in Sanford, Fla. with his wife and two children. A former Tallahassee statehouse reporter, he most recently worked at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a research organization at Arizona State University, where he studied community-led learning innovation and school systems' responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. He can be reached at tpillow (at) sufs.org.