New Hampshire: The ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State file suit against the state's new tax credit scholarship program (New Hampshire Public Radio). More from Associated Press.

Maine: State Education Commissioner Stephen Bowen points to problems in the process after the state charter school commission rejects four of five applicants (Bangor DailyNews). Gov. Paul LePage tees off on the commission and the teachers union after the rejections (Portland Press Herald). Supporters of virtual charter schools are also upset (Portland Press Herald). The teachers union blasts LePage for wanting to lift the cap on charter schools (Portland Press Herald). Public school administrators say charters should have to feel effect of  education budget cuts too (Bangor Daily News).

Kansas: Vouchers, tax credit scholarships and an expansion of charter schools are all expected to be part of the legislative discussion this year (Wichita Eagle.)

Kentucky: A bill is filed to allow a limited number of charter schools to open in the state for the first time (Kentucky Public Radio).

California: Parents at Desert Trails Elementary School finally succeed in using the  parent trigger law to get a charter school to take over their school (Los Angeles Times). More from Hechinger Report and Education Week.

Georgia: A state representative is planning to file a parent trigger bill for the session that begins today (Associated Press).

Mississippi: Business leaders are backing the legislative push for charter schools (Associated Press). Racial divisions and mistrust are at play in debate over charter schools (Hechinger Report). (more…)

Mississippi: State lawmakers are expected to try again this year to pass charter school legislation, but some suburban Republicans continue to have concerns (Desoto Times Tribune). Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves says there's bipartisan support for charter schools (Associated Press). More from the Memphis Commercial Appeal. At least one lawmaker is talking about the possibility of tax credit scholarships (GulfLive.com)

Florida: Jonathan Hage, CEO of Charter Schools USA, is named Florida Trend magazine's Floridian of the Year for 2012. A new state lawmaker works in public schools as an assistant principal, but supports publicly funded private school choice options (redefinED).

Arizona: The state's education savings accounts program expands to include students from the lowest-performing public schools (Arizona Republic.)

Oregon: The founders of a charter school chain are accused of racketeering and money laundering and charged with scamming $17 million from the state (The Oregonian).

Washington D.C.: Charter schools in the district expel students at far higher rates than traditional public schools (Washington Post).

Indiana: Lawmakers will look at expanding the state's voucher program during the upcoming legislative session (Associated Press).

Louisiana: The legal challenge against the state's voucher program heads to the state supreme court (New Orleans Times Picayune). (more…)

Texas: State lawmakers propose an ambitious school choice expansion plan that includes a tax credit scholarship for low-income students and the lifting of a cap on charter schools (Dallas Morning News). More from the Austin American Statesman and San Antonio Express-News.

Tennessee: A key state lawmaker, House Speaker Beth Harwell, says the legislature will consider a statewide charter school authorizer (The Tennessean). Area businesses help push growth of charters in the Nashville area (The Tennessean). Gov. Bill Haslam gives mixed signals on the possibility of voucher legislation next year (Knoxville News-Sentinel). More from the Memphis Commercial Appeal.

Louisiana: The Recovery School District in New Orleans is moving towards an all-charter system (New Orleans Times Picayune). The latest enrollment counts show families who accepted vouchers are sticking with their schools (Alexandria Town Talk).

North Carolina: Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools superintendent Heath Morrison calls private, charter and traditional public school leaders together to discuss the possibility of partnerships (Charlotte Observer).

Indiana: A new study finds the state's charter schools are among the best in the nation when compared to their traditional public school counterparts (Indianapolis Star). But the poor performance of many charters under one authorizer, Ball State University, drags down the overall results (Indianapolis Star).

Illinois: Members of the Chicago teachers union march to protest a wealthy charter school supporter and ally of Mayor Rahm Emanuel (Chicago Sun Times).

Ohio: Federal education officials are investigating whether charter schools in Ohio and three other states - Texas, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - are discriminating against students with disabilities (StateImpact Ohio).

Wisconsin: Possible expansion of vouchers, extra pay for low-performing schools with improvement plans, and more education funding are all on tap for the next legislative session, Gov. Scott Walker says (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel).

Georgia: A judge rules that the Atlanta school district must stop withholding money from the city's charter schools to help pay for the district's pension program (Atlanta Journal Constitution).

by Fawn Spady

School choice has encountered greater travails in few venues besides Washington State. Before they narrowly approved a new charter law this November, voters rejected charter initiatives in 1996 and 2000 and repealed a charter law enacted by the legislature in 2004. Washington State is in fact the only state where charter schools have ever faced voters directly. Now, opponents including the Washington State teachers union and the state superintendent of schools are threatening to sue to try to have the law held unconstitutional.

But you can’t keep a good idea down, as we saw last week at the Washington Charter School Resource Center conference. My husband Jim and I started the center in 2000. We hosted 160 interested people, 80 percent of them educators, at a forum on how to start a charter school successfully. Many hope to open a school next fall.

We are frustrated that the opposition remains so intense when the need for new approaches and frankly, for empowering parents with more educational options, is so obvious. Not even half of our fourth- and eighth-graders were proficient on national reading and math tests in 2011. Although we are fortunate in Washington State to have fewer low-income families than the national average, we rank only 37^th in high school completion. Our graduation rate was 73.7 percent in 2011, and it was just 56.5 percent for Native Americans, 65.4 percent for African Americans and 64.5 percent for Hispanics. This is simply unacceptable.

Thankfully, we heard the imperative for change from those attending our forum. A principal told us he was tired of doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. A parent said she just knows there is a better choice for her special needs children. A retired teacher said public charter schools give her the desire to return to public education. A former school board member declared charters a way to engage parents in schools.

Particularly encouraging for us is the wealth of expertise eager to assist us in moving forward. (more…)

Florida: Tony Bennett is selected the state's new education commissioner (redefinED). He tells reporters afterwards that he champions school choice first and foremost because of the social justice component (redefinED). A new group headed by T. Willard Fair,  co-founder of the state's first charter school, aims to create a pipeline of black executives and entrepreneurs to help lead private and charter schools (redefinED). The Miami-Dade school district ranks No. 10 in the country for school choice, according to a new report from Brookings (redefinED). A Catholic school in Tampa is at the heart of a University of Notre Dame project to revitalize Catholic schools, particularly for Hispanic students. (redefinED).

Louisiana: Voucher parents are worried in the wake of the legal ruling that puts the program in limbo (advertiser.com). Gov. Bobby Jindal makes a pitch for vouchers at a Brookings Institution event in Washington D.C. (Huffington Post).

Washington: More than 150 teachers, parents and administrators attend a charter school conference in the wake of the successful passage of a charter school ballot initiative (Tacoma News Tribune). (Full disclosure: The conference was sponsored by the Washington Charter School Research Center, which was founded by Jim and Fawn Spady. Fawn Spady chairs the board of directors at the American Center for School Choice, which co-hosts this blog.)

Michigan: The education adviser to Gov. Rick Snyder presents the governor's sweeping public school choice proposal to business and education leaders (Grand Rapids Business Journal). (more…)

by Gloria Romero

Even while Gov. Jerry Brown and the California Teachers Association barnstormed the state, urging voters to raise taxes with Proposition 30 to support public education and predicting doomsday if the measure fails, a fascinating report from the California Charter Schools Association was released on the growth of charter schools in the Golden State.

Data from the report clearly reveal that change has come to California's public education system.

Charter schools are public schools. They are publicly funded but operate with greater independence, autonomy and flexibility from the burdensome state Education Code which micromanages even the minutia of education practices. Charter schools are typically nonunion, although they can be unionized if teachers vote for a union.

Charter schools were first established in the nation two decades ago, with California becoming the second state to authorize them. Hailed as opportunities for innovation and reform, charter schools began to grow.

Even beyond becoming recognized as "petri dishes for educational reform," the underlying philosophy of parental choice in public education began to take root. In a system where ZIP code is the sole criteria of school assignment, charters began to become a sort of "promised land" for high-poverty, minority families whose children were too often assigned to chronically under performing schools.

One-hundred nine new charters opened in California just this academic year, bringing the number of charter schools to 1,065, the most in the nation. Still, there are still 70,000 pupils on waiting lists. (more…)

Tennessee: A task force appointed by Gov. Bill Haslam leaves no doubt that a private school voucher program is under serious consideration (Memphis Commercial Appeal). More here and here.

Florida: Teachers unions, school boards and media outlets are distorting the aim of a proposed constitutional amendment, claiming it's about private school vouchers (redefinED). A charter school task force appointed by the state Legislature considers a proposal to allow local school districts to levy additional property taxes for charter school capital costs (Orlando Sentinel). The Palm Beach County school district - one of Florida's biggest  - is beginning its public school choice application process for next year's seats this week (Palm Beach Post.)

Georgia: The NAACP, Southern Christian Leadership Conference and other civil rights groups are part of a coalition opposed to a charter school amendment on the November ballot. (Associated Press)

Louisiana: Private schools say their experience with the new voucher program has so far been good. (dailycomet.com)

Pennsylvania: Gov. Tom Corbett and Republican lawmakers want to address funding inequities for charter schools. (Harrisburg Patriot-News)

New York: A study finds charter schools are undermining enrollment at Catholic schools (Albany Times Union). Charter school applicants come under fire at a public hearing. (Utica Observer Dispatch) (more…)

Who won the strike in Chicago?

Charter schools.

While the nation watched, story after story noted the obvious – that while 350,000 traditional public school students were displaced for more than a week, thousands of charter school students were in class. Even better, news coverage gave the general public a better idea of what charter schools really are.

“We were certainly disappointed that the strike happened, because I think it was a failure of adults to serve kids,” Stacy McAuliffe, chief operating officer of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, said in the redefinED podcast below. But, she added, "I think it caused a lot of people to say, ‘Wait a minute. What are charter schools? A lot of people were asking, 'So wait, are they public schools?’ And it gave us a chance to really remind people yes, they’re public schools. They’re open enrollment. There’s no tuition. There’s no academic requirement. And yet, they’re open right now.”

Charter schools weren’t part of contract negotiations, but their rapid expansion in Chicago has stoked tensions between the district and teachers union. Charter enrollment has risen from about 20,000 in 2007 to 53,000 now. And the district is pushing for another 60 charters – up from 119 campuses now - in the next five years.

Still, the goal is quality, not quantity, McAuliffe said. She offered two definitions of success.

“One is, there’s a high quality seat for a child to sit in today at a charter school. And I think the charter movement is nimble and growing and can provide that in short order relative to a big bureaucracy like CPS,” she said. “The other is, that new models and innovations are being piloted and tried and demonstrated that then push the broader education sector to change.”

“Some of the policy issues that were on the table during the strike are things that the Chicago charter movement has been at the forefront of innovation on for a decade,” she continued. “So longer day, longer year, principal autonomy in hiring and firing, and teacher evaluations – all of those things are things that charters have been doing quietly for 10 or 15 years. And that have now broadened to be a part of the public education debate.”

McAuliffe also offered her take on why teachers, too, are increasingly choosing alternatives like charters instead of traditional public schools: “If you’re a teacher that wants to work in a place that’s a little more entrepreneurial, a little more where you have some room to grow in terms of, ‘I have an idea, I’d like to see it play out,’ charter schools are more fertile ground.”

Chicago: Expansion of charter schools, which tend to employ non-unionized teachers, is a big undercurrent in the teachers union strike (New York Times). Media coverage of the strike puts charter schools in a positive light (redefinED). (Image from aei-ideas.org)

Florida: Khan Academy and Step Up For Students are partnering to bring cutting-edge technology to private schools that accept tax-credit scholarships (redefinED). The new chair of the state Board of Education says "the train has left the station" when it comes to expanding school choice (redefinED).

New Jersey: State lawmakers to take a closer look at online education. (NJSpotlight)

Rhode Island: The superintendent of the Providence school district and the president of the teachers union are working together to promote district-operated charter schools (Boston.com). State education leaders disagree about whether to close a low-performing charter school (Providence Journal).

Nevada: Lawmakers may consider parent trigger legislation in the wake of the Won't Back Down movie. (Las Vegas Sun)

Louisiana: In the wake of the state's new voucher program, the state's top education official offers a plan for closer scrutiny of private schools (New Orleans Times Picayune). About 5,000 students enroll in the new voucher program (New Orleans Times Picayune). A spokesman for a Louisiana teachers unions tries to explain why the group said a black school choice group supports "KKK vouchers" (Daily Caller).

New Hampshire: A Q&A with the head of the state's first tax credit scholarship funding organization. (Concord Monitor)

Talk about unintended consequences. Has anything ever - ever - generated more positive publicity for school choice than the teachers strike in Chicago? For charter schools especially, the strike is the gift that keeps on giving. They're open. The traditional public schools are not. Meanwhile, the framing of the strike in the mainstream press dovetails with the parental empowerment rumble from Won’t Back Down. But don’t take my word for it. Check out the ABC News clip above and the snippets below.

New York Times: "Sharonya Simon was looking for a better fit for her son when she pulled him out of a gifted program in a traditional district school five years ago and enrolled him — and later her daughter — in Chicago International Charter School Bucktown, on the Northwest Side. At the neighborhood school, “I did not feel like he was being challenged,” she said during a parents’ meeting at the school on Wednesday. Ms. Simon also said that teachers spent too much time disciplining troubled students, and that many of her son’s classmates came from families with uninterested parents.  At the charter school, she said, “you have a different group because of what we have to go through to get our kids into a charter school. You have more involved parents here.””

Education Week: “Broy (Andrew Broy, the president of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools) said his organization has received three times as many inquiries as normal about charter schools from parents and others over the past few months, as news of the impasse between the district and the union has spread. "There's no doubt that over the past two months there's been an increase in the amount of interest charters have received," he said. He suspects that interest has spiked in recent days. "A lot of parents are seeing their neighbors sending their kids to a charter school and are saying, 'Why are you still in session?'" Broy added.”

Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass: When Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis led her members out on strike this week, she said real school would be closed. "Negotiations have been intense but productive," she said. "However, we have failed to reach an agreement that will prevent a labor strike. Real school will not be open (Monday)." Real school? You mean that public system where four of 10 students don't graduate? Since real school wasn't open, I was compelled to visit an unreal school. A South Side school where 100 percent of the students graduate, and 100 percent are accepted to college. A Roman Catholic all-boys school that draws from poor and working-class neighborhoods, a school where there are no cops or metal detectors, no gang recruitment, no fear.”

Huffington Post: “With the strike having an adverse affects on those students who are already the most disadvantaged, parents are now questioning what they can do to get their children off the streets and back into school. Akers (Beth Akers, fellow in the Brookings Institution's Brown Center on Education Policy) believes having options in public schools would help these students. "Unfortunately they don't have a lot of options right now," Akers said to The Huffington Post. "That's the issue with k-12 education right now and why we believe in the notion of introducing choice in this market. Right now it's sort of a monopoly that these teachers are all part of the union and students don’t have the option of selecting into another school." “ (more…)