Should states lift caps on charter schools?

The key factor in any school is that it must have a vision. Many traditional public schools do not have one, or if they do it is not clear, or it had been forgotten by those who work there, those who attend, and those who fund the school (taxpayers). Charter Schools have this as their advantage, as being new they promote who they are and what they are about with a "mission statement" and/or "Vision Statement" and rules, goals, objectives, etc. These are all used to promote the school and to attract students and families.

So what can regular public schools learn from this? That they also need to promote a "vision" and "mission". That it must be simple, informative, and repeated again and again.

This will enable "regular" public schools to focus on their core goal of educating students. If by doing this they end up competing with Charters, so be it. Charters are here to stay for the foreseeable future, and griping about them does no good.

The point is not whether a school has the word "charter" in its name. The success of a school has everything to do with the clarity of mission and coherence of its operational elements. Charters have the advantage of often starting from scratch. In our recent qualitative study (Inside Urban Charter Schools Harvard Ed Press), we examined several high performing schools on the well-regarded Massachusetts State Assessment System. We found that these schools exhibited a remarkable clarity of mission and shared purpose, a staff deeply committed to student achievement, and systems and structures designed to ensure that students received the services they need in order to learn. There is nothing really surprising about this, except that traditional schools seem incapable or unwilling to do the same.

I have worked in two public charter schools in Utah. Both of which were poorly run by interfering charter school boards. Independent teachers and principals were fired and replaced by brown nosing yes men and part-timers (to save money). Charters solve nothing because professional teachers are not prized there either.

I personally feel that America has to come back to the notion (from before sputnik) that not every student is destined for university. This idea is not egalitarian and many would say it is elitist. But the one size fits all education has lowered out standards and destroyed our credibility in terms of education before the world. I teach Latin and I can not tell you how many "gifted and talented" students do not understand English grammar, cannot read well, and have no drive to excell in school.

In my humble opinion, there should be a general education for every student through the eighth grade. After which students & parents could chose between a technical high school program for those wishing to go into the trades, computer repair, car repair, etc; a business oriented high school program for those wishing to go into white collar jobs; a college prep school program for those determined to go on to university. I think this course should utilize the International Baccalaureate curriculum so that the college bound students need not repeat high school in the lower division.

Of course there would still be access to university for those who decide that they are too good to work with their hands or in an office setting.

Thanks for letting me vent.

I'VE ALWAYS BEEN THE KIND THAT FEELS WE SHOULD NOT BE STARTING SOMETHING UNTIL WE'VE DONE A COMPLETE JOB OF THE FIRST PROJECT. We need to support traditional school districts. Without limits, charter schools will proliferate and drain away the money in districts that are even more underfunded than they are today. If charter schools think they can do an even better job of educating poorly performing, at-risk students, then, that is fine. Some of them have been very good for struggling students. But ANYONE can educate the strong student, so those kinds of charter schools make no sense. That's what private schools do, and public schools do that well. So, specific limitations on charter schools that clearly define what at-risk students are, fine. Otherwise, fund school districts properly and you'll have a GREAT outcome. We have yet to fully fund technology, librarians and libraries,textbooks, guidance counselors, etc. Charter schools placed in regular school districts actually drain resources from the public school students. Sure, they pay a fee to be there, but it doesn't cover the cost of hosting them. It's WAYYYYYYYYYYYY more complicated than folks like to say. HOW MANY HALF-FUNDED EDUCATIONAL SYSTEMS DO WE NEED???

This "debate" always seems to be couched as charter schools vs. public schools. Let's not forget that many charter schools are public schools.

Maybe what we need is for public schools to become charter schools. One of the biggest problems with traditional public schools is that they follow a one-size-fits-all plan. Maybe public schools need to have a focus. It seems that what attracts students (and parents) to charter schools is that they focus on something.

I think we all realize that one-size-fits-all rarely fits anyone very well.

It is not the public school bureaucracy's to moderate schools, but parents who send their children to school. High quality is what precisely? Public school personnel use such terms indiscriminately, yet, when asked, personnel cannot answer what is "high quality". Nor are schools required or must work in harmony with public schools. The public schools have had such a monopoly that Theodore Roosevelt must be rolling in his grave. AT&T was busted for less than the pubic schools monopoly in an industry.

"True options" are schools that do not have the attitude that "one size fits all" and "we know better". It in fact does hurt public schools to have options. Vouchers in states and cities were they are located are successful. Homeschooling is ever rising in numbers. More schools in Waldorf, Montessori, and other methods are ever increasing in numbers. Charter schools have dropped off in numbers since many districts and BOE (state and local) began approximately ten years ago, to institute unreasonble demands on charter iniatitives. The slow rise of business funded, tuition free schools are advancing the cause. All in direct response to the public school system.

Ever since Germany started state run schools in the seventeenth century and the United States adopted state run schools in the mid nineteenth century, the school systems have increasingly become less about the education of children and more about political expediency and indoctrination. Germany in the seventeenth century began indoctrination to emphasize cohesion among the individual principalities. The same began with Horace Mann's trip to Prussia and promoting the "public" school. Literacy rates have kept plummeting since the 1850's. Prior to that, de Tocqueville wrote at the end of the eighteenth century that literacy rates were 90%. Literacy rates are hovering around 55%-65% today. This is a conservative figure.

The difference between now and then was in fact school choice. Prior to Horace Mann, parents could choose from a multitude of academies, grammar schools, Latin schools, homeschooling (school at home), self directed learning (aka Ben Franklin), apprenticeships, tutors, Sunday schools, and parent supported schools. In all, there was more school choice two hundred years ago, better literacy among the public, and vocational and secondary schooling choices for those who wanted it.

In Japan, government run schools are until our equivalent middle school. At that point, parents can choose juku schools. Juku teachers can earn six figures by being the best teacher available and those juku schools who have students in "Ivy League" {our equivalent} high schools are searched and wanted by Japanese parents. The capitalist competition of the juku schools give students and their parents the best educational choice out there.

Public schools have run their course. They are a burden to education and is its anchor that has dragged education down. Homeschooling is rising in numbers, especially in the gifted and talented-special needs area. The increase in Waldorf, Montessori, and other schools have shown that parents want choices in their children's education. The fact that public schools are funded through force is the only reason why the remain in business. Parents who are given the option in the form of vouchers {i.e. Washington DC, Florida, Georgia et.al.) grab them as fast as they can. Charter schools are most definitely a nail in the public school coffin.

It has become painfully obvious to me in my 25 plus years in public education that charters are needed and necessary. We still attempt to educate very different children in much the same way we have for the last 100 years, the kids many say are still kids but we overlook one glaring difference in today's kid they are technophiles, we were not.
Kids today are born with technology at their disposal, and the same ol sage on the stage model just does not work for a vast majority of the kids, they endure school rather than enjoy it, they are over tested and miss many of the discovery learning opportunities many baby boomers were afforded. Kids now are much smarter than I was as 1st grader in 1966 and they are certainly intuitive enough to know that all of this testing is for a bunch of adults and has no real long term benefit for them.
I am really suprised the drop out rate is not much higher with what we subject students to today........given the amount of testing they are inflicted with today I probably would have dropped out run away and joined the circus.

Not until the current system is improved so that Charter Schools are better moderated. It does not hurt the public school system to provide or support options for all students, but those options need to be high-quality and a true option for students, and they must work in harmony with the public school system.

School choice is the only educational model that will lead to improved traditional public schools. That includes removing the state caps on charter schools.

Despite all the bravado talk to the contrary, public schools that are going to be flooded with an added $100 billion in economic stimulus money from Washington for at least the next two years and who operate as a monopoly have no incentive to improve. Only the competition from school choice...charter schools and vouchers...will force them to improve. History has repeatedly shown that consumers never benefit from monopolies. Education is no exception.

The teachers' unions despise any form of school choice. Obama has chosen to support charter schools, a position the unions extremely dislike. However, in exchange for shoving charter schools down union throats, he will remain silent and not interfere with their efforts to kill off vouchers....in fact, he'll even help out a bit. Witness Obama's recently signed spending bill which strips the funding for the DC voucher program. About 1,700 low-income kids, mostly Black, will be sent back to the public school "hell holes" from which they came at the close of the next school year....including two who go to the very same private school Obama's kids attend.

Boys and girls, it's merely a political quid pro quo that has nothing to do with the best educational interests of ALL the children and has everything to do with keeping union political support. If some kids have to be thrown under the bus to save others, so be it. It's the way Washington works.