Education Law

More Charter chatter

BoardBuzz wrote about a new report that came out last week which once again discusses the issues of charter schools and accountability.  This week, Education Secretary Arne Duncan added his ideas at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools‘ annual conference.  According to our friends at EdWeek, Secretary Duncan outlined what must be done with charter schools to raise the bar and focus on “quality, not quantity” when it comes to the growth of charter schools nationwide. 

But we also wonder how much tinkering needs to be done with what Duncan called second-, and in some cases, third-rate schools.  While these schools are often put into place to replace flailing public schools, often in urban environments, how is it serving the community if charters bring the same, or worse, results?  As we’ve stated before, it’s important to keep schools on equal playing fields, so that all students have the chance to learn, regardless of who the ’authorizer’ (sounds very Hollywood) is.  In the case where it is a school board, accountability is critical, but in other cases, well, who is held accountable if the charter school falters?  And most importantly, what happens to the students in that school?  These are the questions we need to be asking, and more importantly, answering.

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on June 24, 2009 (boomark / email).