Urban charters that help boys…
Let’s hope that we’re starting to see the fruits of Arne Duncan’s plan to shut down low performing charter schools while ramping up the good ones. Here’s a bad charter getting shut down in Philadelphia. Based on my travels, elite charters present the best opportunity for helping urban students, especially boys, but charter authorizers have to be ruthless about terminating the low performers, as Andy Rotherham and I argued in US News.
Tags: charters
June 25th, 2009 at 7:06 am
They want to close this Philadelphia charter for what essentially amounts to fraud. But it illustrates the problem with charters. Where there is “free” money, “entrepeneurs” will find ways to tap into it. Since any individual charter can only help so many, the theory has to be that the “formula” will emerge at one of these charters and then be replicated to solve all of our educational problems. I think this is unlikely. And your idea of being able to easily close charters will have its effect, too, because it will discourage people from starting them, knowing that the plug can be pulled at any time for political reasons.