Good morning CharterFolk.
The New Year starts off with a burst of energy.
Jim Griffin and Thibaut Dellouse wrote this great piece at The 74 this morning.
It is as much about facilities broadly as it is about Florida specifically. Jim and Thibaut do a good job laying out that facilities advocacy is shifting. Before, it has been about how can we make sure that charter schools get access to facilities. Now it is about how that same challenge plays out against a landscape of declining enrollment and vast numbers of underutilized facilities. As they point out, it will ultimately come down to whether our advocacy gets better. And the needs couldn’t be clearer. Last month Mike Petrilli sent this one along to me.
School districts would rather demolish empty buildings than allow charter schools to use them.
Here’s a great profile about a charter school leader making a great trade school in North Carolina.
Meanwhile, up in Rhode Island, a proposed trade school from a respected operator encountered opposition. It turns out there are other trade schools in town.
So it got turned down while another got approved.
So often, everything comes down to whether a proposed new charter school threatens a status quo.
EdChoice came out with their latest numbers about enrollment levels in different kinds of schools.
They celebrate the growth in participation in private school funding programs. In Tennessee, early data suggests that few students are using their vouchers to exit low performing schools.
Elsewhere in Tennessee, a local football hero is planning to open up a new charter school.
Here is a story from earlier this year that I missed.
In blue Massachusetts, private school growth is matching the pace seen in many red states with new voucher programs.
Massachusetts continues to impede charter school growth. It just goes to show. The strongest force privatizing public education is poorly performing public education.
New data confirms again that charter schools are far outperforming district schools in NYC.
It explains why charter school enrollment in the state continues to grow despite all the opposition.
Meanwhile, we’ve seen a new article at Chalkbeat about reform efforts in Indianapolis.
I know some Folk think I over-index on Indy. But I do think it is our most resonant national index at this point. The article starts out great and then, unfortunately, doesn’t finish the job and ends up falling back on plainly inaccurate tropes. It’s instructive enough from our narrative/advocacy perspective, I’ll likely return to it again this weekend.
Let’s wrap with more red/blue divergence.
Blue California is going to take another run at trying to rein in hybrid schooling. It’s a function of the fact that the schools continue to grow, helping make California the state with the third highest level of growth this decade.
Meanwhile, Texas has opened up new opportunities for virtual and hybrid education, including new ways for charter schools to take part. Now new options are opening up.
People rightfully worry about online schools and learning levels.
But a big chunk of these options are going to be coming from Harmony Schools.
What’s my worry level about the quality of those offerings?
Absolutely zero.