Good morning, CharterFolk.
Of course, we have to start with the piling-on bad news that hit this week.
NAEP scores have reached a new nadir.
Some, understandably, are going full-on histrionic.
Others are going full-on Naked Gun.
Nothing to see here. Please disperse.
No comment at all from the NEA.
Ravitch said nothing and is keeping criticism of Trump on non-education matters at the top of her site.
Amazingly, no one other than Marc Porter Magee at 50CAN has pointed out the charter school silver lining:
Charter schools are not following the rest of public education down the NAEP drain in either reading …
… or math, where the broader results implosion has been even more severe.
In fact, though the results don’t achieve levels of statistical significance, there are indications that charter schools are actually trending in the right direction in reading.
It’s a week full of silver linings for charter schools.
The dreadful attack against charter schools in the California legislature was stopped.
More encouraging academic results came out of Tennessee.
More DSST schools are in the works in Colorado.
Secretary McMahon toured Pembroke Academy in Detroit …
… accompanied by the school’s Executive Principal, Salwa Kinsey, whose extraordinary contributions we celebrated here in February.
In Kentucky, people are coming out of the woodwork to support charter schools as the state’s supreme court considers the status quo’s inane argument that charter schools are somehow not public schools because we have lotteries, something that many of the state’s district public schools already have.
Yes, the attacks keep coming, CharterFolk.
This week in Albuquerque, a school board member used her chair position on a policy committee to agendize discussion of a moratorium on charter schools and ways the district could reduce the number of charter schools over all.
The silver lining was the exciting new verve we demonstrated in pushing back.
Just a few days after the agenda was posted, galvanized by the New Mexico charter schools association …
… dozens of CharterFolk showed up at the hearing to express their opposition.
There were many great comments that came from CharterFolk of all kinds – students, parents, teachers, board members and school leaders.
It was one of the best commercials for the national charter school movement that I’ve seen in a very long time.
My absolute favorite comment came from Trey Smith, Principal and Head Administrator at East Mountain High School …
… who said the following:
What is fair language for a moratorium?
You simply can’t write fair language for something that isn’t fair.
Limiting school choice is not equitable or fair.
Amen.
I’ve said it a hundred times:
The best way to avoid arguing within the frame that the other side has drawn is to reject the frame altogether.
Thank you, Trey!
Speaking, of amens, I save the best silver lining for last:
The archdiocese in Oklahoma has given up on its charter school idea, and is opening up a private school instead.
It’s the conclusion we should have expected from the beginning.
Isn’t that the very definition of amen?