Good day, CharterFolk.
Let’s start big picture.
More focus on the rise of charter schools.
Newsweek deems the rise “slow.”
Who wouldn’t want it to be faster?
I prefer “inexorable.”
Regardless, the publication affords Starlee another opportunity to cite the two reasons she sees ever more people turning to charter schools.
“For many families, when you ask them why they’re choosing charter schools, the number one thing that they will tell you is safety,” she said. “That happens across demographics. It happens across income, across race. Parents just do not view public schools as safe.”
The second reason parents cite “is rigor, or academic standards,” Coleman said. “They don’t view their public school as rigorous enough.”
In other words, the reason we rise is that we’re giving other schools something to emulate.
More funding from DC certainly helps …
… as do advocacy wins at a state level.
This weekend in California, the charter school community pulled off quite a victory in the capitol …
… passing our own legislation while stopping two dreadful attack bills.
Gregory’s comment summed things up well.
Charter advocates hailed the bill as long-overdue reform. Gregory McGinity, chief government and public affairs officer for the California Charter Schools Association, said SB 414 “provides a comprehensive set of reforms that will make an immediate difference in addressing the issues of fraud and misappropriation of public funds. The bill will improve audit standards and financial transparency across the board.”
As did Dave’s:
“This was a victory of content and needed reforms over politics,” said David Patterson, co-founder and board president of California Charter Authorizing Professionals, a nonprofit that provides training and resources to strengthen authorization.
Leaders like long-time CharterFolk Contributor Jackie Elliot, Co-Founder of PUC Schools …
… spoke up again right when it was needed …
… offering us yet again something to emulate.
Last week, California saw another court decision re-confirming the nonsectarian status of charter schools …
… emulating the SCOTUS decision earlier this year.
New Orleans’ first parish-operated school is struggling.
Caroline gets is just right:
Caroline Roemer, executive director of Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools, said that the district-run school should not receive special treatment. She noted that many New Orleans charter schools have had to cut costs in response to uncertain federal funding and a declining school-aged population, and said the Leah Chase School might need to do similar belt-tightening.
“The question becomes at what point do you hold Leah Chase accountable to the same fiscal and academic standards you hold charter schools to,” Roemer said, “meaning how are they going to deal with a school that is operating in the red?”
Imagine that:
District public schools being expected to emulate charter school accountability!
In recent weeks, I have said that Indiana has created the charter school movement’s first new North Star.
It’s given Ohio something to emulate.
Ohio lawmakers should take a page from path-breaking states such as Indiana and begin providing charter schools with a share of local dollars. Under an Indiana-like approach, Columbus’s 70-plus charters, which serve nearly 30 percent of the city’s public school students, would receive more than $175 million per year (or some $9,000 per pupil). That would make a huge dent—maybe even erase—the charter funding gap in that city, and others, too.[2]
In recent years, Ohio has shown the way toward allowing charter schools to operate, not just in big cities, but across the entire state.
Now Missouri is emulating.
Let’s end casting a little light on long-time CharterFolk Contributor, Roblin Webb, Founder of Freedom Prep …
… who is now about to take on a new leadership challenge.
A few years back, we tried to do her justice.
Now Freedom Prep has made its own video tribute to Roblin’s extraordinary contribution, including comments from her own family members.
An extraordinary leader.
An extraordinary organization.
An extraordinary tribute.
So much to emulate, CharterFolk!