Good day, CharterFolk.
We start today in Idaho.
Conditions for charter schools vary, but some places clearly remain very open to continued growth. Idaho is leading the pack, showing how a range of different options are resonating with families seeking different things for their kids.
BLUUM has one of the larger federal Charter School Program grants in the country. It’s heartening to see it being put to such wise use.
Meanwhile, South Carolina keeps growing as well. Word is out this morning that C.R. Neal Academy – an HBCU-authorized school in Columbia – has now secured the facility it needs to open.
Given that South Carolina was one of the biggest winners of new federal Charter School Program funding announced this week …
… we’ll hope this is the first of many.
Washington was another state that received a big new CSP grant. This week, Impact Public Schools shared data showing how Washington’s charter schools are generating stronger outcomes than district schools.
Texas also received a big new CSP grant. Let’s hope a lot of it will be going to Houston.
In other news – this week I am visiting schools in Oklahoma, where a new report has come out about the smothering overregulation our schools are contending with.
Helpful.
Next door in Missouri, where recent scholarship has shown that efforts to equalize funding for charter schools have come up short …
… the authors of the report advance policy ideas to fix the problem once and for all.
Again, helpful.
Other big funding news relates to the new federal tax credit program. I am on the record saying I think the program will end up being far bigger than many people expect.
This week we saw a new estimate that is larger than any I’ve seen before.
What remains to be seen is how new private school options will be made to work – if at all – with protections that have historically been provided to students attending public schools.
The world of education keeps evolving at a pace faster than we have seen in our lifetimes. Some legacy institutions, sadly, keep digging in their heels, resisting change even when given a financial incentive to embrace the new world that is coming.
The New Yorker posits that it might be adults, and not just smartphones, that are making the lives of young people today so challenging.
I end with a common sense solution.
This week, the Walton Family Foundation and Gallup released new polling reflecting a truth CharterFolk are already well keyed into:
Kids reporting that their schools make them feel like they belong matters.
A lot.