Please Don’t Loosen the Charter Schools Rules
We shouldn't have trusted Wall Street with deregulation. Why should we trust it for schools?
Like many a mayor, Karl Dean is beginning to eye charter schools as a key ingredient in reviving the Metro school system.
There’s good reason for his thesis: The city’s three charters are out-performing the rest of the district when it comes to raising test scores. Now there’s talk of loosening Tennessee’s charter regulations, among the most restrictive in the country.
Please don’t. As we’ve learned from Wall Street, less regulation often means we’re about to get screwed. Take it from a guy from Ohio.
In the Buckeye State, the conservative legislature – no fan of public schools – made it very easy to open charters. The idea was to offer an alternative to the wretched public systems in Toledo, Akron, Cleveland, Dayton, and Cincinnati, whose problems were much worse than Nashville’s. Cleveland, for example, was sporting a 24 percent graduation rate. Go team!
But years later, the state came to a startling conclusion: Most charters were actually performing worse than the worst of the public schools. Administrators were pocketing top dollar. The level of study was laughable. One connected Republican fundraiser managed to pull in more than $100 million with his chain of charters – though no one really knows where the money went. Deregulation, you see, rarely works beyond textbook theory. To many, it’s merely a large billboard that reads: AMPLE SCAMMING OPPORTUNITIES HERE!
Not just anyone can run a school. The only charters that excelled were those run by very dedicated, veteran teachers, people who flourish outside the bureaucracy and top-down management of conventional education.
Which may explain why the three in Nashville are succeeding. The regulations are so restrictive, not just anyone can open a school. And that’s the way it should be, isn’t it?
Comments
Part of the problem is that the 'fans of public education' who oppose charter schools use regulations to prevent any increase in the number of charter schools even though the ones in Nashville are, by your own judgement 'succeeding."
How about more charter schools like the ones we have?
Posted 10/14/2008 at 07:06:11 PMI would agree, Mark, though I think the reason they are succeeding is because the standards are so rigorous that it weeds out imposters, allowing only the strong to get through. Lower the standards, and I would imagine you'll see a corresponding decline in the quality of charter schools, like we've seen elsewhere. There are only so many people in this world capable of running a successful school. We've already screwed up urban education in so many cities that it's beyond repair. If Nashville's charter schools are actually working, I see no need to change the rules.
Posted 10/15/2008 at 12:34:21 PMGlad to hear you've stopped the crusade of your predecessor, Kotz.
Posted 10/15/2008 at 01:32:32 PMIf Nashville's charter schools are actually working, I see no need to change the rules.
Because one of the rules says only children in NCLB failing schools can attend. Not sure about LEAD, but KIPP and Smithson-Craighead are overwhelmingly African American. Maybe we'd like a little diversity. Maybe some white families would like to go, but their zone public school just isn't bad enough. These schools are strong in part because, the board of ed, not the rules themselves, is tough about what it lets in. Loosen the rules and maybe more kids can go to these schools that you admit are succeeding. What's the problem with that?
Posted 10/15/2008 at 05:10:04 PMIt's the TN State Legislature which made the rules about only kids from failing schools, not the MNPS Board of Ed.
Posted 10/16/2008 at 08:49:47 AMRules, etc: Right, that's why Kotz wrote:
"Now there’s talk of loosening Tennessee’s charter regulations, among the most restrictive in the country."
Those are the regulations I was referring to.
Posted 10/16/2008 at 02:33:27 PM