Integration and the “No Excuses” Charter School Movement
cross-posted at the Washington Post
“Morning Meeting” at Blackstone Valley Prep charter school in Rhode Island, where one-third of students are middle-class or affluent, and about 45 percent are white.
In Sunday’s Daily News, attorney Eric Grannis, a charter school board member and the husband of New York City charter school missionary Eva Moskowitz, wrote an op-ed lamenting the racial and socioeconomic homogeneity of most charters. Grannis called for new laws to allow charter operators to design expanded admissions zones with the goal of achieving more diverse schools.
I’ve written extensively about the underappreciated social and academic benefits of integrated student bodies, so I’m thrilled to see influential charter school advocates embracing the cause. That said, there are some troubling questions about whether the most politically popular charter school model—the “No Excuses” model popularized