Maine Voices: Charter schools have a troubled history
BRUNSWICK - The history of American education is littered with school reforms designed to achieve one set of goals but manipulated to attain others. To that troubled history we may now add charter schools.
Initially envisioned as "break-the-mold" schools that would serve as models of innovation in public education, charters were freed by state legislatures from many of the regulations that mainstream public schools were legally bound to follow.
With such freedom, charter advocates argued, new methods of effectively teaching students would be discovered. A thousand flowers would bloom and public education would undergo a renaissance.
It didn't take long, however, before conservatives, stung by their failure to privatize "government schools" through voucher initiatives, saw charter schools as a way to "break the grip" of teachers' unions on public education while simultaneously opening up public schooling to the free market.
Meanwhile, liberals had their own reasons for embracing charters. Increasingly skeptical of teachers' unions' bread-and-butter demands and seeking greater school choice for their own children, many liberals urged states to pass charter school laws.
As a result, what began as a reform intended to support