Charter schools aren't solving education's ills
Friday, March 23, 2012
Talk K-12 education for more than five minutes, and inevitably, the conversation turns to charter schools - those publicly funded, privately administered institutions that now educate more than 2 million American children. Parents wonder if they are better than the neighborhood public school. Politicians tout them as a silver-bullet solution to the education crisis. Education technology companies promote them for their profit potential.
But are charter schools living up to their original mission as experimental schools pioneering better education outcomes and reducing segregation? That was the vision of the late American Federation of Teachers President Albert Shanker when he proposed charters a quarter-century ago. According to new data, it looks as if those objectives are not being realized.
In recent years, major studies suggest that, on the whole, charter schools are producing
But are charter schools living up to their original mission as experimental schools pioneering better education outcomes and reducing segregation? That was the vision of the late American Federation of Teachers President Albert Shanker when he proposed charters a quarter-century ago. According to new data, it looks as if those objectives are not being realized.
In recent years, major studies suggest that, on the whole, charter schools are producing
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/22/EDCB1NOSSG.DTL#ixzz1pwTavOjg