Follow up on why Publicness/Privateness of Charter Schools Matters
My post the other day was intended to shed light on the various complexities of classifying charter schools as public or private. Some have argued that the distinctions I make are a distraction from the bigger policy issues. The point was not to address those issues, but rather to dispose of the misinformed rhetoric that charter schools are necessarily public in every way that traditional public schools are. They clearly are not. And the distinctions made in my previous post have important implications not only for teachers employment rights (or any school employee), but also for student rights. Further, it is really, really important that teachers considering their options and parents considering their options understand these distinctions and make fully informed choices.
Preston Green of Penn State University [co-author of Charter Schools and the Law] offered the following comments on my previous post:
Preston Green of Penn State University [co-author of Charter Schools and the Law] offered the following comments on my previous post:
Charter schools are always characterized as “public schools.” Many parents assume that they would receive the same constitutional rights in charter schools as other public schools. In fact, I use to think this.
My thinking changed when I spoke at a workshop for charter school attorneys. Several attorneys insisted that they were not beholden to federal constitutional and statutory provisions. They cited the Ninth Circuit’s Caviness decision, in which the Ninth Circuit held that a charter school was not