Even In Birthplace of Charter Schools, the Grand Experiment Is At Risk
Two decades after the first charter school law passed in Minnesota, the movement is still struggling to reconcile innovation with accountability
When the Minnesota New Country School opened two decades ago in Le Sueur, a rural town 60 miles southwest of Minneapolis, co-founder Dee Thomas and her teachers hoped to do things differently. There would be no bells between classes. Teachers would come to decisions democratically. Students would learn through self-directed projects instead of traditional classroom lectures.
For its entire existence, the school—which is adding elementary grades to serve students from kindergarten to 12th grade beginning this fall—has clung steadfastly to its initial vision. But with increasing amounts of state regulation and accompanying pressure on schools to perform well on one-size-fits-all standardized tests, New Country’s approach is at risk.
“I feel like I have a permanent bruise on my forehead from running into a brick wall,” said Thomas. The school’s future “is always in jeopardy whenever quality is based on traditional standards.”
The nation’s first charter school law passed in Minnesota in 1991, an attempt to transform schools into laboratories of innovation. In return for this flexibility, schools would be forced to show results. But 22 years later, the national
Read more: http://nation.time.com/2013/08/22/even-in-birthplace-of-charter-schools-the-grand-experiment-is-at-risk/#ixzz2cjNaZ42y