Perpetual Beta
I caught up with a friend recently over a beer, we spent a good amount of time discussing a topic we share an interest in: California Charter Law. (I know… *YAWN*)
Here in California, we’ve been experimenting on public school students for more than 20 years using Charter Law, so maybe it’s time to take stock of where things stand.
Maybe it’s time to rein in the mavericks, to return law and order to this wild west.We discussed first principles: What is CA Charter Law solving for?
- Remediation?
- Deregulation?
- Innovation?
- Differentiation?
Lack of clarity around the objective of Charter law drives much of the bitter debate and confusion surrounding charter schools, and it allows charters to be spawned for just about any reason under the sun.
The way CA charter law is written today, just about anybody can write a charter petition focused on some novel educational theme of their own design and it stands a pretty good chance of getting approved, as long as their application is reasonably complete.
In the case of the Santa Clara County Board of Education, even if an application isn’t reasonably complete, it still stands a pretty good chance of getting approved on appeal from a district. Unlike school districts who have an existing local community, educational program and operating model to prioritize, shepherd and defend, the SCCBOE is a freewheeling authorizer that will put staff behind an unapprovable petition denied at the local level, to whip it into approvable shape. It’s like the SCCBOE is paying their staff to directly compete with local school districts and communities across Santa Clara County.
We discussed symantic limitations:
- Charter - what is a charter school? The variety of different charter models is amazing, yet we use the same word to describe them all. It’s just like in the Dr. Seuss book Go Dog, Go. High up in the top of the tree was a dog party, a big dog party. There were big dogs, little dogs, old dogs, young dogs, fat dogs, skinny dogs, black and white dogs. But we call them all “dogs.” Some charters may be great, Perpetual Beta | BCS in Context:
