Charter Schools, An Exchange: Part III
Dmitri Mehlhorn and I continue our debate about charter schools below. In case you missed it, here's Part I by Dmitri, and here's my reply in Part II. I'll have my reply in Part IV up within a few days; stand by...
I also asked Dmitri to write a short bio of himself just for this series:
"Dmitri Mehlhorn is a Senior Fellow with the Progressive Policy Institute. He writes frequently about education, including his own time as a public school student and parent. He is a co-founder and Board Member of StudentsFirst, which lobbies opposite teachers' unions on policies regarding choice and data. He is also a seed investor; however, his firm Vidinovo refrains from K-12 investments to avoid conflict of interest."
- See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2015/10/charter-schools-exchange-part-iii.html#sthash.fqCC7wyX.dpuf* * *
Episode III: The Return of the Charters
Do charter schools help kids learn?
I believe yes, and Jersey Jazzman (Mark Weber) believes no. We mostly agree on the basic facts, and disagree about the conclusions. As Jazzman wrote to me: “Almost everything you say is factually correct; however … you arrive at conclusions that simply are not warranted.”
So what now?
At this point, we need to review the burden of proof in education policy, and then we need to review the evidence.
In education policy debates, who should decide?
If Jazzman and I, as proxies for the broader policy debate, agree that charters deliver better results, but cannot agree on whether they are “better enough,” how should our impasse be resolved?
Jazzman is refreshingly transparent: “the burden of proof remains on those who make an affirmative case for charter proliferation, and it always will.” This answer, while representative of reform skeptics, seems unmoored from the principles of American public education.
Parents seek freedom to make choices for their kids. A recent poll of parents found that two
