Andrea Gabor: The Slow But Steady Decline of the Charter Industry
Andrea Gabor is one of the most interesting education writers around. She holds the Bloomberg Chair in Business Journalism at Baruch College. Her articles appear on sites read by people in the business world. Yet she has a firm grasp of education issues. Her latest book, After the Education Wars, has the best discussion of New Orleans education issues that I have seen. Her book The Man Who Invented Quality, about W. Edwards Deming, has a brilliant chapter #9) utterly demolishing merit pay. Follow her articles.
Gabor tells the story of the reversals of fortune of the charter industry in California. Its billionaire funders spent heavily on losing candidates in the last election and are now playing defense.
The article was written before the indictment of 11 people in the charter industry in California for scamming the state of $80 million. That got lots of press and increases pressure on the Legislature to plug some holes in its charter laws.
