School Reforms That Are Persistent and Admired But Marginal (Part 2)
After Minnesota authorized charter schools in 1991, a group of veteran teachers founded City Academy in St. Paul. It became the first publicly funded charter school in 1992. A quarter-century later 43 states and Washington, D.C. permit charter schools to operate. Charters are innovative ways to govern, fund, and organize public schools.
Using public monies and free of many state and district regulations, these schools have grown in a quarter-century from a handful to nearly 7000 across the U.S (there are about 100,000 public schools in the nation); they serve about 3 million students (over 50 million attend public schools). Largely found in urban districts (57 percent of all charter schools), these schools enroll mostly Hispanic and black students (total of 59 percent) charters.
Charters have separate boards of directors who have to design a new school, find space for it, recruit parents to send their sons and daughters to it, hire a director and teachers, decide on the curriculum and manner of instruction, and make scores of other decisions in getting the school up and running. In many cases, charters have to raise additional monies over and above the state’s allocation for public school students attending district schools.
Most charter (over 75 percent ) are stand-alone schools. One-quarter of charters belong to Charter Management Organizations (CMO) such as Kipp, Success Academies, Aspire, and Summit Schools. With stable funding (often from private donors), an ideology, and an existing infrastructure of support, CMOs provide CONTINUE READING: School Reforms That Are Persistent and Admired But Marginal (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice