Mike Klonsky's Blog: Good riddance to the Charter School Commission

Mike Klonsky's Blog: Good riddance to the Charter School Commission

Good riddance to the Charter School Commission

Congratulations to all of us who worked so hard to finally get rid of the Illinois State Charter School Commission. We count our victories one by one.

A new law that goes into effect next year, will abolish the Commission and hopefully limit the wild expansion of privately-operated charter schools. That's the result of Senate Bill 1226, which Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law Aug. 23, over the objections of INCS and charter school lobbyists.  Gov. Rauner vetoed a similar bill last year.

The measure was sponsored by state Sen. Linda Holmes, an Aurora Democrat. Holmes made the case that decisions about charter schools, "belong in the community, not at the state level."

I agree. But even with the new law, we're not quite there yet.

Since 2011, when the Commision was established and signed into law by former Gov. Pat Quinn (yes a Democrat), I've worked with several struggling school districts around the state when they've  had to go before the Commission to plead their case. Together we built a research base which was used to debunk the false claims of the charter operators in an effort to stop CONTINUE READING: Mike Klonsky's Blog: Good riddance to the Charter School Commission