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Thursday, January 18, 2007
Charters, Charters Everywhere?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle has been talking up his plan to create “systems of charter schools” for several weeks now. Today, he’s rolling out the details of just how he’ll accomplish that.
Georgia has a pretty small number of these non-traditional public schools — just 58. But, as my colleague Kevin Duffy reports, Cagle’s proposal could change that fairly quickly.
Charter schools began in the early 1990s as a way to foster more innovation and reform in public education. The idea was to create schools where parents could play an active role in the operation of the campus and where teachers and administrators were freed from bureaucratic restraints.
Ultimately, Georgia policymakers hoped charter schools would lead to better students and higher test scores. So far, their dreams seem to have been realized, despite a few highly publicized closures.
According to the most recent comparison I could find, in the 2003-04 school year, 84 percent of charter schools met federal requirements under No Child Left Behind compared to 78 percent of regular public schools. The previous school year, charter schools also outperformed traditional public schools on the “adequate yearly progress” measure.
So, if they perform better, why not take Cagle’s idea even further, create a statewide charter system, and convert all public schools to charters?
UPDATE: Check out the details of Cagle’s proposal, which could sink millions of dollars into developing new charter schools.
