Our last class session centered around charter schools and to me, it was one of the most interesting in terms of education reform. I think charter schools are where hints into true reform can lie. If something works in these systems, maybe those same strategies can be transferred into all public schools.
I was doing some web searching about charter schools in Baltimore City and came across a semi-recent article in the Baltimore Sun about schools that were closing down, charter schools in particular. The part of the article that struck me as most interesting and brought the most attention to me was quotes from the chairperson of a charter school that was closing and counterpoints from Dr. Alonso.
To summarize briefly, the chairperson said that the school needed patience and that turning around the city's most at-risk population is something that takes a different timeline and different strategies than it would for other populations. Alonso replied that "charters are supposed to be about innovation and performance... They should be about higher expectations. Not about excuses."
While I agree that the purpose is for innovation, performance, and change, I don't believe true "innovation"can happen when there are still some semi-strict guidelines to follow. While charter schools in BCPS are still held to uphold so many of the districts regulations and demands, we won't have true charter schools and thus won't have true innovation and change. I also can't help but think that a big problem we have in public education right now is that we aren't patient. While I know that being patient has very high stakes when students' futures are in the balance, it's unrealistic to believe that change can happen over night, or truly even in a year or two. We have to give ideas and methods a fighting chance.
It is my genuine belief that nearly everyone in education has their heart in the right place. No one starts a charter school, runs a district, or teaches 180 days without thinking of the kids. All too often I feel like it seems in education we're always looking to point a finger when instead we need to be reaching our our hands and opening our minds and our ears. Humility, innovation, collaboration and perseverance are the things that I think will start to lead us to true change for our kids.
(Baltimore Sun link: http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-02-09/news/bs-md-charter-school-debate-20130209_1_baltimore-civitas-middle-schools-under-district-control-charter )
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2 comments:
Unfortunately, I am not as optimistic as you are about the freedom that should be allotted to charter schools. I think for as much freedom that schools are given in order to be successful, it increases the amount of room they have to be failures. The school discussed most frequently in the article was a prime example. The biggest problem faced by the school had nothing to do with following district policies. As someone who worked their, the key issues was horrible mismanagement of funds. Between extra staff members who did nothing and money that simply disappeared, I think it is hard to argue that schools need less rules when discussing that specific case.
I may be biased by my experience at the school but that still doesn't mean I am against innovation. I think schools could and should be given more room to innovate, but I also think this should be combined with more effective oversight. Rather than waiting five years for a school to be reviewed after its creation, the district should be gathering more timely feedback and acting upon it. When the school In this model, I think schools could have more freedom to be creative but also need to back that up with results.
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