Greg Richmond

The most important event related to school closings last week was not Journey for Justice, it was the Center for Research on Education Outcomes’ (CREDO) study of “Charter School Growth and Replication.” Among the study’s findings:

“It is possible to organize a [new charter] school to be excellent on Day One. … The attributes of a school – urban, high poverty or high minority – have no relation to the performance of the school.” “The initial signals of [new school] performance are predictive of later performance. … 89 percent of low performing schools remain low performing.” “Substantial improvement over time is largely absent from middle schools, multi-level schools and high schools. Only elementary schools show an upward pattern of growth if they start out in the lower two quintiles.”

While the study focused on charter schools, low-performing traditional public schools are even less likely to improve because they have even less flexibil

Written by Alex Medler, Ph.D., Vice President of Policy and Advocacy, National Association of Charter School Authorizers

The use of online and blended learning is one of the ways the charter school sector is rich with innovation. Charter schools using technology innovate in their curriculum, pedagogy, use of time, and in defining the roles and responsibilities of teachers and other staff, to name just a few areas. Despite innovation, there is also tremendous variation in the performance of charter schools that incorporate online learning. Some charter schools offering blended learning are doing quite well. However, according to state accountability systems and state tests, some large, fully online charter schools perform poorly, with too many students failing to reach state standards.

One of the specific challenges that may contribute to failure in fully online charter schools is whether students are ready and able to thrive in such a school given the unique aspects of online learning. To thrive, students may need prerequisite skills, support fr

Most of the discussion on this topic is fixated on average enrollment rates at the school level, but much more attention needs to be focused on the larger systems in which charter schools exist. Other entities share equal or greater responsibility for serving students with disabilities, yet their roles are often ignored by critics and by the entities themselves.

When a charter school is not an LEA (and a great many are not), the LEA has the legal responsibility for ensuring all students, including charter school students, receive an appropriate education in the least restrictive environment. This is about more than money. It’s also about creating appropriate systems to evaluate students, create IEPs, deliver services, and resolve disputes. Because they have trouble serving students in their own schools, many school districts ignore their obligations for students who attend charter schools.
Whether a charter school is the LEA or not, the State Education Agency is responsible for ensuring all LEAs comply with IDEA. Many SEAs do not s

As my 17-year-old son and I toured a major, state university campus this fall, we were surprised by the large, indoor water park on campus, complete with a 3-story slide and 40 person hot tub. And this, we were told, is the smaller of the two university recreational facilities. Earlier in the tour, the chemistry auditorium was cramped, overheated and clearly had not be renovated in decades. Costs and priorities are out of balance in higher education, and students are paying the price with a lifetime of debt. This is not a problem that will be solved by giving students better information about loans.

As the data indicate, Pell Grants are a benefit for the poor, not the middle class. Yet, by thinking of Pell Grants as a benefit for the middle class, members of Congress can pretend that there is a rational system in place for providing and financing higher education in this country. There isn’t.

The poor can qualify for Pell Grants, the very wealthy can pay $25,000 - 50,000 per year for college costs out-of-pocket and everyone in between must go into significant debt. Put another way, college graduates whose parents are poor or very wealthy can start their careers debt free; college graduates whose parents are middle class must start their careers with a crippling debt.

College students are not responsible for their parents’ income levels and there is no sound public policy rationale for why some college graduates should receive a debt-free education while others get a debt-ridden education.

We don’t have a single charter school sector to learn from, we have several. Massachusetts’ charter sector bears little resemblance to neighboring Rhode Island’s; Wisconsin’s does not resemble Illinois’; and Texas’ does not resemble Louisiana’s Yet when we discuss charter schools at a national level, we often overlook these differences and imagine that the charter school sector is substantially similar from state to state. It’s not.

High Standards & Steady Growth. Several states have high-quality charter school sectors where schools were put through rigorous evaluation processes, enjoy real autonomy, are monitored by a capable authorizer and face a real risk of closure if they fail to produce results. The oft-cited 2009 CREDO study out of Stanford found that charter schools in these places were producing better results for students than school districts. Charter schools in these states have demonstrated the importance of more time on task and school-level control of budgets and staffing. Charter school advocates