IT ALWAYS SEEMS to come back to charter schools. Los Angeles teachers went on strike for just over a week and the strike ended with the teachers getting much of what they wanted — smaller class sizes, full-time nurses at every campus, librarians at every secondary school, additional counselors at high schools, a 6 percent […]
Charter schools
Posted inThe Download
Charters facing backlash all over country
It always seems to come back to charter schools. Los Angeles teachers went on strike for just over a week and the strike ended with the teachers getting much of what they wanted — smaller class sizes, full-time nurses at every campus, librarians at every secondary school, additional counselors at high schools, a 6 percent […]
Posted inEducation
Charter school lesson plans
It feels like an odd time to be celebrating charter school success in Massachusetts, but that’s just what Cara Candal does in a new book that not only touts the schools, but telegraphs a bold claim about them in its title. The Fight for the Best Charter Public Schools in the Nation, published by the […]
Posted inThe Download
The Codcast: Charter school lesson plans
It feels like an odd time to be celebrating charter school success in Massachusetts, but that’s just what Cara Candal does in a new book that not only touts the schools, but telegraphs a bold claim about them in its title. The Fight for the Best Charter Public Schools in the Nation, published by the […]
Posted inOpinion
Charter school debate is not over
TWO YEARS AFTER an ill-conceived ballot campaign in which Massachusetts voters rejected raising the cap on charter public schools, the political impulse is to assume this debate is settled. But as long as the conditions charters have so successfully addressed continue to persist in traditional public schools, so will the debate. To provide families with […]
Posted inEducation
New Bedford’s charter school battle
Nearly two years ago, voters weighed in on a contentious ballot question over charter school expansion in the state. But the battle over the independently run, but publicly funded, schools hardly ended there. Ground zero for the latest showdown: New Bedford, where the K-8 Alma del Mar Charter School is hoping to expand by adding […]
Posted inThe Download
New Bedford’s charter school battle
Nearly two years ago, voters weighed in on a contentious ballot question over charter school expansion in the state. But the battle over the independently run, but publicly funded, schools hardly ended there. Ground zero for the latest showdown: New Bedford, where the K-8 Alma del Mar Charter School is hoping to expand by adding […]
Posted inOpinion
Charter school funding formula is broken
ONE DOESN’T HAVE to choose sides in the long debate over charter schools in order to raise legitimate questions about the approach being taken in Massachusetts. I count myself among those who have adopted a nuanced view—one that is philosophically supportive of a range of ambitious K-12 education reforms, including charters, but that also recognizes […]
Posted inEducation
SJC charter school ruling a wake-up call
LAST MONTH, the Supreme Judicial Court dismissed a challenge to the Commonwealth’s charter school cap, ruling that the education clause of the Massachusetts Constitution does not provide students a right to attend public charter schools. Arguing that Massachusetts’s cap on charter schools violated their right to a quality education, plaintiffs who had unsuccessfully entered charter […]
Posted inEducation
Charter ruling a step backwards
THESE WOULD BE the best of times for Boston public charter schools were education policy decisions driven by evidence. Boston’s charters are nationwide models and uniquely successful at closing pernicious achievement gaps. But in education politics, where “momentum” is too often the benchmark, charter skeptics are crowing about the loss of a ballot initiative to expand school […]