Judging by the numbers, the so-called charter movement is dead in NY. Seriously, when you count the number of charter schools that are being closed and subtract them from new charter approvals, you are about at zero last year. This was never legislated, immense needs still exist, and more than anything it shows the triumph…
Is Success Academy Getting a Raw Deal?
Once again, disturbing practices at NYC’s Success Academy Charter Management Organization have surfaced. This time it’s a teacher dressing down a first grader, it’s tough to watch, but here’s the video. Earlier this year the CMO was under scrutiny for its so-called “Got to go“ list. To some Success is getting undue scrutiny, and to…
Judging Charters and Unions on Results
I am officially agnostic, on charter schools and unions. Not the combination of the two but each individually. We need to judge charters by their results on both quality and equity and we need to do the same for unions. That was the gist of my relatively recent comments in NOLA at the Education Research…
Fixing the School Choice Equation with New Technology to Choose and Judge Schools
We are finally paying some attention to parents and families in the whole school choice thing, creating better tools to help families choose schools, but we have a long way to go. Good to see GreatSchools.net making their site more responsive and also OUSD working on a better school finder tool, but looking at these…
What Has Worked in Oakland– Small Schools
I think it was Nietzsche who said that “every revolutionary tide eventually recedes, leaving only the sludge of a new bureaucracy”. In Oakland he is wrong. I had a chance to reminisce with some of the architects and builders in Oakland’s New Small Autonomous School and early charter movements this week (Superintendent Chacones, Laura Flaxman…