Those celebrating the LA school board's decision to allow outside providers to run 1/3 of the district's schools????(200 existing failing schools and 50 new schools)????ought to manage their expectations.
I'm as big a fan as there is of charter schooling, but merely turning over the reins of a failing school to an outside operator isn't a solution in and of itself. Even if the provider is given all of the freedoms they want (complete control over staffing, curriculum, and school day; autonomy from the school board; separation from the traditional collective bargaining agreement), which is extremely unlikely, they still have to figure out how to rebuild the culture of the school while it continues to operate. That's no easy task.
I'm much more encouraged about the potential of the 50 new schools that will be created and run by these providers. ????That's the real opportunity.
To be clear, I'm very much in favor of diversifying the array of education providers in America's cities. But simply adding "charter" to the name of a school won't change what happens inside.