In his first major education speech since taking office, President Obama made the case for charter schools as incubators of innovation and excellence in public education. The president's remarks are music to this charter supporter's ears but I'm afraid they still won't be enough to save charter schools in places like Fordham's home state of Ohio, where our governor (along with the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives and powerful teacher unions) has launched a frontal assault on charter schools:
- While Obama acknowledges that charters need "broad leeway to innovate," the governor is seeking new operating rules such that Buckeye State charters would be forced to do business within the cookie-cutter mold he has prescribed for traditional district schools.
- While the president believes that decisions about charter school openings and closures should hinge on how well they prepare our students, Strickland wants an arbitrary ban on for-profit school operators.
- While Obama calls for upholding the charter school bargain of autonomy in exchange for greater accountability, Strickland wants to saddle charters with regulatory compliance burdens that, coupled with deep funding cuts, would effectively strangle the schools.
President Obama rightly warns that the "expansion of charter schools must not result in the spread of mediocrity, but in the advancement of excellence." The charter experience in Ohio has been marked far more by mediocrity than by excellence, and it is fair for Governor Strickland to go after underperforming schools (and we have ideas for doing just that). But his overall approach to charter schools is out-of-touch, both with the views of his party's leader and with what Ohio's students need and deserve. The president's remarks give me hope, but from where I sit in Ohio it's still too early to celebrate.
