For charter schools in Chicago, accountability is simple: you don't perform, you don't survive. Last week, the city's charter czar shut down Nuestra America Charter School, where test scores had plummeted, as had attendance. But an editorial in The Chicago Tribune argues that the school's involuntary closure demonstrates how well the charter model works. As the editorial notes, regular public schools that fail ask for more time to get their acts together. They also seek more money-and they usually get both. Charter schools are far more accountable. While Nuestra America failed, all but two of the city's charter schools are surpassing their neighborhood public schools, several of them by large margins, according to a study released by the Chicago Public Schools. "Charters are moving beyond experiments," the editorial concludes. "Now it's time for neighborhood schools to explore why 12 of Chicago's 14 charters are outperforming them." "When failure means success," editorial, The Chicago Tribune, April 1, 2002.
