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News to Newsweek
Newsweek has, it seems, just discovered the existence of charter schools and spent a couple thousand words introducing them to readers this week. They call the growth of the sector a “slow rise”, which is probably fair, but they also lean warily into the fact that charters are expanding nationwide and student enrollment has been on a faster clip in recent years. Not a bad introduction, overall, and far preferable to the misinformation we have been used to receiving via national sources.
Marching for charters
No lack of charter knowledge in New York City, where thousands of parents, students, and educators (representing more than 200 schools) marched across the Brooklyn Bridge yesterday to promote charter excellence and to demand more equitable funding for their schools. The timing of the event is not coincidental, as mayoral candidates in the Big Apple have been staking out their positions recently—both for and against charter schools—ahead of the November election.
Emulate Indiana
Speaking of equitable funding for charters, Fordham’s Aaron Churchill this week looked at changes in school funding in Indiana designed to bring district and charter resources into near-parity. He calls it “path-breaking”, especially because it attempts to send both state and local funding to the schools students actually attend, and he urges Ohio to move toward such a system using Hoosier State efforts as a template.
Still arguing in Kentucky
Meanwhile, charter opponents in Kentucky pled their case this week before the state Supreme Court, arguing that a state law allowing funding for charter schools is unconstitutional on the grounds that it “redirect[s] public school money, public funds, to schools operating outside the common school system without the approval of Kentucky’s voters.” There is no timeline for a ruling, thus prolonging the nearly decade-long stalemate that has persisted since the Bluegrass State’s charter statute was signed into law in 2017. No schools have yet opened as a result of ongoing legal action around the funding question, but this court hearing is a tiny lurch toward a resolution.
One more
While charter school supporters in Missouri are pleased that recent legislation finally allowed charters to operate in the city of Columbia—bringing the total of cities to three—the Director of Education Policy at The Show-Me Institute recently opined that at least one other large city also needs to be granted that permission. Families in Springfield also deserve more and better options, says Cory Koedel, and research shows that charter schools help their students succeed.
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