And Carl, when you assume that "changing" public schools means creating competition for them, you assume a kind of change I'm certainly not convinced is the only type of change we can aim for.

How about improving public schools, instead of closing them down and trusting them to business interests?

The problem with improving public schools I believe is summed up quite nicely with Clayton Christensen's theory of disruptive innovation.  Large systems cannot change as quickly as we need them to.  The only way to enact a broad change is to start fresh. 

The flood gates have already been opened.  The pigs are already out of the pen.  The time for discussing the virtues or follies of the existence of  educational alternatives at all is now a mute point.  They are here and we have to deal with them.  Charter schools, online schools, homeschooling, and unschooling all present disruptive innovations to our traditional school system.  They are not going away and the present administration has made that clear.  Now is the time to wrestle with these pigs and herd them in the right direction. 

To be clear, I do not support the privitization of public charter schools as many charter schools have been operated under.  I do support the independent charter schools built, run, and governed by teachers.  I do support the charter schools that have been sponsored by local ISDs and nonprofit organizations.  I do see a problem with KIPP schools and I do believe the answer is not to be found in one educational solution but rather the boquet of solutions this charter movement is offering.  Each child had different learning needs and no one school is appropriate for each child.  However, we have legislation that says we have to offer a quality educaiton for each child and leave no child behind.  If charter schools can serve as that stop gap measure than let them.

I am currently working with three school districts to explore the idea of starting a new charter school that doesn't serve as a competitor but as a symbiotic partner in providing an education that meets the needs of all learners.  Here is my sales pitch:  http://app.sliderocket.com/app/FullPlayer.aspx?id=793DFCA8-13D6-A650-C3B8-41DFC6685B23

Carl, the theory is interesting enough, but I think of Obama's rapid response in the last month to make change happen quickly.  And that makes me less convinced by Christensen's theory.

FWIW. I really, really should be sleeping ):

Carl, nice preso (you have many typos, though).

I'm sympathetic to much of what I saw.

Do you see admin/management being paid more, less, or equal to their TPS counterparts?

I don't think we've seen any "floodgates," though. Charters teach less than 2% of students in the US, and there are less than 4,000 of them compared to 95,000. (You can see I resist fait accompli arguments. They make me feel powerless against the pigs you mention ;-)

But I'm not against the idea in principal. Show me good regulations for charters, and a reason to believe their promises they'll do better.

I just don't want the poorest being seen as profitable cattle. The bar should be high for charters to start, and penalties high if they fail. That's my gut instinct, anyway.

Finally Carl, I like this from your comment:

"To be clear, I do not support the privitization of public charter schools as many charter schools have been operated under.  I do support the independent charter schools built, run, and governed by teachers.  I do support the charter schools that have been sponsored by local ISDs and nonprofit organizations.  I do see a problem with KIPP schools and I do believe the answer is not to be found in one educational solution but rather the boquet of solutions this charter movement is offering. "

I like that very much.

Clay, thank you for pointing out my typos.  You have discovered my Achilles heel.  I depend too much on the automatic detection of misspelled words.  Sliderocket doesn't support spell check. 

Additionally, I set up a Ning for the development of this charter school.  If anyone wants to be involved please request membership:

Charter School Planners

Perhaps we can crowd-source much of the work.

No sooner do I point out your typos than I note I spelled "principle" "principal." D'oh! At least it was an edu-typo.

"[I] think of Obama's rapid response in the last month to make change happen quickly.  And that makes me less convinced by Christensen's theory."

I am not convinced that the theory of disruptive innovation isn't driving much of the Obama-Duncan education policy.  On the Dept of Ed website they call for doubling the federal support for starting new charter schools and a large portion of the stimulus package was devoted to that as well.  If they thought that traditional schools could make the scale of change they are looking for then why the greater investment in charters?  Tonight in his State of the Union address he reiterated his call to start new charter schools.

Revisiting the KIPP discussion, there are three things that keep me cautiously optomistic and unconvinced that the writing on the wall spells "KIPP":

1.  Earlier this month the Obama's visited Capital City Public Charter School, a progressive charter school in the DC area.  There the president said, "This kind of innovative school...is an example of how all our schools should be."

2.  The Obamas send their girls to a private school that operates under a progressive philosophy.

3.  Ariel Community Academy, the school Arne Duncan founded in Chicago, follows the same progressive philosophy.  The following are excerpts from the Principal's message on the school's website: 

"The role of the teacher is to assist and advise the student, actively participating and contributing to their learning in order to expand and discover the society they live in and share experiences together." 

"[S]tudents should be aware of their own multiple intelligences and utilize a wide variety of abilities to demonstrate what they have learned." 

"The design of the curriculum is purposefully broad in order to provide the teacher with many options for planning and implementing individualized, small group, and whole group instruction."

http://schools.cuip.net/ariel/?page_id=10

Carl, not to be provocative at all, but one slide in your preso has echoed since I read it a few days ago.

It said something like, "If the school fails, it closes and the problem goes away."

Part of what disturbs me - and it's an impression, maybe wrong - about charters is how they seem to be granted to groups that can't guarantee they'll be any more effective than a TPS (and 10% of charters are shut down due to either mismanagement or incompetence, I read recently). If they fail to do what they promise, then the students and parents suffer. And the tax dollars devoted to them were wasted.

Thoughts?

And what about that question about executive pay. Do you think charter administrators should be paid equal to, more, or less than TPS counterparts?

Thanks for pointing this out.  I will go back and try to reword that slide.  You are right, it presents the wrong idea.

As for pay, who says we need administrators in the Charter School?  I would rather see charter schools run by teachers, not administrators.  In that way everyone is paid equally.  Schools should run on a partnership model simmilar to law firms.

That slide now reads:  "The research and development funds provided by the state and federal government reduce the risks for school districts.  Since most students will likely be dual enrolled in the host schools the risk is also reduced for students and their families.  If it flops it goes away, if it succeeds it may grow."

I completely see your point about what happens to the students and families of that 10%  However, if new ideas are not tried how will we know if they will work?  Those who grant these charters ought to make sure they are founded upon solid research.  Perhaps that is one area of the charter movement that needs reform or tighter regulation itself.  How would anyone be assured that a new TPS would work?  In Minnesota we seem to keep closing TPSs because of failure to deliver , bankruptcy (McLeod West 2009), or student migration(Minneapolis Public School in 2007).  

Since I can't sleep, I'll go ahead and say that the more I think about national standards, the less I trust them - though I still wonder why we can't do the "leaner and fewer" standards LD-H suggests - basic reading/writing/math/science up to maybe grade 6 or 7 - and leave room beyond that for variation based on locale and student needs or interests. Susan Ohanion gets at the same idea here.

What I distrust about the charter movement is the sense it gives me (and others, like Susan O'Hanion, again, though only sidewise in this article) that the underprivileged only deserve an education that makes them suitable for low-paying service jobs at Wal-Marts. -- I.e., close the "failed" schools, then put the poor kids in schools with narrow curriculums that focus on only the basics. That leads to stunted lives in a culturally-produced underclass.

I like your idea for a follow-up thread.

I'd love it if y'all commented amongst yourselves, too, by the way. I'm just sayin'.

And that's a point that's hard to contest, Mark.

How many of the college admittees from charters (that's their big selling point, from what I'm seeing) actually graduate from college, though?

But assuming the school they fled is worse than the charter they fled to (and that is an assumption most always, yes?), then agreed: save the swimmers from the sinking ship.

Again, dammit: why aren't we talking about saving the ship, though? 

(My) Short answer: we don't want to talk about the poverty we accept in our country.

My short answer to why we don't talk more about saving the toughest inner-city, impoverished schools is this: the problem is not really an education problem as much as it is a societal and economic problem.

Maybe, as much as we hate to admit it, there are situations and students that *gasp* we CAN'T save, because the problem is outside of the school realm.

Or that we choose not to save, because we permit higher poverty levels than most other developed countries?

$10 billion a month on Iraq since March 2003. That kills me. (And them.)

Hmmm... in reading that reply, you're thinking of "we" differently than I am.  I'm looking at this from the point of view of an individual educator.

From a societal standpoint, yes, of course the problems with education will be diminished if "we" can solve the problems of poverty and racial inequality in our society. 

I've already hit most talking points I'd put here above in this thread, but I'll just add that I'd love to see schools that promoted non-academic pathways for students not destined to academic careers. There'd be less "failure" if that were there.

Amen to that.  Michigan now requires all students to pass Algebra II and take 4 years of math to get a diploma.  Some students taking that course would benefit much, much more from taking a vocational class, but that's all been thrown away in the name of "rigor."

And amen to that. Germany gets it. I was amazed at what I learned about their ed system when I lived there as a soldier.

One thing America does better than them is give second chances for college, though.

Well said, Eric. Let me look for something to play contrarian with.

Damn. Can't find anything.

I've got Sudbury guest-bloggers lined up for regular guest-posts here, fwiw.

Oh, and nice to see you in these parts, btw ;-)

Hear hear. Anybody who can't see the difference between 1:14 and 1:34 is either blind or dishonest. And they've definitely never taught a class.

Can I assign this topic as guest-post 2? ;-)

Ooh, go to, go to. Posts about concrete examples are often as or more interesting than ye olde generalities ;-)