Giving Compass' Take:
- This article questions the current charter school structure and poses a question whether there is a middle ground opportunity for the schools to be managed more effectively.
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In recent weeks, an ongoing debate about charter-school authorizing has roared back to life. Prompted by a Center for Education Reform publication assailing overregulation in charter schooling, which was dismissed as an exercise in “idiocy” by the Fordham Institute’s Checker Finn, the fight has gone back and forth. It can all give the impression of an ideological clash between those who want authorizers to micromanage schools and those who reject oversight that involves more than parental choice.
What can get lost in all this, however, is the practical question: whether responsible authorizing can entail less bloat, bureaucracy, and paperwork. There exists a middle ground between blind faith in markets and blind faith in the value of 800-page applications filled with cut-and-paste inanities. The sweet spot requires stipulating the importance of meaningful authorizer oversight for public charter schools that collect public funds and that such oversight should respect charter autonomy and the ability of educators and innovators to launch promising schools.
...The debate over charter authorizing would benefit from being less sweeping and more specific. In each case, the question should be how to balance the protections afforded to students against the costs those requirements impose.