Have you followed the latest stories about charter schools in America? If not, here's a quick synopsis of what's happening:
They're great. No, they're not. They have better test scores. No, they don't. That one is doing terrific! Oh, yeah, well, that one over there isn't. They are financially stable. Here's one that closed because of money troubles. Teachers love them. Teachers hate them. We need more charters. We need fewer charters.
The paragraph above is the best example of why charter schools are great for America.
It's called accountability. A group gets a charter, an agreement, a constitution, a permission slip, to open a school with its own ideas about what works, and if that group doesn't educate kids, the charter is revoked and the school is closed. Which is what happened last week at the Covenant Keepers Charter School in Little Rock.
More's the pity, sure. Nobody wants a school--any school--to fail. But the advantage of charters is that they can't continue to fail, year after year, generation after generation. Which is something traditional schools can't say. The closing of Covenant Keepers in Little Rock might be a shame, but it's an example of exactly how charter schools should work.
Gentle Reader may be aware that more than half of the kids at J.A. Fair High were considered chronically absent last year. Nearly the same at McClellan High. Teacher absenteeism was even more depressing. Both schools were given (actually, they earned) an F grade last year.
They are being rewarded with a brand-new $100 million facility.
This is the difference between charters and traditional public schools. (NB: Charters are public schools, too.) Charters are held accountable. When was the last time you heard of a traditional school closing "just" because it didn't educate its students?
When a charter makes a deal with the state, those in charge of the school have to meet all of its obligations, and not just educational ones. It must meet financial goals too.
Those in charge of Covenant Keepers did their best to save a dying patient. But the charter's sponsors did not apply for a renewal this year. The papers say the school was "frequently in fiscal and academic jeopardy" and recently was put on probation for financial reasons and designated as distressed for academic ones. It ain't easy, education.
And it will close this summer. Not to get too deep into the weeds, but other charter systems are looking into opening, and these kids might find better classes in the future.
Cross your fingers. Little Rock needs all the help, and luck, it can get.
We should note at this point that it is much easier these days to recognize failing schools in Arkansas. And, for that matter, schools doing well. Because several years back the state moved from the confusing way of grading schools to something that teachers, students, parents and taxpayers could understand: the A-F grading system.
For years, for generations, those in charge of education in this state tried to stay as far away from A-F as they could. Because it meant real accountability. They'd rather talk about schools in the Needs Improvement category or some other euphemism for failure. Over the last decade, that has changed. For the much better. Kudos to those in charge of these things now.
Can the letter grades be improved? Sure. (Who thinks that student attendance rates are good indicators of education?) But the current rating system is far better than the four or five or six methods that proceeded real grades.
Onward! When it comes to educating our children, always onward!
Editorial on 01/20/2019