Education "reformers" of the "Waiting for Superman" ilk, love to tout charter schools as the saviors of education in the United States. The corporate reformers love the idea of having public funds go to private, for-profit organizations that run charter schools. This may not always be the best idea as we are starting to see with investigations of a national for-profit charter chain in St. Louis.
A recently released study of charter schools, specifically those that are part of large Charter Management Organizations (CMOs), show that they achieve no better results than traditional public schools on standardized tests in reading, math, science and social studies. While we know that standardized test scores aren't the end all be all when assessing student learning, but as the Washington Post's Valerie Strauss points out; "...but test scores are the measure that these reformers swear by, so, when you live by test scores, you die by them too."
This is not lump all charter schools into one heap. There are some good ones out there. MCEA does not have a blanket policy either in favor or opposed to charter schools in Montgomery County. We have participated in the evaluation of charter school applications in the past: have supported the applications in some case and opposed them in others, based on the merits of the particular proposals. You can read about our criteria here.
A recently released study of charter schools, specifically those that are part of large Charter Management Organizations (CMOs), show that they achieve no better results than traditional public schools on standardized tests in reading, math, science and social studies. While we know that standardized test scores aren't the end all be all when assessing student learning, but as the Washington Post's Valerie Strauss points out; "...but test scores are the measure that these reformers swear by, so, when you live by test scores, you die by them too."
This is not lump all charter schools into one heap. There are some good ones out there. MCEA does not have a blanket policy either in favor or opposed to charter schools in Montgomery County. We have participated in the evaluation of charter school applications in the past: have supported the applications in some case and opposed them in others, based on the merits of the particular proposals. You can read about our criteria here.
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