Suburban charters
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that the Twin Cities area has more charter schools in the suburbs than in either Minneapolis or St. Paul. Educators and policymakers agree that the rise of suburban charter schools has been surprising, but they disagree over whether it’s a good thing.
Initially, charter schools were intended to boost education in troubled urban schools, giving their students more choice and more innovative teaching methods. They have helped in many cases. But an unintended result has brought more choice to many suburban areas, which already had comparatively good schools.
Do you think charter schools should be limited to urban areas with a history of underperforming schools?
Leave a comment.
September 22nd, 2009 @ 8:47 am
It is high time to stop thinking of charter schools as a second class system that can survive on a diet of less money and ‘problem’ children. The truth is that the charter school system runs alongside and in direct support of the public system – sure, it may not have all the controls that have plagued our public school system, but as long as charter schools meet the same standards of accountability and transparency, then they should take their rightful place as comparable to and in many cases superior to public schools. For too long people in public systems have viewed charter schools as a threat to their very existence – if they don’t stop treating them as inferior their worst dreams may just come true!
September 22nd, 2009 @ 10:05 am
I don’t think we’ll ever solve the educational problems of poverty or urban areas by keeping urban students cloistered in those same areas.
As long as there is open enrollment across the regional area, I think the real blessing here is the fact that urban parents have the choice to send their children to safer, more stable communities for school.
And after substitute teaching in MANY suburban schools, I do agree that they are safer, but I do not agree they are all “comparatively good schools.”