Word: chartering
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...this time-honored structure that the charter-school movement seeks to challenge, if not topple, by placing authority in the individual school, freeing it from the bureaucracy. The nation's 140 charter schools come in every size, shape and flavor. Some have a special emphasis, as Northlane does on science; others serve a special population -- dropouts, for instance. But whatever their mission or philosophy, they reflect the growing recognition that fundamental change is needed in American education and that to make it, schools must break free of stultifying regulation and bureaucracy. Fifty years of top-down reform have not done...
This realization has found expression in other forms as well. In cities like New York, Philadelphia and Chicago, reform-minded administrators have not waited for state legislatures to act. They have seized the initiative to create scores of charter-like high schools and middle schools -- small alternative schools that operate independently of district rules. In New York City, veteran principal and school reformer Deborah Meier is one of a group using a $25 million grant from the Annenberg Foundation to raise the number of such schools from 50 to 100. The goal, she says, "is to demonstrate that public schools...
They are not, however, palatable to everyone. Not one charter bill has passed a state legislature without controversy. The reason: charter schools take money right out of the pockets of their rivals -- the conventional public schools. In most states, the money simply follows the student. Thus, if the district spends $5,000 a year per pupil, and 30 children choose to attend the new charter instead of the local middle school, as much as $150,000 -- depending on district administrative costs and categorical grants -- would go directly to the charter rather than the other district schools...
That prospect distresses many supporters of public education, including the hugely influential teachers' unions. Unions also oppose provisions in many state charter laws that free these special schools from collective bargaining agreements. In California the unions are fighting attempts to expand the state's popular charter schools beyond the current cap of 100. Meanwhile, the Michigan Education Association, having spent a fortune trying to block the state's 1993 charter-school act, is making Republican Governor John Engler's advocacy of that law an issue in his current campaign for re-election...
...M.E.A., along with the American Civil Liberties Union and others, has actually taken legal action to overturn Michigan's rather liberal charter law. Michigan is unusual in allowing private schools to apply for charter status. In fact, most of Michigan's first charters were granted to former private schools. The M.E.A. argues that these schools are not truly public and cannot legally receive public funds. Last week a Michigan judge sent a chill through the charter community by temporarily holding up disbursement of $11 million in state funding until the matter is resolved...