charter schools

Charter schools are publicly funded schools that have a "charter" or contract with the school district to meet certain performance requirements, but they are intentionally designed to operate independent of the school district. The idea is to provide a publicly funded alternative to traditional education in "government schools."

There's lots of information on the web, as charter schools are part of the education reform movement. Two popular sources of information and discussion promoting the idea of charter schools are the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools and US Charter Schools.

There are organizations that help organize and launch charter schools, and there are even some virtual charter schools.

Charter schools have been shown to be very successful in many areas, but since they're government funded, they're subject to the whims of politics.

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Latest blogosphere posts tagged “charter schools”

• LA charter fight gets ugly

  
  Joanne Jacobs — Authority: 616
  As Los Angeles Unified contemplates turning more schools into charters, parents in a heavily immigrant neighborhood received an anonymous flier written in Spanish:  “DO NOT SIGN ANY PETITIONS FOR A CHARTER SCHOOL BECAUSE YOU COULD BE DEPORTED.” While United Teachers Los Angeles, the union representing LAUSD ...
  5 hours ago

• Summit Charter files for bankruptcy

  
  Sentinel School Zone — Authority: 440
  A debt-ridden Maitland charter school that Orange Countys school board put on a two-year probation filed for bankruptcy yesterday. Summit Charter, which serves about 150 learning-disabled children, filed for Chapter 11 restructuring in an attempt to keep its doors open,...
  11 hours ago

• Charter Food Fight = Jail

  
  The Frustrated Teacher — Authority: 135
  I am sure when Chip and Buffy get into it at their school they dont end up in jail. But in a Chicago reform school, you shape up or go to jail ! CHICAGO — The food fight here started the way such bouts do in school lunchrooms most anywhere: an apple was tossed, a cookie turned into a torpedo, and an orange ...
  12 hours ago

• Charter Schools Threaten Court-Ordered Desegregation in Arkansas

  
  Schools Matter — Authority: 526
  Segregated charter chain gangs such as KIPP and the KIPP knockoffs have quickened the impetus toward resegregation of American schools. But only in school districts like Pulaski County and North Little Rock, Arkansas, which continue to have binding desegregation orders handed down from decades earlier, does the ...
  1 day ago

• Today’s Quotable and Notable

  
  Flypaper — Authority: 553
  Quotable: “Charter schools are public schools, and they must be public schools in every sense of the word...Effectively, there will be absolutely no distinction between charter schools and district schools.” -Tom Boasberg, Superintendant of Denver Public Schools “ DPS unveils plans for changes in schools ,” ...
  1 day ago

• Imagine Schools Cash in On Education

  
  That's Right Nate — Authority: 467
  Dennis Bakke is on top of the education world.   As the CEO of Imagine Schools, he oversees the fastest growing brand name in the education business with over 36,000 students at 74 schools in 12 states and the District of Columbia.   He is rightfully heralded as one of the leaders of the education reform ...
  2 days ago

• Today’s Quotable and Notable

  
  Flypaper — Authority: 553
  Quotable : “Crisis has a way of galvanizing folks around the need to act. I think the ‘freeze’ in education funds to public charter schools this year was a wake up call to schools to make sure something like this does not happen again.” -Jeff Maclin, vice president for school advocacy at the New York ...
  2 days ago

• Bricks-and-Mortar Money for Virtual Schools?

  
  The Quick and the Ed — Authority: 597
  It’s worth keeping an eye on what’s happening to virtual schools in Georgia. Last week, a group of charter schools bypassed the traditional route to charter authorization and sought to be funded exactly like any other public school in the state. (For the record, Georgia has 122 charter schools but only one virtual ...
  2 days ago

• To win over Albany, charter advocates begin organizing parents

  
  GothamSchools Newsroom — Authority: 622
  Burned by Albany funding cuts, charter school advocates are turning to a political base that they’ve long left untapped: parents. In mid-October, a dozen charter school administrators gathered in a conference room at the Times Square Marriott for a seminar on the role of parents in charter school advocacy. Kenneth ...
  2 days ago

• "Get It While The Gettin’s Good"

  
  The Perimeter Primate — Authority: 110
  Recently I’ve been complaining about what I see as funny business going on re Jerry Brown’s charter schools here in Oakland (see here and here ). A fellow public school parent with whom I have corresponded about local education issues from time to time recently wrote to me to express her emerging soft spot for ...
  3 days ago

• After Years of "Innovation," NJ Charters Perform No Better Than Poorest Public Schools

  
  Schools Matter — Authority: 526
  Below is part of an analysis done by Rutgers associate professor, Dr. Bruce Baker, for the Education Law Center in Newark, NJ. When looking at New Jersey test scores or graduation rates , New Jersey charter schools do much worse on average than most New Jersey public schools and no better than the poor public ...
  3 days ago

• Gloucester Parents Stage Protest Against Crooked Charter School Approval

  
  Schools Matter — Authority: 526
  (Photo from Boston Globes Jonathan Wiggs). Parents were out in force Saturday as State officials reluctantly met in Gloucester to once more air the corrupt process that rammed through the approval of an unwanted and unneeded charter school in Gloucester. From the Gloucester Daily Times: . . . .Prior to the ...
  3 days ago

• The Real Effects of Corporate Charter Schools on Public Schools

  
  Schools Matter — Authority: 526
  Grover Norquist, whose Center for Tax Reform is prominent among the organizational supporters of Michelle Rhees Reign of Terror in DC , is also famous for saying, “My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” In Los Angeles, ...
  3 days ago

• Charter School CEO Makes $400K

  
  The Frustrated Teacher — Authority: 135
  Yes, charter schools make money. Thats why so many rich people want to get on board. Like the CEOs pay above shows (picture is link). h/t Ken Libby
  4 days ago

• Just Say “No” to Competition

  
  Cato @ Liberty — Authority: 740
  The Democrats who still control the Virginia State Senate (which wasn’t on the ballot this week) say they want to work with the new Republican governor. “I won’t be like the House Republicans were, where anything they propose is bad,” said Senate Majority Leader Richard L. Saslaw (D-Fairfax), who like many ...
  4 days ago

• CEO Pay in Charter School Chains

  
  Schools Matter — Authority: 526
  I happened to see a clip of a peppy-looking, sharp-dressing, blonde-hair-blue-eyed savior of public education, a woman known as Deborah Kenny, CEO of the Village Academies Network, Inc. Lets just say it sparked my ire, and I did a little peeking into Doctor Kennys cash cow, her charter school network. Lets start in ...
  4 days ago

• Meeting the School Turnaround Challenge

  
  TakePart Social Action Network — Authority: 612
  In recent months, the federal government has made it perfectly clear that one of its key education reform goals is to turn around the nation’s chronically underperforming schools. In fact, President Obama pledged to devote billions of dollars to fund a federal school turnaround program which would close 5,000 of ...
  4 days ago

• The Magna Sententia Podcast: Episode 4

  
  The Magna Sententia Weblog — Authority: 114
  The Magna Sententia Podcast with Anna and Ellie Sherise. Hosted by Rodger McMillan. This week: The Sherise Method: Rectify “ Four Teens Arraigned In California Gang-Rape Case ” ( Agence France-Presse ) “ Richmond Gang Rape Seen As Nearly Inevitable ” (SFGate.com) “ ...
  4 days ago

• Delphi: Home To Broad And Gates

  
  The Frustrated Teacher — Authority: 135
  The Broad Foundation’s philanthropic interests extend well beyond art: health and education have been at the heart of what he calls his “venture philanthropy” model. He explains it to me: “We have three tests – one, if we don’t do it, will it happen anyway? Two, will it make a difference 20 or 30 years ...
  5 days ago

• The Necessity of the Christian School

  
  The Reformed Reader — Authority: 419
   Making my way through Machen’s excellent Shorter Writings I came across a great article on Christian schooling (originally delivered by Machen in 1933 before the Educational Convention of the National Union of Christian Schools in Chicago, IL.).  As always, Machen is clear and quite thought-provoking. His ...
  5 days ago

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