If you favor school choice and charters, then Kentucky, Oklahoma and Tennessee get the highest marks for “improvements shown” based on the results of this month’s state and federal elections, according to the Washington, DC-based Center for Education Reform. In Ohio and Wisconsin, things have taken the biggest turn for the worse, based on a state-by-state analysis on CER’s website.
While it’s still too early to assess completely how recent election results will affect the rise (or fall) of a broad array of school choice programs,” notes CER founder and president Jeanne Allen. “A few states did have significant changes that might provide a glimpse of what is to come.”
In Kentucky, one of ten states without a charter school law, “a bi-partisan coalition of reformers with strong support from minority communities stands ready to propose educational choice,” says Allen. Oklahoma, meanwhile, has a “weak and ineffective charter law” that has actually been under attack. “But with the legislature now squarely in the hands of reform-friendly Republicans and a new superintendent race in two years, which may be won by the parent activist who first brought charters to the Sooner State, we anticipate much activity to grow opportunity for kids,” she writes.
Finally, we are so thrilled that the planets seem to have aligned in Tennessee where the leadership knows and appreciates the need for in-depth changes to that state’s charter law, stymied by onerous requirements that prevent most kids from being able to avail themselves of better schools outside of a few pockets of hope.
In Ohio and Wisconsin, on the other hand, CER thinks shifts to Democratic rule in state Houses of Representatives “will send the champions of choice in these two states into the minority. These two states have Governors who have pushed to obliterate the path-breaking choices that children in those states enjoy – and are the only two that offer both charters and more ecumenical choices through vouchers.”
I’m a big fan of charters, but I think I’m okay with Ohio scaling back a little. It seems like anybody and everybody can start a charter up there, no strings attached. I’d rather see them have consistently good charters rather than the grab bag they’ve got going on. A little quality control isn’t a bad thing.
Though I don’t favor bloodletting our public schools on order to provide federal dollars for enrolling children in private schools, I do believe that a certain amount of experimentation is needed.
Not only that, but I also believe in more local control over schools than is really allowed by NCLB. If charters are the only way to grab a bit of that for the future, then so be it. Schools need local control. I’m not talking state-level here, as I am convinced that the state department in Missouri has lost it.
I think this is one of the big unknowns for the short term.
Sean