Chad Aldeman, one of those people I consider a serious grown-up in the reformster camp, is in The 74 this morning seeing if he can make a case for school choice, or at least counter what he sees as
I didn't know what to think of this article when I read it this morning. I think you have a good take on it. I'm a "liberal" in favor of school choice, but I wish public schools could/would get on the bandwagon and offer different options so Charter Schools wouldn't be necessary. I live in the Silicon Valley, and we have progressive public schools scattered around the county. We could use even more, plus some more options (Montessori comes to mind - there is one public Montessori).
It bothered me when the article stated that the way to hold schools accountable is test scores. I'm against those tests in the first place, and having kids from progressive schools take them is even worse. Their curriculum isn't the same! Often they score well anyway, but we could encourage more freedom if everything wasn't linked to test scores.
I didn't know what to think of this article when I read it this morning. I think you have a good take on it. I'm a "liberal" in favor of school choice, but I wish public schools could/would get on the bandwagon and offer different options so Charter Schools wouldn't be necessary. I live in the Silicon Valley, and we have progressive public schools scattered around the county. We could use even more, plus some more options (Montessori comes to mind - there is one public Montessori).
It bothered me when the article stated that the way to hold schools accountable is test scores. I'm against those tests in the first place, and having kids from progressive schools take them is even worse. Their curriculum isn't the same! Often they score well anyway, but we could encourage more freedom if everything wasn't linked to test scores.
"This is what you get when you unleash the free market--marketing in place of transparency." - exactly this.