Around the time a thirst for change ushered Barack Obama into the White House, the education world was seized by a sudden realization that the structure of schooling had barely evolved in a century.
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The latest investor in charter schools isn't a tech billionaire or a venture capitalist, it's tennis great Andre Agassi. He's teamed up with an investment banking group to create the Canyon‐Agassi Charter School Facilities Fund, a for-profit venture that hopes to leverage $750 million in assets to fund the construction of 75 charter schools nationwide over the next few years.
The debate over charter school effectiveness roars on thanks to new data from national charter network, KIPP. On Thursday they released a report showing that of the 209 students who attended the first two KIPP schools in New York and Houston 10 years ago, only 33 percent have gone on to earn a college degree. The results are way below KIPP's ambitious goal of 75 percent of students graduating from college, but the national college graduation average for students from predominantly low-income black and Latino student schools is a mere 8.3 percent. And, in the general population, only 30.6 percent of Americans between the ages of 25 to 29 have earned a college degree. By comparison, KIPP's first class has done great. But, does this mean that all charter schools—or all 99 KIPP schools nationwide—are high performing, and regular public schools should be converted to charters? Not exactly.
Every charter is different, but there are some commonalities. Many have cohesive school cultures around student achievement and work to invest and motivate the entire student body around academic goals. They also usually have much longer school days—KIPP students attend from 7:30 a.m to 5:00 p.m. and have mandatory Saturday classes. Charters often require that teachers be available to kids after hours. KIPP teachers are required to carry a cell phone, give the number to students, and be available till late in the evening for student and parent questions. And, most charter school teachers aren't unionized. Principals have the power to hire who they want instead of just being assigned a teacher by the school district, and they can fire a teacher immediately for any reason.
According to a post on The Washington Post's The Answer Sheet blog, written by an education editor at The Times of London, 93 percent of Britain's students attend state-funded schools.
The issues may sound familiar. There are lots of worries about how to raise children’s scores in the standardized tests, how to improve literacy, whether to demand that aspiring teachers have higher qualifications and whether smaller class sizes are the answer.
The Tories' plan include the creation of independent state funded schools by teachers, parents, or any other groups. It's classic "school choice"—based on a similar system in Sweden, which has taken some criticism for segregating students with assertive parents from those whose parents don't move as quickly.
The Conservatives will also allow certain schools to institute longer school days and teach classes on Saturdays to keep their students competitive with the rest of the country. These measures, according to a piece in The Guardian, were taken directly from KIPP schools.
In a speech delivered last November, Michael Gove, the man who would become education secretary if the Tories take over, gushed about KIPP's achievements: