SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT

It’s Hard to Argue With Success

"With 809, California leads the nation in the number of charter schools. In less than 20 years, education activists have started nearly 5,000 of these institutions, which are publicly financed and free for students to attend but independently operated. The charter schools boom is expected to grow as states remove or increase the caps on the number of such schools permitted to operate in each state. There are still 11 states that have no charter schools at all." (from the chart)

Only one Canadian province (Alberta) permits charter schools, and its legislation caps the total number at 15.

School for Thought is not saying that charter schools are THE answer to the problems in Canadian education, but we think they might be one of the answers and, as such, deserve at least a chance. Recent research on New York's charter schools by a Stanford professor finds that "lotteried in" charter school students do far better academically than "lotteried out" students who are forced to attend conventional public schools. The most successful charter schools had a longer school year, spent more time on English, had a small rewards/small penalties disciplinary policy, paid their teachers somewhat on the basis of performance and/or duties, and had a mission statement that emphasized academic performance.