More Than Half-Full
Andrew J. Coulson is pessimistic about the future of charter schools, and I can’t blame him, because I used to feel the same way.
No one has ever accused me of being Pollyanna when it comes to public education, but after 18 years I believe charter schools have established themselves. There is now, in my view, a charter school status quo, which puts the teachers’ unions in the unenviable position of attempting to alter that status quo. History and common sense suggest they are unsuited to the task of inducing systems to change direction.
What is also obvious is that organizing individual charter schools, or even cherry-picking a few schools under one charter operator, as was done in Chicago with Civitas, will never be cost-effective for the teachers’ unions. Of course there are dangers. The growth of charter school franchises make them more like school districts when it comes to labor relations, and therefore more inviting targets for unionization. Also, unions have proven themselves adept at getting through state law what they couldn’t get through grassroots organizing.
But such an outlook fails to account for the championing of charter schools by mainstream Democrats, including our President and Secretary of Education. This isn’t a new phenomenon, either. Back in 1999, “Gov. Moonbeam” himself, Jerry Brown, helped turn back a bill that would have placed California’s charter schools under the strictures of their local teacher union contract (see third bullet here).
As long as charters stay true to their roots, treat their employees well and weed out failing schools, they’ll be able to resist union and bureaucratic pressures. And that comes from the original Gloomy Gus.
