History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
Charters and the new version of two-tier education
- 11-11-2010
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Blog by Mike Klonsky/Huffington Post
Those who have followed the work of our Small Schools Workshop over the past 19 years, know that we are not "anti-charter." Many charters emerged from the early small schools movement that we helped create. We originally saw small schools and charters as ways to push for changes and offer innovative alternatives within large, bureaucratic and undemocratic school systems. Early charters and small schools were usually created by teachers and often democratically run with an eye on personalization, teacher autonomy and power to create learning environments where students could grow and develop physically and intellectually. But today that early charter "movement" has been derailed, captured by the worst, anti-public school politicians and profiteers. Helped by a decade of No Child Left Behind (now called Race To The Top) politics and policies, under both parties at the federal level, charter operators and their lobbying groups have dis-empowered teachers and turned charters into a self-interested, anti-public school, anti-union entrepreneurial venture. (more…)
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