SCHOOL CHOICE Charter Schools: A New Approach to Public Education

Abstract

are they having on principals, teachers, students, and parents? magine your dream school, the one in which you and your colleagues N have complete control over the budget and from which nearly all laws and rules have been eliminated. No more Carnegie Units, policy man-uals, district collective bargaining agreements, or textbooks selected from on high. Imagine groups of individuals-the principal, teachers, parents, stu-dents, community leaders-sitting down together on a regular basis to design and implement this dream. No more excuses, no more passing the buck, just lots of freedom, responsibility, and hard work to ensure appro-priate student learning is occurring. Is this an impossible scenario within our country’s public school sys-tem? Difficult, yes, but not impossible, given the recent passage of charter school legislation in a growing number of states. Charter Schools Defined What are these entities called charter schools? Why have they come to be? What is happening across the country? And, what impact are they having on the lives of principals, teachers, students, and parents? In its &dquo;purest&dquo; form, a charter school is a public educational entity operating under a charter, or contract, that has been negotiated between the Note: This article is based on research for several qf Bierlein’s previous articles written wit