National Charter Schools Week

EDUCATION OF our children ought to be simple. It ought to be captured in the simple right of a parent to send their child to the school of their choice.

But Americans have been denied this simple human right. And it doesn’t seem as if they will get that right any time soon.

In the twilight of educational freedom good people struggle with the limited forms of educational freedom that are allowed in the unfree world of education. And this week is National Charter Schools Week.

In NRO Chester E. Finn takes a look at charter schools, the limited approach to education freedom that allows individual publicly-financed schools the license to escape some of the stultifying bureaucratic rules of the full metal jacket public school system.

Not surprisingly, Finn finds that the authorization and oversight of charter schools is the biggest problem area. (Why wouldn’t it be, considering the anomalous position of charter schools, half free and half slave?)

One good area is that authorizers are quick to close down a school that is failing. Usually, the failure is not academic, but organizational or financial.

But general oversight is not too good. Partly this arises from the fact that many authorizers of charter schools are public schools districts, and you can imagine that school districts are not the best when it comes to effective oversight and supervision.

[A]lmost half of all authorizers practice limited oversight of their schools, demonstrating scant concern either for school quality (e.g., not screening applicants rigorously and not holding schools accountable for student achievement, etc.) or for compliance (by ensuring fiduciary responsibility, enforcing federal laws, etc.).

Finn recommends expanding the use of independent charter school authorizing boards and taking the responsibility away from school districts.

They engage in chartering by choice, not coercion, have ample resources to draw from (financial and human), and can skillfully navigate the treacherous politics of charter authorizing.

But of course all this is mere bagatelle, moving the deck chairs on the you-know-what. The basic question remains. Why are American parents denied the basic human right of sending their children to the school of their choice?

The evidence, from the distant past before the birth of the government public school, is that ordinary people can be trusted to supervise the education of their children. You can read all about it here.

How long, O Lord, how long?

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.