Tuesday, Dec. 2,2008 11:17 p.m.
During the 2002-03 school year, Indiana joined the rest of the country
in a grand experiment to reform the education system by opening its
first charter schools.
Education is one of those paradoxical issues where the vast majority of
Americans agree the current system is broken, but little ever changes.
Given that much of this is the result of a partisan deadlock over
issues such as school vouchers and teachers unions, charter schools
have steadily grown as the less controversial option.
Today some 1.2 million American pupils attend charter schools, and as
of this fall, 49 charter schools were in operation across the state of
Indiana. Concentrated in the urban areas of Indianapolis, Gary and Fort
Wayne, but also scattered in other areas across the state, including
Evansville and Lafayette, these schools were supposed to perform better
than and spark innovation from their faltering peers.
However, the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy (CEEP) at the
IU School of Education conducted a study concluding that, so far,
charter schools haven’t radically shaken things up very much.
Charter schools are publicly funded and operate with a great degree of
autonomy. Critics often question how accountable charter schools really
are to their charters when the penalty of closing the schools is often
difficult to enforce, and teachers unions are wary of lost rights under
the charter system.
