Fixing Virginia’s charter-school law
By Jeanne Allen
Washington Post
December 4th, 2014
The challenges of the Middleburg Community Charter School, described in the Dec. 2 Metro article “Charter school caught in local-state muddle,” are typical of a charter-school law that imposes non-performance inputs that have no impact on student achievement, such as a principal’s license that demonstrates process accomplishment instead of experience and success. No successful enterprise succeeds in hiring leaders based on what’s on paper. Virginia’s educators should embrace innovations that put performance-based accountability ahead of bureaucracy and paperwork.
The majority of the nation’s 6,400 charter schools succeed because they are clustered in states or jurisdictions, including the District, where freedom and accountability for results trump emphasis on licensure. We discourage exceptional individuals from entering education by imposing well-meaning but irrelevant requirements that have no effect on education. Anyone can obtain a piece of paper saying he or she has accomplished something; only the best can get results that students deserve.
The Center for Education Reform has spent 10 years fighting for a meaningful charter-school law in Virginia. The few charters there are regularly tortured by bureaucratic meddling and eventually fold as a result. Meanwhile, in the District, a vibrant environment exists for innovative schooling, demonstrating what success looks like when properly implemented.
There are no constitutional barriers to opening up such communities of learning in Virginia, only attitudinal barriers.
Jeanne Allen, Washington
The writer is a senior fellow and president emeritus at the Center for Education Reform.
