The More Things Change…

Who says charter schools are not like other public schools? Here’s a pretty egregious case of a charter EMO trying to crack down on dissenting parents. Here’s the offending website itself.

One of the big challenges facing the charter community is not to end up replicating many of the problematic norms that exist in many parts of the traditional public schools. Such behaviors don’t occur by accident, it’s a natural evolution of things that must be vigorously guarded against. Overall so far the track record is mostly good (the intolerance among top flight charter leaders for low-performing charters, for instance what’s happening now in Texas, is a noteworthy and overlooked story). But episodes like this should cause concern.

After all, a little dissension is good for progress and quality programs can withstand both dissension and choice.