Charter Schools, You’ve Been Framed!

Hot on the heels of the Eric Rofes / Alameda County report highlighted in a recent Eduwonk post, here’s another entry on the tension between charter schools as complementary vs. competitive with the mainline public school system, this one from the Colorado Children Campaign’s Alex Medler via the Hechinger Institute. Medler examines how DC media stories “frame” charter schools – as a source of competition and conflict, or as complementary options for kids. Some interesting patterns – for example, stories on chartering as a policy tend to stress the competitive side, while stories individual schools play up complementarity. What’s Medler’s own “frame”? He calls on journalists to recognize and describe these “dual aspects of the charter school movement.” Read it here.

— Guestblogger Bryan Hassel, Public Impact