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Congress: Spread the Wealth to Charters

By Richard Whitmire

Educators are downright giddy these days with billions of dollars in stimulus spending likely to come their way. A Christmas-in-February funding surge could help rehire laid-off teachers, prevent further firings, and build new schools. Big payoffs would result from the investment, educators promise.

But a far more significant education payoff is unfolding, one that draws little federal money and yet promises to emerge as the biggest success of the school reform movement: charter schools.

As little as five years ago, the phrase “charter school” brought to mind dingy basement classrooms where students never managed to outscore their peers in regular schools. For years, that was somewhat true, which probably explains why so few have noticed the recent breakthroughs. In fact, these recent charter successes appear to have escaped the U.S. Senate, which ignored them...