Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings appeared last week to urge states to lift the caps on how many charter schools they allow.
“The demand for charter schools is growing every day,” she said May 1 at a Washington event to celebrate National Charter Schools Week. “[W]e must stop rationing opportunity by limiting the number of charter schools we allow.”
About two-thirds of the 40 states, plus the District of Columbia, that allow the publicly financed but largely independent schools have some limit on their numbers, according to data from the Center on Education Reform, a pro-charter research and advocacy group in Washington.
Last month, in a speech in New York state, Secretary Spellings expressed support for efforts to lift the state’s cap on new charters, which has been reached.
