With more than one-fifth of its public school students in charter schools, the District of Columbia is “home to some of the best and worst charter schools in the country,” Progressive Policy Institute fellow Sara Mead says in the latest in a series of reports on charter schooling from the Washington-based think tank.
“Capital Campaign: Early Returns on District of Columbia Charter Schools” is posted by the Progressive Policy Institute.
To strengthen the capital city’s charter sector, which she deems one of the nation’s “most robust,” Ms. Mead calls for shutting down low-performing schools, targeting mediocre schools for improvement, and setting clearer standards of performance for the city’s two authorizers: the regular board of education and a special charter-granting board.
Giving charter operators access to the excess space in school-district-owned buildings and better integrating charters into the city’s education improvement efforts and redevelopment initiatives are among the other recommendations in the report.
