With this issue, Education Week begins a three-part, monthly series on the impact of charter schools on teachers, school districts, and the private sector. The two stories in first installment look at ways in which teachers are involved in charters.
- Unions Turn Cold Shoulder on Charters
Floated early on as an idea by the American Federation of Teachers’ legendary leader Albert Shanker, charter schools seemed to offer parents and teachers opportunities for creating a variety of public schools free from bureaucratic meddling. But as laws favoring the new-style institutions passed in state after state, teachers’ unions generally opposed them.
- Doing It Their Way: Teachers Make All Decisions At Cooperative Venture
As part of a cooperative set up under Minnesota’s pioneering, 11-year-old charter law, 100 school teachers and 45 other educational professionals pool their services, contract with local school boards, and implement teaching and learning programs in seven schools in Minnesota and one in Wisconsin.
