A new collection of articles about charter schools explores charter growth in suburban districts, charter school incubation in urban centers, implementing blended learning into charters, and the potential cost savings of blended learning in both charter and regular public schools.
The articles have been released in the seventh edition of “Hopes, Fears, and Reality,” a report edited and published by the Center for Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington. Support for the report was provided by the National Charter School Research Center, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Education.
The report’s authors range from Jeffrey Henig, a professor of political science and education professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, to Michael Horn, the director of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation (formerly the Innosight Institute).
In the introduction to the report, Robin Lake, the director of the Center for Reinventing Public Education, chides charters for being “sluggish” to prepare for the Common Core State Standards. “The charter school sector will continue to evolve,” she says in the report. “The question is only how fast and in what directions. If charter leaders rest on their laurels, the movement may miss out on important opportunities to expand more quickly, use resources more productively, and, most importantly, improve student success.”
The report takes on a wide range of charter school trends and challenges encountered in 2012 within the context of the charter school movement as a whole. And clocking in at 73 pages, it makes a good weekend read.