Charter Schools: Education's New Wave
Are charters a new hope for public education or a symptom of systematic disinvestment in public schools? The public charter movement began 17 years ago, and charter schools now serve about 1.4 million students. Based on the premise of pairing high accountability with greater autonomy, these "laboratories of innovation" have gotten the green light (or dot?) from city and business leaders and even the federal government.
But charter achievement results are mixed—urban areas tend to show strong results from charters, but a recent report (PDF) looking at a wider sample shows that 17 percent of charter schools delivered better academic gains than traditional public schools, 37 percent of charters showed gains worse than traditional schools, and 46 percent showed no significant difference.
Charters benefit from clean slates, being perceived as counter to a broken status quo, and serving students and families who choose their schools. As a whole, they're no panacea, and there's room to improve in how they support education professionals, provide equitable access to all students, raise achievement, and collaborate with traditional public schools.
In this issue of ASCD Express, we'll cover some of the challenges charters face, as well as how they benefit students.
A Movement with Multiple Parts, Models, and Measures of Success
Like traditional schools, charters struggle with finding the right formula to serve students with varied needs, measuring the success of their approaches, and reminding us that no one element defines a successful school. more 
 Growing Innovative Charter Schools Through Race to the Top
The Race to the Top fund is an opportunity to push forward policies supporting charter school expansion in a way that benefits public education as a whole. more
Planning Supports Crucial to Charter Success
South Carolina's Office of School Choice studied why charters in that state failed and identified three key planning areas to focus professional development and support. more
 Learning from Charter Schools: Lessons for Educators
In these clips from Usable Knowledge, Harvard lecturer and author Katherine Merseth mines her research on five high-performing charters, sharing the keys to their successes and struggles.
watch the video
 Unlocking Zip-Code Expectations, Opening Up the World
An international focus relevant to students' personal lives and a support network of scholars contribute to the success of a charter school in the Asia Society's International Schools Network. more
 Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization
This upcoming book by distinguished Michigan State University professor Yong Zhao uses personal and professional experience to detail how reform proponents, business executives, and politicians have misjudged American education and what really counts as educational excellence.
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