CHARTER SCHOOLS AND THE PUBLIC INTEREST

Over the past 30 years, the charter school movement has become a significant factor in U.S. public education. Charter schools were originally designed to be alternative public schools that would allow for greater experimentation and innovation within the public school system. As the number of charte...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of policy analysis and management Vol. 38; no. 4; p. 1053
Main Author Decker, Paul
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Hoboken Wiley Periodicals Inc 2019
Subjects
Certification
Charter schools
Education
Innovations
Policy making
Public Education
Public interest
Public schools
School systems
United States > US
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Summary:Over the past 30 years, the charter school movement has become a significant factor in U.S. public education. Charter schools were originally designed to be alternative public schools that would allow for greater experimentation and innovation within the public school system. As the number of charter schools has expanded to more than 7,000 nationwide, an active debate has arisen focused on the ways in which charter schools either help or harm the public school system and what should be the appropriate regulation of charter school certification, operation, and expansion. In this issue's Point/Counterpoint, we consider the evidence on charter schools, addressing three critical questions: 1. To what extent do charter schools promote, or interfere with, the public interest in K-12 education that justifies its public funding? 2. Do charter schools help to equalize educational opportunity? 3. Should policymakers at a state or district level limit the size of the charter school sector?
ISSN:0276-8739
1520-6688
DOI:10.1002/pam.22159