» The unlikely team of McDonnell and Obama could produce results for our state when it comes to progress with charter schools.
Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell supports charter schools. So does President Barack Obama, who discussed them with McDonnell during a brief chat the day after McDonnell’s victory.
You’d think any reform touted by both a solidly conservative Republican and a staunchly liberal Democrat would face good odds in a purple state like Virginia. But not necessarily. Two major obstacles stand in the way: misperception and the forces of reaction.
Gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe offered a prime example of the misperception when he was asked about charter schools earlier this year. “We don’t want to drain money out of the public schools,” he said. With charter schools, there’s a danger “the public schools get left without anything.”
That makes as much sense as saying if too many restaurants open, people won’t have anywhere to eat. Charter schools are public schools. They simply get to experiment more with curriculum and the like. They’re also less apt to be unionized, which explains why the teachers’ unions haven’t warmed to them.
But they produce results. “Study Shows Better Scores for Charter School Students,” according to a September article in The New York Times. Alas, it studied the effects of charter schools in New York City. That’s not good enough for State Sen. Richard Saslaw, the majority leader, who says there is “no evidence that, when you have a suburban-oriented state, those things do any better than the normal public school system.”
Virginia faces something of a Catch-22: How can it produce evidence charter schools work — or don’t work — if it won’t allow them in the first place? So far, out of nearly 5,000 charter schools nationwide, Virginia claims only four.
McDonnell has promised to “work with the Obama administration to put Virginia in the vanguard of the charter school movement.” With hard work and a little luck, perhaps in a few years Virginia will have produced enough evidence for charter schools to satisfy even Saslaw.
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