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By Lauren Outlaw
With schools recently back in session, October was a busy month in the public charter school community. Below is our list of articles to review from last month. Be sure to check us out on Twitter and Facebook!
Charter schools still treated like second-class (The Washington Examiner, 10/31/12)
This article highlights the 2012-13 increase the charter school enrollment rate (up to 43%!). It also calls into question the significant gap in capital funding between DCPS and the charter schools as well as the city’s failure to give charters first access to empty school buildings as required by DC law.
Click here to learn more about inequitable funding and here for more information on the facilities issues facing charter schools.
Enrollment is Up for DC Public Schools, but Is That the Whole Story? (The Washingtonian, 10/25/12)
This article also discusses the 2012 charter school enrollment rate (43%, up two percent from the previous school year!). This is consistent with the now 16-year trend of annual increases in charter school enrollment. Harry Jaffe asserts these “numbers show that school choice is working well in the nation’s capital.” FOCUS Executive Director Robert Cane emphasizes that this continued growth occurs despite the fact that the Gray administration has been reluctant to give charter schools buildings.
Read this article for more about PCS 2012-13 enrollment!
Master facilities plan due by January (The Examiner, 10/16/12)
In this article, Mark Lerner reports on the Master Facilities Plan discussion at the October DCPCSB board meeting. At the meeting, Marc Bleyer of the Office of the Deputy Mayor of Education stated that charter schools are “for the first time being brought into the conversation over facility needs.”
D.C. considers neighborhood admissions preference for charter schools (The Washington Post, 10/3/12)
Emma Stone recounts the first Neighborhood Preference Task Force meeting. This 12-member task force includes ED Robert Cane and two charter school leaders (Shantelle Wright of Achievement Prep and Karen Dresden of Capital City). At this meeting the group was “resistant to [establish] blanket admission preferences for neighborhood kids,” but was amenable to the idea of an admission preference for students of closed (DCPS) schools. The issue of providing high-quality educational opportunities to every child living in the District was another prominent topic of discussion.
Check out this article for more on the Neighborhood Task Force’s First Meeting!