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Rescuing Charter Schools
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Business New Haven
6/18/2001
By: BNH
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The state's Board of Education on June 13 re-authorized six charter schools, ensuring they will be able to keep their doors open for five more years.
The six, include New Haven's Common Ground High School, Highville Mustard Seed and the Bridge Academy in Bridgeport.
The state's move is a wise one, since to survive the experimental schools have to date attracted too few friends in high places.
The friends they mainly do have are the hundreds of parents - predominantly lower-income families who desperately seek to escape failing city schools - who populate the waiting lists of many of the charter schools.
These families don't have much political clout, though, so the charter-school movement in Connecticut has not attracted much support from politicians wary of offending all-powerful teachers' unions.
By ensuring these half-dozen charter schools five more years of survival, the state Board of Ed acknowledges that they need help. The charter schools receive $7,000 per pupil per year from the state to cover all costs (including, items such as rent - a non-budget item for "regular" public schools).
This year more than 2,000 charter schools are in operation nationwide, while Connecticut struggles to keep 15 open. In part they are hamstrung by stricter regulations than their counterparts elsewhere. For example, charter schools in some states are free to hire uncertified teachers - a working scientist, for example. But not here.
We urge business leaders concerned about the workforce of tomorrow to send a strong message to state legislators that charter schools are an idea whose time - albeit belatedly - has arrived in Connecticut.
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