www.village-charter.org

The New York Times carried an article on some New York area charter schools yesterday that I wanted to bring to your attention. I have not been following this story too closely but from what I understand, three start-up charter schools, one in New York and two in New Jersey, are in great danger of faltering before they have even started their first year. The reason, the article argues, is mismanagement, failled planning and an educational leader and former executive director of education at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation walking away from the project instead of trying to find solutions. Mr. Tom Vander Ark, a proponent of online learning and regular contributor to the Huffington Post, gets criticized pretty harshly in the article and I wanted to invite those of you who know more to comment.

What stuck with me after reading the piece was the founding of several for-profit organizations that were supposed to be the financial backbone of the schools. The article also quoted a Mr. Dirk Tillotson, a charter-school consultant as saying: “It signals what’s wrong with the so-called charter school community. Somebody who doesn’t deserve a charter gets a charter. Somebody who doesn’t deserve a building gets a building. And then somebody who doesn’t care about the communities can turn their head and walk away.” I don’t have a problem with for-profit organizations providing financial support at all, but it seems to me that the fraudulous behaviour of some individuals sheds a bad light on the charter school community as a whole. Again, if anyone knows more about this, do comment. I’d be very interested in hearing other versions of the story. Meanwhile, Ill keep scanning the web for more