You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)

While Kevin and Andy are merrily debating with Matthew Yglesias about the possibility and meaning of "closing achievement gaps," another post on young Mr. Yglesias' site today --about indie rock bands and record lables, of all things--put me in mind of an issue I've been thinking about a good bit recently--the role of Educational Management Organizations in the charter school movement. Bear with me here.

Educational Management Organizations, (mostly) for-profit (though often in name only) companies that contract with school districts and charter school boards to operate schools, run about 25% of charter schools nationwide. EMOs offer a lot of benefits but also drawbacks, and they are politically contentious, both within the charter community and without. A lot of tradeofs connected to EMOs--opportunity to reach an audience on a significant scale, access to capital, support services and expertise vs. reduced tolerance for innovation, surrendering some autonomy and a substantial chunk of one's revenues, and potential tradeofs between corporate bottom lines and other goals--sound parallel with the risks vs. rewards of record labels Ygelsias mentions, although obviously this comparison oughtn't be taken to far.

What interests me, though, is the area in the middle--ideas to help stand-alone charter schools tap some of the benefits EMOs can bring without sacrificing local leadership or room for innovation. Some good examples have already sprung up in the charter school community: "Back-office" service providers that offer services like payroll or purchasing but don't actually run schools, organizations that provide technical assistance and support to help stand-alone charter schools (DC's FOCUS, which helps prospective charter applicants put together a quality application, is one example), and networks that replicate high-performing schools that started as stand-alones (KIPP and Achievement First are classic models*) are some of the promising ideas here. Venture philanthropists like the New Schools Venture Fund have played a big role in both thinking about how to marry scale with diversity and innovation, and in funding promising initiatives in this area. Maybe the music world--at least the hip music world Kevin and Matthew Yglesias are all into (I only aspire to be even a fraction as cool)--could benefit from some Venture artists?

*btw, a look at the work these schools are doing is quite relevant to the Yglesias/Carey/Norris/Rotherham/AFT/Rothstein.....debate--a topic on which I have some additional thoughts that I still want to let ferment a while before sharing.

btw II: Being a bit of a masochist (I was on the Gadfly show twice), I took a quick glimpse at the comment thread of Yglesias' latest post, where his positive comments about NCLB appear to have provoked the predictable liberal blog commenter NCLB-bashing. Interesting to me that, while NCLB is in no way comparable to the Iraq debacle, criticism of the law from the left tends to break down similarly: Some folks think it was inherently a bad idea because it came from the Bush administration and/or testing is just plain bad. Others think the idea was good but results have not met expectations because of mistakes the administration made in implementation--such as allowing states to use crappy tests and not "fully-funding" the law. I tend to think the latter camp is onto something, but also that the inherent complexity in an endeavor like NCLB accountability guarantees that not everything will work perfectly from the get-go.

Also relating to young, bespectacled, male bloggers: EdWahoo appears to be, at least temporarily, and welcomely, back with a new post on his TFA experience (and more achievement gap insights), and has been restored to the blogroll. (Via Joanne Jacobs)