Obama: Lift Charter School Caps

One of the most specific and meaningful proposals in President Obama's big education speech this morning was his call to reduce artificial restrictions on the supply of charter schools while simultaneously strengthening accountability for charter school success:

But right now, there are many caps on how many charter schools are allowed in some states, no matter how well they're preparing our students. That isn't good for our children, our economy, or our country. Of course, any expansion of charter schools must not result in the spread of mediocrity, but in the advancement of excellence. And that will require states adopting both a rigorous selection and review process to ensure that a charter school's autonomy is coupled with greater accountability –- as well as a strategy, like the one in Chicago, to close charter schools that are not working. Provided this greater accountability, I call on states to reform their charter rules, and lift caps on the number of allowable charter schools, wherever such caps are in place.

It's a completely sensible idea and represents what I think is the only reasonable approach to charter schools. The fact that the best charters schools have long waiting lists of parents and children who they're legally prevented from serving is inexcusible; with all the talk of needing greater parental involvement in education the last thing we should be doing is rebuffing parents who really want to be involved. At the same time, it's clear that we can't rely on market forces alone to regulate charter schools; strong, results-driven public oversight is needed to ensure that low-performing charter schools are shut down and the others have incentives to not be shut down. Andy Rotherham was all over this tradeoff back in 2007 and it's good to see it become part of the president's agenda.

The politics of this are obviously tricky but the Times oversimplifies things by flatly reporting that "Teachers’ unions oppose [charter] schools, saying they take away funding for public schools." It's true that unions have oppposed and continue to oppose expansion of charter schools in many states and cities, but they haven't acted monolothically and don't always oppose charters, there are union-run charters right in New York City, for example.