The idea that school districts and charter schools would set aside their differences and start working together isn't exactly unheard of. It's happening now in cities around the country. In some cases it's been going on for years.

But it's still rare enough that it's often portrayed as a man-bites-dog story, or as a peacekeeping mission by district leaders.

A new report from the Center on Reinventing Public Education says states can help make collaboration at the local level more common. They can improve charter school rules and laws. They can run political interference for local district leaders, and use their bully pulpit to highlight success stories. And they can offer extra money to help decentralized, charter-heavy school systems work better for all kids.

The report cites Florida, which has been running a competitive grant program aimed at drawing high-quality national charter networks to its inner cities, as "an early leader in state-led stimulus."

It also suggests "the time is ripe" for other states to follow suit. Among other things, charter schools enroll an ever-larger share of students (more than 270,000 in Florida, or nearly one in ten public-school students). And Congress just overhauled federal school accountability rules and Charter School Program grants.

"Charter schools are a big and growing part of public education: They are here to stay and their role in public education will only expand," the report says. "This is a time of profound opportunity. Charter schools and districts cannot do all this themselves."

Under the revised federal education law, states can use federal funding to keep better tabs on charter school authorizers. In Florida, that means school districts, which sponsor all but a handful of the state's more than 650 charters. (more…)

The Florida Department of Education’s new director of charter schools might be a familiar name to readers of this blog. He is Adam Emerson, former director of parental choice for the Fordham Institute, former education reporter for the Tampa Tribune – and the creator and first editor of redefinED.

Emerson started his new job on Monday, and he’ll oversee a charter school landscape that has doubled in enrollment in just the past five years and now serves more than 200,000 students. He was hired by the man he replaced. Adam Miller, the former charter director, was elevated last fall to executive director of Independent Education and Parental Choice.

Those who read this blog will remember Emerson for his eagerness to find common ground between traditional educators and those involved in newer learning options. He brought calibration to his arguments about accountability and regulation, a theme on which he expanded while working at Fordham – an institute that serves as a moderate and responsible voice in the national debate over school options.

Emerson's appointment also reflects a growing professional diversity at DOE. Though he was schooled at Michigan State University as a journalist, he dug into education policy as a newspaperman and had become a bona fide wonk by the time he left Step Up For Students, the nonprofit that helps administer tax credit scholarships in Florida, and joined Fordham.

Having worked with Adam, I profess no objectivity here. I do know him as earnest and measured, the husband of a public school teacher, a believer in the public good and a sap for educational turnaround stories. He joins some talented and conscientious people in the choice office, and we wish him well.