Richard Kahlenberg and Halley PotterValerie Strauss recently interviewed Richard Kahlenberg and Halley Potter about their book, "A Smarter Charter." Kahlenberg and Potter use the model of charter schools envisioned by former teachers union leader Albert Shanker as a foil for the current charter movement.
They argue that since 1988, the charter concept has been "hijacked by conservatives" who oppose unionization and have "empowered management rather than teachers."
While it's nice to think the teacher unions supported charters before charters were cool, and while Shanker clearly was an early supporter of such a concept, the idea did not begin with him. The intellectual roots of charter schools trace to the 1960s, and John E. Coons, a professor emeritus of the University of California, Berkeley (and contributor to this blog) has been writing about the idea since the early '70s.
At any rate, the beauty of charter schools is that they can be different things for different people. The idea is not conservative or liberal. There is no indication that having a union, or not, is of any benefit, or detriment, to a school. While empowering teachers and drawing diverse student populations are laudable goals, there is no right way to operate a charter, as long as it gets good results. Many do, even some that have "deviated from the Shanker vision."
