1. Nashville charters work
“Despite representing only 12% of all public schools in Nashville, charter schools were 9 of the 13 schools that were high performing and high percentage economically disadvantaged.'”
“The logic behind making schools bigger — to reduce fixed costs and/or diversify teacher expertise had merit 100 years ago when access to information and expertise were more costly. But as the cost of high-quality curriculum moves quickly towards zero, the costs of large schools are starting to outweigh their benefits.”
“More than a dozen education school deans are banding together, aiming to design a coherent set of teacher-preparation experiences, validate them, and shore up support for them within their own colleges and the field at large.”
4. Can district learn from charters?
“Convincing all the existing teachers in schools in high poverty areas to drastically change their workload, I think is not a model that could work. Could it happen in some areas? Probably. But I don’t think it could in most. This is why public schools could not embrace the lessons of high performing charter schools even if we assume that there are simply concrete lessons to learn.”