Tackling Tough Issues: Charter Schools
One of the toughest issues that school
administrators face today is charter schools. Feelings run high on
both sides. As your county supervisor, I felt that parents and
children were justifiably impatient with the gridlock and bad feelings produced by constant confrontation
over this issue, and expected better things of us.
In October, 2004, I formed the Charter School Policy Task Force in an
effort to promote mutual understanding and a spirit of cooperative
coexistence between school districts and charter proponents.
Twenty-one distinguished public education stakeholders with commitments on
all sides of the issue worked for more than six months and reached a
significant consensus. The group's final report, published June 2005, has
attracted statewide and national attention. Alameda County is the
first in the state to have tackled this issue and come up with an
understanding of what needs to be done.
One of the key findings of the report was
that state legislation affecting charter schools is unclear and inconsistent,
and is a source of much friction. Thanks to my established relationships with the State
Department of Education and state legislators in Sacramento, I was able to
meet with key lawmakers and obtain sponsorship for corrective legislation
on the current agenda. It's too soon to say that we are in a new era as
regards charter schools, but we have taken a big step forward toward
better mutual understanding and a more consensus-based environment.
That is the least that parents and their children expect of us.
Sheila at the
School Choice Fair in Emeryville, Aug. 13 2005 (click
for more)
