Charter advocates rethink school reform

This from the Detroit News:

Die-hard charter school advocates are rethinking their approach to school reform and the ability of competition and charter schools alone to transform American urban schools and their awful student achievement rates.

It's a surprising change and it's hardly common, particularly at the grassroots level.
Still, in recent weeks a number of the country's leading pro-charter think-tanks and leaders have published pieces, announced policies or made statements indicating their reconsideration -- and it likely will have an enormous impact on policymaking and Republican politics.

From New York City to Detroit to Atlanta, charter advocates have echoed writer Sol Stern, an important conservative voice on education reform, when he wrote in a recent edition of the City Journal: "education reformers ought to resist unreflective support for elegant-sounding theories, derived from the study of economic activity, that don't produce verifiable results in the classroom."

Why now, and why at all?

An explosion of research has shown charter schools are not significantly out-performing traditional public schools. Most are underperforming, in fact, a disturbing trend which is leading many in the charter movement to reexamine their own schools' practices and the whole idea of competition as a panacea for urban education's woes...