What Makes Charter Schools Work? Part 4

The fourth critical element for the success of a charter schools law is autonomy.

4) We should give public charter schools the freedom to innovate. We do this by providing approved schools an automatic waiver from most state and local laws, rules, and regulations.

What does this mean? It means that while public charter schools must adhere to the same policies regarding enrollment and accountability as traditional public schools, they should not be bound by bureaucratic processes or agreements that prevent innovation, hinder growth and change, or prevent teachers and administrators from making the best decisions for their schools.

Teachers are the front-lines in education, and their ideas, concerns and solutions should not be tempered by a massive bureaucracy that has to look at every school in the district as if it the same as the rest. Teachers should be able to communicate with principals with the knowledge that they have the ability to act. School principals should have the authority to make decisions in the best interest of the school.

Public charter schools allow teachers to teach; they encourage leaders to lead; they free children to learn.

There are those rare leaders in education who work around the system to benefit the kids they are charged to educate. I will have a story soon about one such leader here in Kentucky. But for now, suffice it to say that we cannot expect great leaders to emerge consistently from under a system that would stifle them. We must change the system to encourage and engage great leaders, and a well-crafted public charter school law will do just that for Kentucky.