This week the Indiana General Assembly is considering legislation that would expand charter schools. I would like to see the expansion of charter schools in Indiana put off until we can get some tangible, solid data on whether or not they are successfully educating students.   I don’t think it’s an unreasonable request.

According to the Indiana Law (Indiana Code 20-24 passed in 2001), a charter school is a non-religious, non sectarian public elementary or secondary school that is run by a not-for-profit organization. The charter in the title is a contract between the not-for-profit and the sponsoring organization that spells out student performance etc. A charter is to run for no more than five years.

Planting charter schools like Johnny Appleseed planted apple trees is the hip thing to do in public education today. “Open a bunch of charter schools and that should improve test scores” is the conventional wisdom.

Hey here’s an idea: What about letting a select number of taxpayer funded Indiana public schools operate like a charter school. Remove the rules the state-run schools have and let the staff be creative and then see what happens? Let some teachers and administrators be innovative. Could it hurt? I don’t think it could hurt. We could learn something about education that would benefit everyone.

Hold these select schools to the public school standard in the state, but let them try new teaching methods to see if they work. Where would we be if Thomas Edison had settled for “this is the way we’ve always done it, so I’ll do it that way.” We would still be in the dark; that is where we would be.

The only way a major change in public education is ever going to happen is if we get the bureaucrats in Indianapolis and Washington out of the education business. The micromanaging of schools has gone too far. Yes, there needs to be a top educator in the state to oversee schools, but they need to be an educator and not an empty suit politician. An educator who understands that not every child learns the same way and that everything is not black and white. There is a lot of gray. Government needs to dial back its intervention and let’s re-think how our schools work and what we want to get out of them.

This is going to take major discussions between the teachers, teachers unions, parents, administrators and state officials. Education policy is not some political football that you ram down people’s throats against their will. It should be the result of a dialogue that is useful and constructive, not nasty and hateful, filled with threats.

It can happen, but our society today is so focused on “you’re not going to tell me what to do! Nobody bosses me around!” When did we all become fourth graders that can’t get along or share ideas or have meaningful discussions? Change can happen. It has to happen, but it takes a lot of time, energy, effort, honesty and thought. Not the same old political bag of tricks.

What do you think? Email me at tdrush AT sbcglobal.net

(Indiana Law quoted in this blog post comes from the U.S. Charter Schools website page dedicated to Indiana Charter Schools. http://www.uscharterschools.org/cs/sp/view/sp/45)