Education Week - June 8, 2016 - 19

CHARTER MOVEMENT AT 25:
Amid expansion, questions persist

EDUCATIONAL
Ember Reichgott Junge,
above, Ted Kolderie, and
Joe Nathan helped craft
the country's first charter
school law. Hear their
recollections.
www.edweek.org/go/
charter-anniversary

Ackerman + Gruber for Education Week

CHARTER FOUNDERS:

EXCELLENCE

THROUGH EQUITY
Five Principles of Courageous Leadership
to Guide Achievement for Every Student

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 17

little difference, by percentage, between Latino
charter and noncharter enrollment.
Madeline Mavrogordato, an assistant professor
of educational administration at Michigan State
University, said Latino families may not be flocking to charters in the same way black families are
because they often hit language barriers. For example, state accountability data on schools may
only be available in English.
"It can be difficult for someone to assemble the
information they need," said Mavrogordato. "They
don't search for information as much on the Internet or go talk to school officials."

ALAN M. BLANKSTEIN
HOPE Foundation
Bloomington, IN

Join renowned authors
Alan Blankstein and
Pedro Noguera to
understand the issues and
explore real solutions.
You'll see how equity is
achieved not through
providing the same
resources to all children,
but rather through
meeting the different
needs of students.

PEDRO NOGUERA
UCLA
Los Angeles, CA

Serving a Population

Atlanta, GA

August 29-30

Charter schools aimed at serving a specific
racial or ethnic group are not unusual. Minnesota, the birthplace of the charter school idea 25
years ago this June, is home to several charters
that use the extra freedoms granted to them
through state law to open schools targeted to
African-American, Native American, Somali,
and Hmong students.
But while these schools may be popular among
families, others worry that single-race or -ethnicity schools-and a general lack of diversity in
charters-could ultimately harm students more
than it may help them.
"Racially diverse schools are good," said Myron
Orfield, a law professor and the director of the
Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity at the
University of Minnesota. "They're the most powerful path for nonwhite families to graduating
high school and college and middle income wages.
There's undisputed evidence of that."
This tension in Minnesota between what research says and what parents choose is in many
ways a microcosm for the national debate over diversity in charter schools.
There are those within the charter community
who bristle at characterizing schools that serve
predominately one race of students as segregated-especially as the country's district schools
remain siloed by race and income. They are wary
of any official effort to force charter schools to become more diverse.
In Minnesota, for example, an administrative
law judge recently rejected the state education department's plan to include charter schools in its
integration rules.
"Segregation is when the state endorses a plan
for forcing people of color into inferior circumstances," said Chris Stewart, a school choice advocate and former Minneapolis school board member. "Black people choosing culturally affirming
schools that have a lot of other black people in
them, that's not segregation."

Orlando, FL

October 17-18

National Harbor, MD

November 3

Held in conjunction with
ASCD Conference on Educational Leadership
Waikoloa, HI

December 13-14

To register, visit
www.ascd.org/equityinstitutes
or call 1-800-933-2723, ext. 1.

Held in conjunction with
ASCD Whole Child International Summit

GET THE BOOK
THAT IS SHIFTING THE CONVERSATION

Excellence Through Equity
Five Principles of Courageous Leadership
to Guide Achievement for Every Student

Alan M. Blankstein and Pedro Noguera
with Lorena Kelly
Foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu

ExcellenceThroughEquity-V3.indd 1

SHOP.ASCD.ORG
1-800-933-2723, ext. 1

5/26/16 2:58 PM

EDUCATION WEEK | June 8, 2016 | www.edweek.org | 19

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Education Week - June 8, 2016

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