What I would prefer, actually, would be a complete overhaul of the public education system that finally moved away from the late 19th/20th century view of education that seeks to systematize children into the industrial economy, and instead sought to create spaces where education is a joy for all, where it’s easier to individualize to the needs of students, where teachers are trusted to do what’s best for their kids, where learning is prized over rote memorization. We have plenty of models to do that (Montessori, Waldorf, unschooling, etc), and we have models of doing more creative school initiatives on a large scale, such as in places like Finland:
The only thing charter schools have really done is give people already advantaged an advantage. It’s the case that in some specific examples, it has worked, but the reality is, we can’t solve this piecemeal and expect everyone, especially the people losing the most from the problems of our public education system, to benefit. We’re gonna have to go federal to fix the problems facing those in public education. I’d say the first place to start might be paying teachers better and freeing them up from strictures such as with common core. Stopping teaching to tests instead of education would also be a step in the right direction.
