Charter School Partners

Last week, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools put out a report on the  Top 10 Charter Communities by Market Share, in which Minneapolis ranked number ten (See Press Release) with 22% of  its public school students attending charter schools.

The report shows the growing strength of charter schools nationally and in Minneapolis.

However, as stated in the previous Blog (NYC Charter Study 2.0), we believe the charter movement in Minnesota must now be about replicating successful charter schools — particularly in the core cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.   Charter schools can be, and and often are the vehicle to close the achievement gap in numerous communities nationally.  But simply having charter schools, or a critical mass of market share of charter schools, does not in itself guaranty achievement or guaranty closing the achievement gap.

Charter School Partners have several urban core schools amongst its Partners — all committed to high levels of student growth and proficiency.   Our Partners have all signed the Quality Contract which states “we accept no excuses for  a low performing charter school — we will succeed, turn it around, or shut it down” — a statement not all charter schools we have met with have welcomed.

Okay, second Blog in a row we talked about closing down low performing (both district and charter) schools. Stay tuned for a more comprehensive discussion on this subject.