The Charter-School Movement Is Playing Defense

The wave of teacher unrest that has swept the country from West Virginia to Colorado to California has brought to the surface the conflict between the K-12 educational establishment and its would-be reformers over charter schools, standardized testing, education standards and more.

Recent elections have sharpened the divide and heightened the stakes. In California, which has seen the largest growth in charter schools in the nation, newly elected Governor Gavin Newsom just signed a transparency law designed to require charter schools, which are publicly financed but privately run, to abide by open-meetings and conflict-of-interest rules — legislation that had been opposed by his predecessor, Jerry Brown. The state also convened a task force last week to consider the fiscal impact of charter schools and is expected to take up a cap on charter-school expansion.