The 2009 edition of my favorite annual report has just been released.
Each year, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools tracks which districts have the highest percentages of students in charters. This year's report, the fourth installment, includes an additional section on which districts have the most charter school students. (There's a significant difference between the two lists since some urban districts are so big.)
You should??definitely check it out for yourself, but here are some highlights.
- 14 districts now have 20 percent or more of their kids in charters
- 72 districts now have 10 percent or more of their kids in charters
- New Orleans still leads in terms of percentages, but before long DC is going to hit 50 percent
- LA leads the nation in charter enrollment, followed by Detroit, Philly, Houston, and Chicago
This report is a terrific wake-up call for those who still mistakenly believe that traditional districts are essential to the provision of K-12 education. It also presents a major "think again" to those who believe that the purpose of charter schooling is to merely seed new ideas for districts to adopt.
As I wrote in Education Next two years ago, folks who hold these beliefs have "an??exceptionally limited view of what (the charter) sector might accomplish. Chartering's potential extends far beyond the role of stepchild or assistant to districts." The fundamental argument of that article was that chartering is the way urban school systems should be organized and operated.
The last section of my recent Ed Next piece on the "turnaround fallacy," comes to the same conclusion.
The Alliance's excellent "market share" report is just confirmation that chartering, once viewed as a small, quirky innovation launched in the wilds of Minnesota, is on the way to becoming the primary public education delivery system in urban America.
Picture from Education Next