Educators Shift To Charters Increasingly

If you can't beat them, join them.

This is the evolution of charter schools in Arkansas and across the nation. At first maligned -- and for some, still -- by supporters of public education as a path toward destabilizing public schools, charter schools have been championed by those who believe competition within education helps everyone. And increasingly, the public school systems are the ones seeking new freedoms from state regulations to craft innovative approaches to 21st century education.

What's The Point?

Charter schools, once dismissed by the education establishment, are all the rage as educators look for new ways to meet the educational challenges of the 21st century.

Arkansas law allows the creation of two types of charter schools. Open-enrollment charters are operated by a governmental entity, an institution of higher learning or a tax-exempt nonsectarian organization. They are the likes of Haas Hall in Fayetteville and the Benton County School of the Arts in Rogers.

More recently, the state's local school districts have come to embrace the idea of charter schools within the existing public schools they operate. These are called conversion charter schools.

Rogers' New Tech High School opened its doors last August, applying a "new tech" template developed at schools across the country. It's designed to offer a project-based learning approach that applies knowledge, creativity, decision-making and critical thinking together with technology as students self-direct their learning. Lincoln in Washington County is applying a similar model within its high school charter school.

At Pea Ridge, the school district plans a charter school focusing on business and manufacturing skills.

The Bentonville School District recently revealed plans to pursue a charter school for grades kindergarten through eighth with a goal of opening in August 2015. District officials say they want the school to emphasize innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship. The focus would be on science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

"Choice is something people are used to," Superintendent Michael Poore said in a recent meeting on the charter. "It's important to keep in mind we must be ready to compete."

It's probably no coincidence the Walton family, the heirs of Sam Walton, strongly support the concept of competition and parent/student choice in education.

The organization that runs the independent charter Haas Hall also recently announced a goal to open a second location in Benton County in time for the 2015-16 school year. The college preparatory school has garnered national recognition for its student achievement and has somewhere around a third of its students coming from Benton County.

It's certainly not a dull time to be involved in education. Between revisions to curriculum to address the expectations of the Common Core State Standards at all public schools and the implementation of innovations like these charter schools, there's a lot going on. Our hope is the process leads to higher academic performance for Arkansas students.

We believe in a strong public school system that offers excellent education to students from every way of life and socio-economic background. Advocacy of charter schools serve to strengthen educational opportunity and promote new ideas for teaching necessary to meet 21st century educational needs.

Some people are uncomfortable with this new style of schooling, preferring to stick with rote memorization of facts. That won't get the job done, unless Arkansas is content to forever be at or near the bottom of national educational rankings. The more innovation the better, as long as the state and local boards of education are ensuring the kids who graduate are departing with knowledge and skills necessary to compete for jobs, to appreciate the arts and to think critically about the problems today's generation will leave them.

Commentary on 04/09/2014

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