Ready to learn
THE FORMULA for charter public schools - innovation, autonomy, and responsiveness to student and family needs - has the potential to revolutionize public education. And make no mistake: a revolution is exactly what the Commonwealth needs not only to ensure that students are prepared for higher education, work, and life in the 21st century, but to ensure that the economy of Massachusetts is strong and competitive. Chartering schools outside of traditional district control is one constructive approach to achieving revolutionary 21st-century results. Governor Deval Patrick's proposal to establish 40 "readiness schools" by 2013 is another.
Some constituents of mainstream public schools have understandably complained about the damaging impact caused by the outflow of funds to charter public schools, especially in this time of fiscal austerity. The readiness schools proposal enables school districts to control their education funds while operating a more diverse model of education - of school choice. School committees in this model would have responsibility for more diverse local educational services, but they would not operate all the schools.
Readiness schools, operating under performance contracts, would be launched or managed by teams authorized by and accountable to the local school committee. They would be funded by the school district based on a weighted student formula, with more funds allocated for those students who are more expensive to educate.
Personnel in readiness schools could be union members who bargain collectively for wages, benefits, and due process dismissal procedures only.
Leaders of readiness schools would have increased autonomy in five crucial areas: staffing, budget, curriculum and assessment, governance and policies, and school schedule and school calendar. The rules of operation in these areas would be established by the leadership of each readiness school with input from faculty and staff.
Readiness schools could be brand new schools proposed by a team of teachers, principals, superintendents, unions, qualified educational management organizations, or qualified charter school operators. Alternatively, readiness schools could be "conversion" schools, designated by a district superintendent or the state, with the local school committee naming an operator from a list of preferred providers, including qualified charter school operators, based on demonstrated success with similar students.
Many crucial details must be worked out, such as how schools would be chosen, who would get contracts to run them, which students would be chosen to attend, and what options would be available to faculty and students in a school designated for conversion into an independent readiness school.
Readiness schools would likely seek to impose higher academic and behavioral standards than many district schools require. For examples of excellence they need look no further than the "no excuses" model that is being practiced with great success in a range of charter public schools as a way to create high-performance public schools, especially in underperforming districts. But how readiness schools that follow the "no excuses" model would relate to other schools in the same district where expectations are not as high must be determined.
For too long the dialogue on charter public schools in Massachusetts has been frozen by irreconcilable funding differences between charter schools and the sending districts. Meanwhile, parents and students are lining up in record numbers for places in charter and pilot schools, which offer high levels of innovation, autonomy, responsiveness, and educational results.
The current cap on the number of charter schools in the Commonwealth should be raised, and charter school expansion under the existing cap should not be traded off in favor of creating readiness schools. But the state also needs to find solutions to rapidly serve far more children. Patrick's readiness proposal provides a game-changing opportunity to interject innovation into the mainstream. We should seize this opportunity to import the best features of high-performing, autonomous schools into the existing system of public schools.
Paul Sagan, president and CEO of Cambridge-based 
